How to Get Sister to Stop Setting Rules on the House

[sister19]

Hey guys, this is my first post.

I've been reading about positive/negative reinforcement and how it can be used to improve BPD. The book mentions "extinction" and says that by not reinforcing negative behaviors consistently will lead to that person no longer trying out those behaviors.

I'm trying to make a list of all the behaviors that bother me and figure out responses that won't reinforce the behavior, but I'm struggling with this one.

I live with my sister and another housemate. My sister is a bit of a perfectionist, and she likes to have her house set up in a certain way. She has no qualms about approaching me or the other roommate when she's unhappy about the way things are being done. The problem is, the other roommate and I are both pretty laid back and don't really need things to be done in a particular way.

For example: Sister wants all the silverware in the dishwasher to be facing up, "because it gets cleaner that way." We could argue about whether or not it makes a difference (I don't think it makes much of one), but it's an easy enough to change to make that I haven't complained about it.

The problem is, she's constantly introducing new rules, and she always has some semi-reasonable justification for them.

"I need the house to be 64 degrees when I sleep, and it has to be set to that temperature two hours before I go to bed so it will be cold by then." She has a sleep disorder, so if I tell her that's unreasonably cold and I can't feel my fingers, I get scolded for not being empathetic to her condition.

"No eating or drinking in the living room while your friends' two-year-olds are here. They could spill something on my rug." But she is allowed to eat in the living room. We're watching the kids closely. And regardless, I'm not a child, and I'm competent enough to set that rule myself if I think it might be an issue. Worse, she reminds me of the rule three or four times before the kids come over, sometimes adding details. So I end up getting annoyed, even if I agree with her, because she's being patronizing. The living room is a shared space, yet she's the one who bought the rug, so she makes the rules.

"The TV can't be louder than ___ while I'm sleeping." But she goes to bed at 9 and sleeps for 12 hours. Except when she has some kind of breakdown; then she'll be up all night and sleep at odd hours in the middle of the day. It still has to be 64 degrees, and we still have to be quiet. She'll try to say that some amount of noise doesn't bother her because her fan is so loud, but then we get lectured if we wake her up (which I have only done once, a few days after we moved in, because I was trying to move a shelf into my room and mistakenly lifted it from the top, popping one of the shelves loudly. I was told that it's rude to move furniture while someone else is sleeping. But when am I supposed to get my stuff settled in? She could be sleeping at any time. This was around 10 am. I have two jobs, so my free time is limited.)

How do I treat her kindly as a roommate while also not allowing her to rule the household? How should I respond when she throws these restrictions on me? Is there any way I can go back in time and prevent myself from ever agreeing to let the house be 64 degrees any time she's asleep? Should I just tell her we want different things in our homes and move out?

[Kwamina]

Hi sister19 and welcome to our online community

It isn't easy dealing with a disordered sibling, can be very challenging indeed.

Has your sister been diagnosed with BPD? How long has she been exhibiting behaviors which you see as difficult?

On this site we discuss several communication techniques that can help when interacting with disordered family-members, such as validation, S.E.T. and D.E.A.R.M.A.N. Looking forward to further discussing this with you.

Take care

The Board Parrot