How to Support Sister With Daughter with BPD

[Dreams23]

My 21-year-old niece who is a senior in college has BPD and has been in a crisis mode for 6 months since a breakup with a boyfriend. She is living with my sister and brother-in-law who are trying to help her get into therapy and take  medication, so she can function in school and in a new part-time job in her field (criminal justice) but she is fairly resistant to this. My brother-in-law is a mental health counselor and my sister is a health practitioner and they have difficulty setting limits. My niece flies into rages that can last for hours and often wakes them up in the middle of the night so they feel like hostages to their daughter's emotional tirades. When I suggest they set boundaries around this, she tells me that if they shut the door and tell their daughter not to disturb them until the morning, she will pound on the door and try to break it down and they do not want to call the police.  I have also suggested that during the day, they leave the house if their daughter won't stop raging. But when they try this, my niece threatens to commit suicide although she has never made a suicide attempt and never engaged in cutting herself. My sister is also afraid that her daughter may also tell authorities that her father has harmed her because the niece has intimated that she might do this. They are both in their mid 60's, still work and I worry that their health is suffering from all this stress. How would you suggest they go about setting boundaries?

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[Feeling Better]

Hello Dream23 

Welcome, I am sorry to hear of what brought you here, you say that your sister’s daughter has been in crisis since breaking up with her boyfriend, I guess that she is grieving the loss of that relationship. Does she talk about it, and if she does do her parents validate her feelings? Validation is a very powerful tool when dealing with someone who has BPD.

Do you think that your sister would join bpdfamily? She would get lots of help and support with learning how to deal with her daughter x