Too frustrated to want to learn SET.

[Our abuse recovery guide]

What do you do if you are so ready to quit (and have every reason to) a relationship with a sibling, yet all the advice is to validate her feelings and become her emotional caretaker and consider her a loved one and radically accept her? My sister and her husband are not my loved ones. I let go of the possibility of them loving me a very long time ago and now there’s nothing left for me to give.  I’m utterly exhausted.

I currently have to remain in some sort of relationship with her because I live on the other side of the world (yes, THAT is how far I ran to get away from the BPD behaviors of my sister and father) and she has Power of Attorney over our elderly mother. Father died last year and since then it has been so much worse as sister no longer has anyone she feels accountable to. The relief that I felt when our father died was disappointingly short because sister and her husband stepped into his shoes with breathtaking swiftness.

All communication is via email. This has pros and cons. The biggest con is that if I state a boundary, it isn't immediately after she has performed the action of writing me a toxic email. Thus, a day or two later when she reads my response she cannot/will not connect it with what she wrote and fires off yet more indignant accusations and challenges at me. My DF advises me not to respond, but then sister switches to only writing factually about our mother, to which I am forced to respond… and off she goes again.

In the past I have ignored her more intense emails for periods which seemed only to encourage her to beg for more communication and be slightly more polite to me. I feel like I'm over a barrel with our mother being in a nursing home in sister's hometown now because I HAVE to respond.

Sister’s husband has been around since I was 12. His mother had BPD behavior. I have recently wondered whether it's him and not my sister who has the problem, but really I just need to be able to deal with them as a single force. I don’t care which of them it is, I can’t do a damn thing to help either of them and I just want to stop the emotional drain of dealing with them.

I don’t intend to continue my relationship with my sister once our mother is gone. Until then I need to figure out how to find a way around my frustration that I have to spend even more time learning SET etc in order to carry on in an abusive relationship. How does SET work in delayed communication such as emails?

Sorry, it’s not a positive start to posting here. I’m just SO angry at all the energy and time I have squandered on totally pointless, painful, damaging relationships. I should have walked away at 18 and never ever gone back. I’m 46 now and it has been nothing but hell to acquiesce to my mother's constant urging for me to "keep the peace" and "don't rock the boat" etc. My 22 yo daughter has an IQ of 65 and autism, yet has better social skills than her aunt.

Somebody please tell me learning SET will be worth the effort.

[targetonmyback]

What do you do if you are so ready to quit (and have every reason to) a relationship with a sibling, yet all the advice is to validate her feelings and become her emotional caretaker and consider her a loved one and radically accept her? My sister and her husband are not my loved ones. I let go of the possibility of them loving me a very long time ago and now there’s nothing left for me to give.  I’m utterly exhausted.

I currently have to remain in some sort of relationship with her because I live on the other side of the world (yes, THAT is how far I ran to get away from the BPD behaviors of my sister and father) and she has Power of Attorney over our elderly mother. Father died last year and since then it has been so much worse as sister no longer has anyone she feels accountable to. The relief that I felt when our father died was disappointingly short because sister and her husband stepped into his shoes with breathtaking swiftness.

All communication is via email. This has pros and cons. The biggest con is that if I state a boundary, it isn't immediately after she has performed the action of writing me a toxic email. Thus, a day or two later when she reads my response she cannot/will not connect it with what she wrote and fires off yet more indignant accusations and challenges at me. My DF advises me not to respond, but then sister switches to only writing factually about our mother, to which I am forced to respond… and off she goes again.

In the past I have ignored her more intense emails for periods which seemed only to encourage her to beg for more communication and be slightly more polite to me. I feel like I'm over a barrel with our mother being in a nursing home in sister's hometown now because I HAVE to respond.

Sister’s husband has been around since I was 12. His mother had BPD behavior. I have recently wondered whether it's him and not my sister who has the problem, but really I just need to be able to deal with them as a single force. I don’t care which of them it is, I can’t do a damn thing to help either of them and I just want to stop the emotional drain of dealing with them.

I don’t intend to continue my relationship with my sister once our mother is gone. Until then I need to figure out how to find a way around my frustration that I have to spend even more time learning SET etc in order to carry on in an abusive relationship. How does SET work in delayed communication such as emails?

Sorry, it’s not a positive start to posting here. I’m just SO angry at all the energy and time I have squandered on totally pointless, painful, damaging relationships. I should have walked away at 18 and never ever gone back. I’m 46 now and it has been nothing but hell to acquiesce to my mother's constant urging for me to "keep the peace" and "don't rock the boat" etc. My 22 yo daughter has an IQ of 65 and autism, yet has better social skills than her aunt.

Somebody please tell me learning SET will be worth the effort.

[GeekyGirl]

SET does take practice. It's not something that many of us (me included) may have done in the past and it doesn't always come naturally or effortlessly. It is sometimes very hard validating someone else's feelings, especially when they contradict our own. I can understand your exhaustion--my mother has BPD and sometimes it irritates me that I have to validate my mother's feelings while she doesn't seem to care about mine. It IS exhausting and frustrating.

That said, the best way to reduce conflict with someone with BPD is to make them feel seen, heard and understood. Everyone wants that on some level, but it's even more important to someone with BPD and a strong fear of abandonment. SET is a tool to help give that validation. It can calm the other person down and make him/her more receptive to what you have to say, because he/she feels that at least you can empathize with him/her.

SET over e-mail works the same way it would in person, but as you mentioned, there's a slight time delay and it's not as personal as it would be if you were to meet your sister in person.

There are a few things you can do from here. It sounds like you're keeping your relationship with your sister limited to dealing with your mother, which is understandable. You're also communicating exclusively over e-mail, which gives you some control over when you do communicate with her. Could you have someone (your DH) screen e-mails from her so you can be prepared for whether it's a mom-related e-mail or a venting e-mail? Could you filter out her e-mails so you can choose when you want to read them? What would happen if you were to explain to your sister how hurtful her e-mails can be and you'd answer them more promptly when she uses a more positive tone?

I don't blame you for being angry. I've been there too.

[targetonmyback]

Thanks GG! You offer good advice to a sister drowning in venom

I should learn these skills because I have run into other BPDs in life and will still have to deal with them even if I can eventually close my sibling relationship. Pfffft!

I have a separate email account for her emails. At the moment I have it linked to my phone so I can see when she sends a message - she doesn't call me even when our mother is seriously ill. Now that our mother is in a nursing home, I've asked the nursing staff to contact me directly but have yet to get a response (I have no idea what my sister tells them about me, I'm betting it's not good!) I try not to involve DF too much because his first marriage was nothing but wall to wall eggshells. I'll take the app off my phone and check once a day. DF says I should scan each email and if there is no factual information about our mother and no questions then there's no need to respond.

"What would happen if you were to explain to your sister how hurtful her e-mails can be and you'd answer them more promptly when she uses a more positive tone?" It would be my fault. I would be described as either cold and frighteningly detached or scarily oversensitive and possibly not suitable to remain on the power of attorney or very very hostile and causing such severe emotional damage to her and her husband that I shouldn't be surprised if they can no longer take care of my mother (she's always only MY mother when she's thought to be a burden.) I'd be the one who is wrong wrong wrong whichever way it can be twisted and anything I suggest is a plot against her. I am all bad these days.

The fact that our parents had a very nice nestegg has really upped the stakes for my sister. Heavens to Betsy she wants that money. She's been referring to it as "my inheritance" since before our father died and the tension now always gets back to how the money is handled and how much can she get right now. Which leads me to think that she feels guilty about how she's handling it. Our mother is safely stowed in a nice nursing home. The money will dwindle over time with nursing fees and whatever expenses my sister can justify spending it on. Luckily money is not my thing and I never expected to inherit. I suspect my sister can't imagine money not being vitally important.

Thanks very much for your insight. I am grateful that you spent time reading and responding to my own little agonies. Thank you!

[noseinabook]

Hello Targetonmyback,

My heart goes out to you and your mother.  I know how stressful being tied to a sister with BPD is, but it must be even more difficult for you as you deal with the declining health of your mother.  I think GeekyGirl had excellent advice!  I am new to learning coping skills to deal with my sister, but I think that by reducing the time you dwell on her emails is best.

As for my person story, I posted an almost identical post on another board, but I'm trying to reach out to others with sisters with BPD.  Firstly, I want to thank you for the personal story you shared.  Family can be challenging, and revealing something so close to home, literally, is never easy.  I wanted to reach out and maybe we can help each other find answers though speaking about this.  I just wanted to connect because I have a sister with BPD.  To sum up the twenty years I've known her:

She is three years younger than I am and we never got along.  The beginning of our more serious issues began when I was in the third grade.  Gosh, that sounds younger and younger every time I think about how old we were then.  My brother has Schizophrenia and Autism and about this time he became violent and psychotic (he never meant it maliciously).  My sister and I handled this very differently.  She wanted to get angry and blame everyone, I wanted to help everyone to understand that his admittance into a group home would be healthy for everyone and he could be happy in a structured environment.

I don't blame her for getting upset, it was a horrible time for us all.  I do blame her for abusing my parents and I ever since.  She used to only verbally and physically bait me into a fight when my parents weren't around.  She would steal from me, destroy my things, and incessantly put me down.  I don't think anyone believed me for a long time; she is able to charm a lot of people.  After a while my parents caught on and didn't see her as a victim anymore.

That all seems like a long time ago now, since I haven't lived with her in 5 years.  My problem now is that she is now abusing my mother.  My dad likes to placate her and travels with his job, but my mom has to live with her because she is taking a break from college.  She will be moving out soon, but her inability to handle or make money reliably make her a huge financial burden.  I don't know how long my parents can shell out thousands of dollars not only for her basic necessities, but spending sprees and intensive therapy sessions at a DBT center.

What I am wondering is when are the family members allowed to say that enough is enough?  How long does a family member have to try before they need to live their own life?  How responsible are my parents when they are making every effort and she doesn't change?

Just to let you know, when I read your posts I felt a sense of relief.  I think people judge me because I don't like my sister.  They don't understand that I can never love her again, that it only puts me in danger emotionally and mentally to try any longer.  I can walk away as her sister.  I can choose to think about her or not, but my parents, my mom, is stuck.  I just want to find her a way to be free of my sister so she can live a life of her own. 

I know I mainly just took your time to get out my story, and I thank you for reading.  I hope people like us can connect more and that talking will lead to answers eventually.

Hope this finds you well!

Noseinabook

[mindfulness]

Some people on here will likely disagree with me on this. But for me, I have avoided things like SET because I feel they are too focused on how to respond to the needs of the BPD rather than your own needs. I think it definitely depends who the loved one is that you are dealing with. For me, it is my uBPD mom. I have spent 20+ years of my life being a mother to her (yes, even as a child). Through therapy I realized I had to start putting my own needs first rather than planning all my interactions with her around what would please her the most / upset her the least. It was exhausting, obsessing over every phrase and planning every move, plus I wasn't being true to my own feelings or needs because I was only doing or saying things that I knew she wanted me to do or say. It led to a lot of repressing of my feelings, which has made me insecure and indecisive and given me a lot of anxiety, particularly social.

So for me, my journey has been about learning to accept my mom's diagnosis and the fact that I cannot change it. When I've become wrapped up in using certain strategies of dealing with her, I felt I was getting back to that place where I was planning around her and putting her needs first. Also, I think it sometimes would create false hope in me -- "if only I act a certain way, maybe her behavior will change and she'll eventually become the mother I want." It is a challenge to constantly remind myself that she is going to have her crazy reactions to what I do/say NO MATTER WHAT. It's not because of how I said it or what I did. It's because of her. She is sick.

Anyway, I'm not saying something like SET can't be extremely helpful. I just think if you are going to attempt it you should make sure you do so don't compromise your own feelings, wants, or needs. And also don't do so with the expectation that it will do anything to really effect long-term change in your sister. You should be doing it because it makes things easier for YOU.

I hope that makes sense. This has just been my experience. Again, I think as a child of a BPD it's slightly different because I am trying not only to disengage but also to stop the pattern of parenting a parent, which is particularly damaging and hard to escape.

[an0ught]

Hi targetonmyback,

Somebody please tell me learning SET will be worth the effort.

S: Let me help you to better understand this,

E: You are skeptical, wondering whether it is worth the effort, works in email and won't be bending backwards

T: It is one of the most effective means to get your carefully considered POV across, works in email, works face to face and is worth every minute you spend on it as it has applicability way beyond this relationship.

Like for me on this board  

SET works very well in writing as it gives our writing a structure that is easily consumed. Also when writing we are free to jump to T, our all important thought. When that is clear we have then our mind free to start considering our receiver and work on SE. And lastly it helps to then rework T in the light of having thought deeper about our receiver.

In face to face discussions we have not the luxury to do that and the quality of SET we do there is typically lower. Writing helps developing a sense for good quality SET and contributes to supporting our verbal capabilities.

The best part about validation and SET is that they can be used and practiced with almost anyone around you. Dear boss, you need some information, you sure look busy, have to inform you the sky is falling and is falling fast. Messengers have often painted a target on their back, but with SET you stand a solid chance to survive even the delivery of less pleasant information.