Newbie Checking In

[Depression = 72% of members]

Hello everyone.  Newbie here, checking in with my most recent conflict.

My sister was diagnosed, twice, with BPD.  Each time she fired the therapist in question rather than seek treatment saying they don't know what they are talking about.  Nothing I say will convince her otherwise -even when we speak about some of her OCD tendencies because "they help her get things done."

I had gone no contact once when she called the cops on me during a visit I had arranged after a medical issue I had and was seeking support and companionship about.  She had gone into a paranoid rage; still not sure what set her off on that one -other than she took offense to the way I liked to dress, and/or I did not pay COMPLETE attention to her every second I was there. 
While I agree my behavior was not perfect either, esp. so in our past,  I could not really fathom why she would think I would try to kill her in her sleep!  Actually the frequency of which murder comes up in topics of conversation with her actually alarm me.  She has both homicidal tendencies that she confessed to me - but more so consistently thinks people will try to kill her.  At any rate, I was guilted into going back into contact, but for my sake I tried to keep it limited.  Which was then complained about b/c she felt there was not a "point" to speaking to one another if I only wanted to stick with what I considered 'safe topics.'

When our mother died, things got worse.  She came to visit and all hell broke loose.  I realize it was an emotional time and I was in error b/c she had wanted me to do something I was firmly saying I did not feel comfortable with -but being as yet uneducated w/ FOG I fell for the guilting again.  When I responded in a way that did not paint her as perfection, she exploded.  She called a friend telling them she was being abused who was able to remove her from the situation -luckily this time without calling the cops as she had wanted to because she desired an escort to the airport since her life was in danger.  I had offered her several options back to the airport but all of the people I knew might kill her -so she'd call an uber. 
One of the things she threw out at me in those miserable hours of being screamed at was that I didn't spend time with her online.

So I fell for the FOG again and after things had calmed down; I started spending time with her online.  The last four months I have been there -there have been quite a few flare ups, but they always seemed to blow over within a day or two.  I had been keeping other people at a little bit of an arm's length because she goes through friends like tissue paper.  In the first month we had befriended at least nine people she then discarded.  I really stopped counting after that but it has been one person after another she has dismissed from our lives. She gets upset if I continue to have contact with them, but since I never really interacted with them in the first place... .  I did not see it as a bad thing until I started to recently educate myself in all of this and realized I was just enabling her. 

However there have been many good times and laughs, and in fact, I had thought we were doing well and making progress since we really had not had any arguments in a little over a month, and things seemed to  be genuinely going well ... .until this last weekend. 

This weekend I had made an what I thought was an innocent comment and it all blew up again.  In a severely bad way.  I found out that she had been taking snippets of what I thought were private conversations and posting them to her "narcissistic support group" online to "prove what a disgusting c-word you are."  Of course, only the parts that support that theory because they build her up and validate her feelings.
She actually is convinced everyone in her life is a a narcissist because she is a 'narcissist magnet.' 

She told me that the last four months of our attempts to re-connect were all bs b/c she had no intention of re-connecting since she left my house after mom died; that in fact all she had been doing was 'pretending' so she could 'gain my trust' for the explicit purpose of showing her support group how abusive I am to her.  She will not listen to me that I have seen therapists and no one has ever diagnosed me with narcissistic personality disorder -it's like it does not even matter. 
She called our Aunt and also accused me of 'beating the crap out of her every day for ten years' and also inappropriately touching her when we were both kids. (I am about five years older.)  My Aunt expressed the fact that she found it hard to believe as there was never any indication of that, and while she did not want to call her a liar, she never saw any evidence of that.  She suggested my sister see someone -which went about as well as you might expect.
The next day, our Aunt was told that she never said such a thing or implied that; my Aunt simply misunderstood.  In fact I was fine, it's was actually her ex (two ex's ago) that was a sociopath who is stalking her and might actually come kill her.  After a year and HIM going no contact w/ her and blocking everything -we're not sure how he's doing that, but that is her current belief.  The gaslighting reaches epic proportions as she likes to mince words.

I understand where I fell for the FOG and messed up.  I am working on JADE and SET. 
A part of me just wants to whine that this isn't fair -that we have to be the ones to be the bigger person... .  I guess maybe that's normal?  At any rate I have decided on a few things:
-She does not get to call me names when she gets mad.  I intend to end the conversation and/or logoff and not respond to her txts for awhile.
-I don't have to justify myself or her attempts to tell me I am abusive towards her or respond to the fact she thinks I am  a narcissist -her abuse support group does plenty of that for her.  I know who and what I am fairly well thanks to therapy myself; if she does not want to lend that credence then there is nothing I can do/say to change her mind if she's set on it.  So why try?
-I don't have to 'silently take it' when she starts accusations about me - but I can communicate validation for her feelings without agreeing with them.
-My online life does not belong to her; it belongs to me.  She's welcome in it, but I think I am going to be there when I want to be, not b/c I feel obligated to be there.  I have no intention of going no contact at this time -this feels like actually like limited contact again, except I am not going to stick to 'safe topics' as I intended to say my Truth after I support and emphasize -I would always skip the Truth part and have missed many opportunities to validate. I did not recognize that trying to defend myself was just more invalidating behavior but I am learning!

I feel like I am starting all over with trying to re-connect with her, but I guess that's absolutely true.  I read a book about BPD when she was diagnosed and while it did help me understand her, there wasn't a lot about coping with it or how to respond so I realize I have made mistakes so far.

Can I just say how hard this is?  I try NOT to focus on the ugly things she said about me, even though she took them back, are just a rage or the mental illness speaking.  Or how unfair it is to be told not to do something (NEVER SHARE ANYTHING I SAY TO  YOU OR WE ARE DONE) when she gets to take snapshots of our conversations to be picked apart by a group of strangers... . 
How hard this is to not bring up the past when she pulls out past grievances if things are not going her way?  Only to tell me to never do that because it's not fair!

I really wonder if I resent her for having a mental illness!  How non-productive is that? 
I feel badly that I 'make her feel like crap every time we speak' or that she has to 'struggle to associate' with me.  But when I tell her that I do and wish it were different, she tells me that I don't because I just lie. 

And I worry I am just doing the same thing that irks me -going to a support group behind her back. 
But on the other hand, I have zero intentions of showing snapshots of our actual private conversations either so I guess there is that.

Anyway, thanks for reading and the website has been invaluable to my educating myself further on BPD and how to cope.  Thank you for that.

[Romania]

Hello everyone.  Newbie here, checking in with my most recent conflict.

My sister was diagnosed, twice, with BPD.  Each time she fired the therapist in question rather than seek treatment saying they don't know what they are talking about.  Nothing I say will convince her otherwise -even when we speak about some of her OCD tendencies because "they help her get things done."

I had gone no contact once when she called the cops on me during a visit I had arranged after a medical issue I had and was seeking support and companionship about.  She had gone into a paranoid rage; still not sure what set her off on that one -other than she took offense to the way I liked to dress, and/or I did not pay COMPLETE attention to her every second I was there. 
While I agree my behavior was not perfect either, esp. so in our past,  I could not really fathom why she would think I would try to kill her in her sleep!  Actually the frequency of which murder comes up in topics of conversation with her actually alarm me.  She has both homicidal tendencies that she confessed to me - but more so consistently thinks people will try to kill her.  At any rate, I was guilted into going back into contact, but for my sake I tried to keep it limited.  Which was then complained about b/c she felt there was not a "point" to speaking to one another if I only wanted to stick with what I considered 'safe topics.'

When our mother died, things got worse.  She came to visit and all hell broke loose.  I realize it was an emotional time and I was in error b/c she had wanted me to do something I was firmly saying I did not feel comfortable with -but being as yet uneducated w/ FOG I fell for the guilting again.  When I responded in a way that did not paint her as perfection, she exploded.  She called a friend telling them she was being abused who was able to remove her from the situation -luckily this time without calling the cops as she had wanted to because she desired an escort to the airport since her life was in danger.  I had offered her several options back to the airport but all of the people I knew might kill her -so she'd call an uber. 
One of the things she threw out at me in those miserable hours of being screamed at was that I didn't spend time with her online.

So I fell for the FOG again and after things had calmed down; I started spending time with her online.  The last four months I have been there -there have been quite a few flare ups, but they always seemed to blow over within a day or two.  I had been keeping other people at a little bit of an arm's length because she goes through friends like tissue paper.  In the first month we had befriended at least nine people she then discarded.  I really stopped counting after that but it has been one person after another she has dismissed from our lives. She gets upset if I continue to have contact with them, but since I never really interacted with them in the first place... .  I did not see it as a bad thing until I started to recently educate myself in all of this and realized I was just enabling her. 

However there have been many good times and laughs, and in fact, I had thought we were doing well and making progress since we really had not had any arguments in a little over a month, and things seemed to  be genuinely going well ... .until this last weekend. 

This weekend I had made an what I thought was an innocent comment and it all blew up again.  In a severely bad way.  I found out that she had been taking snippets of what I thought were private conversations and posting them to her "narcissistic support group" online to "prove what a disgusting c-word you are."  Of course, only the parts that support that theory because they build her up and validate her feelings.
She actually is convinced everyone in her life is a a narcissist because she is a 'narcissist magnet.' 

She told me that the last four months of our attempts to re-connect were all bs b/c she had no intention of re-connecting since she left my house after mom died; that in fact all she had been doing was 'pretending' so she could 'gain my trust' for the explicit purpose of showing her support group how abusive I am to her.  She will not listen to me that I have seen therapists and no one has ever diagnosed me with narcissistic personality disorder -it's like it does not even matter. 
She called our Aunt and also accused me of 'beating the crap out of her every day for ten years' and also inappropriately touching her when we were both kids. (I am about five years older.)  My Aunt expressed the fact that she found it hard to believe as there was never any indication of that, and while she did not want to call her a liar, she never saw any evidence of that.  She suggested my sister see someone -which went about as well as you might expect.
The next day, our Aunt was told that she never said such a thing or implied that; my Aunt simply misunderstood.  In fact I was fine, it's was actually her ex (two ex's ago) that was a sociopath who is stalking her and might actually come kill her.  After a year and HIM going no contact w/ her and blocking everything -we're not sure how he's doing that, but that is her current belief.  The gaslighting reaches epic proportions as she likes to mince words.

I understand where I fell for the FOG and messed up.  I am working on JADE and SET. 
A part of me just wants to whine that this isn't fair -that we have to be the ones to be the bigger person... .  I guess maybe that's normal?  At any rate I have decided on a few things:
-She does not get to call me names when she gets mad.  I intend to end the conversation and/or logoff and not respond to her txts for awhile.
-I don't have to justify myself or her attempts to tell me I am abusive towards her or respond to the fact she thinks I am  a narcissist -her abuse support group does plenty of that for her.  I know who and what I am fairly well thanks to therapy myself; if she does not want to lend that credence then there is nothing I can do/say to change her mind if she's set on it.  So why try?
-I don't have to 'silently take it' when she starts accusations about me - but I can communicate validation for her feelings without agreeing with them.
-My online life does not belong to her; it belongs to me.  She's welcome in it, but I think I am going to be there when I want to be, not b/c I feel obligated to be there.  I have no intention of going no contact at this time -this feels like actually like limited contact again, except I am not going to stick to 'safe topics' as I intended to say my Truth after I support and emphasize -I would always skip the Truth part and have missed many opportunities to validate. I did not recognize that trying to defend myself was just more invalidating behavior but I am learning!

I feel like I am starting all over with trying to re-connect with her, but I guess that's absolutely true.  I read a book about BPD when she was diagnosed and while it did help me understand her, there wasn't a lot about coping with it or how to respond so I realize I have made mistakes so far.

Can I just say how hard this is?  I try NOT to focus on the ugly things she said about me, even though she took them back, are just a rage or the mental illness speaking.  Or how unfair it is to be told not to do something (NEVER SHARE ANYTHING I SAY TO  YOU OR WE ARE DONE) when she gets to take snapshots of our conversations to be picked apart by a group of strangers... . 
How hard this is to not bring up the past when she pulls out past grievances if things are not going her way?  Only to tell me to never do that because it's not fair!

I really wonder if I resent her for having a mental illness!  How non-productive is that? 
I feel badly that I 'make her feel like crap every time we speak' or that she has to 'struggle to associate' with me.  But when I tell her that I do and wish it were different, she tells me that I don't because I just lie. 

And I worry I am just doing the same thing that irks me -going to a support group behind her back. 
But on the other hand, I have zero intentions of showing snapshots of our actual private conversations either so I guess there is that.

Anyway, thanks for reading and the website has been invaluable to my educating myself further on BPD and how to cope.  Thank you for that.

[Romania]

Follow up Question:

Is there a good way to respond to accusations I am gaslighting my diagnosed BPD sister?

An example if this is I mention a statement she had made but then denies that I have proof of -but before I can even get to the proof (is proof even productive?) she will automatically go into a 'you are gaslighting me' tirade.

I have actually BEEN gaslit -there is no way I would do this to another person, but this one has me pretty stumped.  In fact all the coping mechanisms here she tries to use with me which technically should be a good thing but in effect generally get twisted around to be against me.  Probably techniques her '"narcissistic abuse support group" are telling her.
Usually that is a good to have a support group but good things get twisted to bad things when she shares them with them.  Example: she made a video of us playing a game -laughing and having a blast.  Someone told her it seemed like I was running the show and being controlling and all of a sudden I am  a bad person again.  My Aunt is also dumbfounded on what to do/say because she watched the same video and didn't see any of that in me, and likens her support group to a cult-like mentality where everyone is an abuser and no one actually cares about her (yes she was told that by them.) I have watched it a dozen times trying to see it that way -really trying hard but I just can't and I really thought we were having a good time -and the kicker is so did she (at the time!) 

So she has all of these good words for abuse survivors and is trying to recover from her ex  -or actually multiple exes who she feels were narcissistic and abusive (everyone is in her eyes)... .except I have never had her say a single thing to support or empathize with me; the topics seem to be more about setting boundaries -which usually involve flipping on something she has asked me to do and previously been ecstatic about, only to be told that I have to 'learn some boundaries, I no longer want that.'   Doing what she asks usually results in her flipping on it later, so this is not a new concept.

The irony is, it was her that pointed out that we were in an emotionally abusive relationship, except all of the things she claimed I was doing were really her. 
She was certainly right about one thing: I do need to learn some boundaries.  Or rather enforce the ones I have with her.

Is there any use to responding to these kinds of 'gaslighting' accusations or are they just a new way to twist things?
How do you cope with being told "you just like to say things that piss me off" when I never have the intention to piss her off -quite the opposite actually.  Though I now realize walking on eggshells is not the answer.  What the answer actually is, however, I am still not quite sure about.

[Romania]

Update:  I've settled on "I wish there was something I could say that would change your mind." 

[Kwamina]

Hi Romania

Actually the frequency of which murder comes up in topics of conversation with her actually alarm me.  She has both homicidal tendencies that she confessed to me - but more so consistently thinks people will try to kill her.

This is quite disturbing behavior of her and I can imagine also quite unsettling for you to hear. Do you feel physically safe around her?

And I worry I am just doing the same thing that irks me -going to a support group behind her back.  
But on the other hand, I have zero intentions of showing snapshots of our actual private conversations either so I guess there is that.

I think what might help to keep in mind is, that this support group is for you and your wellbeing and is not about you just talking about your sister. It is about you seeking support and advice to help you cope and heal so you can move forward with your life in a more constructive manner.

As far as dealing with false accusations, you have already mentioned J.A.D.E. and I think that can be very helpful to keep in mind when faced with your sister's false accusations. Another helpful technique is B.I.F.F.:

Dealing with hostule communications - Keep it B.I.F.F. (Brief, Informative, Friendly (as in civil), Firm

[Romania]

This is quite disturbing behavior of her and I can imagine also quite unsettling for you to hear. Do you feel physically safe around her?

That's a really excellent question.  The answer is yes I do, for the most part -but I am not entirely 100 percent sure if I am being naive or can intuitively sense that she is more likely to turn all that on herself.   Sometimes I think it's just a matter of time before she acts out badly in public, but my instincts tell me she is more likely to be loud, aggressive and rude -but back off before becoming physical.    I really hope that I am not being blinded by denial here, but even so: the very fact that it is on her mind so often, mainly about people killing her, does make me wonder why it comes up so much.  I think it is partly paranoid reasoning.  That and I keep trying to put it into perspective.  The world must be such a scary place for her, if she is going to think that people are out to get her so often.

I think what might help to keep in mind is, that this support group is for you and your wellbeing and is not about you just talking about your sister. It is about you seeking support and advice to help you cope and heal so you can move forward with your life in a more constructive manner.

Thank you!  That's really what I would like to do.  All the rest of it is just noise and sorting out the hurt of the things I have allowed to get to me -which I understand is me giving her the power to do; it's just working out the kinks of stopping that behavior on my part.   I had not heard BIFF before and am grateful to soak up that knowledge.