EnDad broke 4 months of NO CONTACT

[Cheshire]

EnDad decided to send me a text just before Xmas to invite me and GF to their Xmas shindig. I was anticipating a boundary violation this season, and I knew he wouldn't be able to say no to uBPDm. According to my brother, one week prior to the text, he refused to bring me their Xmas package as he knew it would be unwelcome and didn't need to play their middleman. He told enDad that any contact with me was unwise, to which enDad agreed and said he would leave me be over the holidays. A week later he texted me. So I changed my phone number. Another interesting tidbit, my brother (who still has avoided discussing BPD and any crazy in general) mentioned that uBPDm has approached him repeatedly asking him for a much more "intimate" relationship.

"She wants to know my feelings and dreams and wants to spend more one-on-one time with me. I had to shut her down a bunch of times and got out of the way when she's been drinking. If she keeps ignoring my wishes then I'm gonna have to look at things... .  change the relationship."

I told him about what BPD is briefly and told him to google it. I left it there. I had to go slow. I've been waiting since may to tell him about this stuff. He's pretty cagey about our childhood and has a pretty strong denial defense in place. I'm pretty happy that I got to get through to him as much as I did. He deserves to know the "why" of how we were "raised", but only at his own pace.

I feel like Denzel Washington in the movie Deja Vu. He has to travel back in time to warn someone and says, "what if you had to tell someone the most important thing in the world, but you know they'll never believe you?" The answer was, "I'd try... .  "

[bpdfamfan]

Yes, I think people come to their own realization in their own time, unfortunately.  He will see more clearly when he's ready.  I'd be tempted to tell him to google emotional incest too. 

Do you think your Dad deserves some credit for at least waiting a bit to contact you? (just wondering)  The holidays really suck with all the phoniness or even real closeness of families.

I hope you & your brother can have a relationship away from family dynamics --more like a friendship based on common interests & casual socializing.

[Cheshire]

Thanks for responding, BPDfamfan. I do give enDad credit for respecting my boundaries for the last 4 months. It's the longest stretch of respect in the 15 months I've been nc, shattering the previous record of 1.5 months. I do feel bad for his position between uBPDm and everyone else, but he's also equally to blame for his unabashed pursuit of the Queen's whims. I wish I could get through to him, but that's a story from another posting. I keep a casual friendship with the aforementioned brother, based strictly on mutual respect for each others' path. I won't rock his boat, which sets me apart from every other family member. This gets in the way of the truth from time to time, but I know he'll never try to manipulate me and vice-versa. I wanted to tell him so much more, but the issues of emotional incest, gas lighting, sandbagging, and the dense FOG machine are too much too soon. He mentioned too that he wished he could stop drinking as much as he does (whiskey by the liter), and idly mused that if he did, he'd have no choice but to dive into the pain of the past. I agreed with him, but told him that denial-by-drinking is still a reasonable choice, provided you're not in a relationship and stay off the roads. I gave up the bottle nearly 2 years ago and found that in the absence of booze, my past did indeed force it's way back to claim vengeance.

So, I wait and work on myself and go to T, hoping cautiously that my kid brother will get the help he needs and keep the truth warm for when he can join me in this newer, much clearer reality.