Sister with BPD or HPD

[Forwardfacing]

After much searching and reading, I think my sister has a personality disorder. Our parents are both gone, but my other sister and I feel like our family have been held hostage emotionally by her for years. We would like to totally disconnect from her, but don’t want to be unnecessarily mean or make her worse. She does not recognize a problem. We have not spoken to her about BPD, She takes antidepressants and feels that because of that everything is fine.

We definitely walk on eggshells around her. There are many subjects we avoid, we hide activities that will make her jealous. But a recent tirade has left us exhausted and desperate for a change.

I’m trying to decide if I tell her anything about BPD, just disconnect, or just try to set more boundaries (thereby fueling her worst fear, that we’ll abandon her and don’t like her)

[Turkish]

What precipitated the latest blow up?

Yes,  she'll deny.  I wouldn't mention BPD.  It almost never goes over well, and a person with BPD traits most often lashes out.  At the core of BPD are the feelings "I'm a bad person,  and am inherently worthless." In other words,  shame. It's easy to trigger this. 

Boundaries are good,  but it would be good to start with validation.  Try this to start:

https://bpdfamily.com/content/ending-conflict

https://bpdfamily.com/content/communication-skills-dont-be-invalidating

From the second link:

"People with BPD have high validation needs - often very high. People with BPD are also very erratic in their validation of others - they can be extremely validating (over validating) and flip over and become very invalidating -  sometimes resentful of the validation that is being sought or that they previously expressed.  And person with BPD can get extreme in the use of dissociation and projection."

What kinds of things seem to most set her off?

Turkish

[Mutt]

hi Forwardfacing,



I'd like to join Turkish and welcome  you to bpdfamily. I'm sorry that you're going through a difficult time and probably difficult choices to make if you minimize or go no contact with a family member.

I’m trying to decide if I tell her anything about BPD, just disconnect, or just try to set more boundaries (thereby fueling her worst fear, that we’ll abandon her and don’t like her)

I completely agree with Turkish, I wouldn't suggest to tell her that you think that she has a PD. Let's point the telescope the other way, how would it make us feel if we were told that we have a personality disorder and the most difficult personality disorder at that. Whatever you decided we'll help you through that process it helps to talk to others that can relate with what you're going through. I'm looking forward to your posts.