Mother is dying, sister has BP traits - What to do?

[Depression = 72% of members]

Hi!  I'm new here, and need some advice.  I’m in my 60’s, work FT, and my 95+ mother has been living with me for 5 years.  Although independent for most of that time, in the last 6 months she’s become quite ill.  We had planned for this, so I have medical & financial POA & a move to assisted living is coming next week.  I took a 3-month leave from work to take care of her & get things arranged.  I also have an older sister with BPD traits, and while we used to have a great relationship, she’s having a lot more trouble in recent years.  I finally drew some pretty firm boundaries to deal with her abusive behavior during a long visit (actually, it turned into 2 years, but that's another story), and have now been on her black list for more than a year after telling her that she cannot stay at the house again.  My sister believes that I have treated her very unfairly.  We now talk only occasionally & superficially, and her anger is always just below the surface.    
 
Anyway, I wanted to talk to my sister last night about our mother’s illness and the changes that are coming, but the conversation immediately became a flood of blame, criticism, questioning, and vague threats.  I've gotten better at resisting the temptation to explain & respond, so finally ended the call because I simply could not cut through the anger to give her the information she needs.  She will NOT let others speak when she’s on the attack.  I know her anger is really mostly fear, & I hurt for her, but I’m not going to sop up that ocean of toxic emotions.  

So my question is this:  How do I keep her in the loop and validate her grief and fear without getting sucked into the vortex?  Is that even possible?  I need all of my emotional resources to meet my responsibilities to my mother & to manage my own feelings & work obligations, but my heart hurts for my sister & I don't want to cut off contact while our mother is ill.  Any advice on how to navigate this is most welcome!

[KiriG65]

Hi!  I'm new here, and need some advice.  I’m in my 60’s, work FT, and my 95+ mother has been living with me for 5 years.  Although independent for most of that time, in the last 6 months she’s become quite ill.  We had planned for this, so I have medical & financial POA & a move to assisted living is coming next week.  I took a 3-month leave from work to take care of her & get things arranged.  I also have an older sister with BPD traits, and while we used to have a great relationship, she’s having a lot more trouble in recent years.  I finally drew some pretty firm boundaries to deal with her abusive behavior during a long visit (actually, it turned into 2 years, but that's another story), and have now been on her black list for more than a year after telling her that she cannot stay at the house again.  My sister believes that I have treated her very unfairly.  We now talk only occasionally & superficially, and her anger is always just below the surface.    
 
Anyway, I wanted to talk to my sister last night about our mother’s illness and the changes that are coming, but the conversation immediately became a flood of blame, criticism, questioning, and vague threats.  I've gotten better at resisting the temptation to explain & respond, so finally ended the call because I simply could not cut through the anger to give her the information she needs.  She will NOT let others speak when she’s on the attack.  I know her anger is really mostly fear, & I hurt for her, but I’m not going to sop up that ocean of toxic emotions.  

So my question is this:  How do I keep her in the loop and validate her grief and fear without getting sucked into the vortex?  Is that even possible?  I need all of my emotional resources to meet my responsibilities to my mother & to manage my own feelings & work obligations, but my heart hurts for my sister & I don't want to cut off contact while our mother is ill.  Any advice on how to navigate this is most welcome!

[Harri]

Hi Kiri and welcome to the board.  I am so sorry to hear about your mom and I hope things go well with her move to assisted living.  95+ and still mostly independent until recently?  Nice!

While it is unfortunate that your sister responded the way she did last night, it sounds like you did a great job in terms of not getting caught up in her anger.    

I am not sure there is much you can say to your sister directly to get her to listen when she is dysregulating.  The only ideas I have is to write an email that contains just the facts or even mail her a letter.  Legally, I am not sure you have to do these things but I can understand why you would want to while also protecting yourself.

We have several communication tools and strategies that can help but generally speaking once a person becomes dysregulated it is hard for people to return to center no matter how skilled you are with the tools.  Is there anything in particular that seems to set her off? 

You mentioned validating her grief and fear which is great.  Sometimes we think we are validating but we are actually invlaidating someone.  Forgive me if this does not apply but in case it dos or in case it will help you I am going to link the article here:  Communication Skills - Don't Be Invalidating I found this very helpful as what I thought was the right thing to say was in fact very invalidating to people who are highly sensitive... .or people in general. 

Let me know if the article helps.  We can figure out some strategies for you as well.

[LoveOnTheRocks]

Hi Kiri:  I know my diagnosed daughter can go one of two ways when things that pull on her emotions come up.  Her reactions to you may have ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with you and everything to do with how your sister perceives her relationship with her mother (who happens to be your mother, but you have absolutely nothing to do with what's going on in your sister's head if this be the case). 
If you are able to support your sister and talk with her about "life things" that aren't directly related to your sister/mother's relationship, but just being supportive of your sister having so many feelings right now, you may be able to keep the line of communication going with your sister.  I imagine you will do a lot better (though it's not easy for anyone) with your mother's illness than your sister will, because your sister has BPD and I imagine your sister's head is like my daughters in that, it will be full of a lot of massively overwhelming stuff (overwhelming her)... .and the only help I can really give my daugter is to support her as she processes through all of her feelings.  If I don't do that well, then it goes the other way and becomes about me and my daughter and she attacks me relentlessly and for hours on end.  So... .if you feel like you can love on your sister and support her, regardless... .and because she has a mental illness that will make this crazy hard for her to endure... .then, imo, you are in the best place to have an effective conversation with her.

You are NOT wrong for feeling like you don't want to deal with all her crap (paraphrased from your OP, forgive me for being blunt)... .I get it... .I really do... .and it gets really absurd with my DD when we go from having an effective conversation to the other "side" where I am the worst person who ever lived, downright evil, and so forth... .and so I cut it short (because I can when she is not physically with me) when it goes that direction.  That said, I really want to help my daughter and am sad that she has a mental illness that makes her existence so troublesome sometimes (and I know from this illness that she will never just be ok)... .and with compassion in mind, when I deal with my daughter, I want to help her through and to be at the best place and in the best frame of mind... .so I try hard to validate her and help her work through her feelings... .and get my help for my own elsewhere.

I dont know enough about the details of your issues with your sister and what makes the conversation "go south"... .but I do know about how they go that way with me and my daughter, so I am talking very generally about my goals going into "loaded" topics with my daughter and about in general, keeping her illness in mind, and actively striving to be compassionate and genuinely interested/concerned when she speaks to what's going on in her head.  I am practicing STOP and LISTEN and LOVE with my daughter, and it's improving things between the two of us.  SHE is the one with the BPD, and its so much harder for her and on her than I can ever imagine.  I want to do anything I can to help her through life.

I dont know if my honesty about my own actions and reactions helps you or not, but I wanted to support you, tell you I get it about how you feel and about being tired of it and also having your own feelings to deal with... .and I recognize it's even harder when your feelings are involved, and yet, you still have to be the "healthy person"... .but it, so far, is worth it with my daughter, because we are finding a lot better places and communication, and that, overall, is so much easier for me than the other.

[HappyChappy]

So sorry you are having to deal with all this, it must be very stressful. I went through something similar last year when my father died. I ended up having to do all the organisation, my NPD bro and BPD mom were causing drama. What I noticed in these two, was a focus on what they were going to get out of the will, and very little grief as I know it. A BPD fears abandoment above all, so this may explain your sisters behavior. For example, when my Dad was very ill, oddly my BPD mom was trying take attention away from him, promoting how difficult it was for her.

My sister and I swap stories about our father and grieve in that way. But my BPD and NPD appear to have no need to remember, or swap stories. If your sister is truly BPD, then she needs reassuring she won’t be left out, won't be abandoned by everyone. Bit like an 8 year old girl needs. Someone with BPD wants control, so could she be frustration you have power of attorney?

I would agree with Harri,  e-mails keeping her informed, will ease her frustration. It also cuts out the opportunity to bring emotion and drama into it all. Keep the e-mail factual and brief. That cuts down the opportunities to critises them. If she critises, never rise to it, keep it factual, short and without emotion. Over time a BPD will lose interest if they can't manipulate you. Best of luck, and we're all talking about your sister - what about you, what support to you need ?  

[Snoopy737]

Hey Kiri

Oh boy, is that a good question. I've worked with the same thoughts about my BPD-trait sister. She and I was No Contact, and I asked for help at help-telephone-lines and several therapists to get a connection to sister again, because I knew my mom or dad could get sick because they were in their late 70s and I really didn't want a situation, where I couldn't speak to my sister about it and I couldn't stand a situation where my mom or dad saw us fighting verbally when they were ill.

After three years struggling and tens of hours monthly with help-lines and therapists, I finally build up a connection to my sister, and soon after my dad got very ill with cancer. I was so glad I had contact to sister now. I started out with only nice postcards and now I had telephone contact, and we could even talk for up to an hour without any quarrel.

I looked after my dad and was the first contact person for doctors, homes and hospitals and I was involved with everything in my moms and dads house, from reminding them to take medicine, remember appointments and buying groceries for them and stopping by almost every week to cook some good meals for them to cheer the up.

BUT unfortunately when the doctors told me that my dad was about to end his days, and I called my sisters and asked her to come down, everything went wrong. (She lives 1000 kilometers from me and my parents. She just moved away one day, stating the she wouldn't be nice to anyone anymore - no special job or friends where she moved, she just blamed everyone and moved away)

She had only been to the hospital when we had our first quarrel. The nurses said my dad needed some calm, so that he could sleep, but after visiting him for 3 hours sister just wouldn't leave his hospital ward. I was pretty disappointed because I had the contact with all nurses and doctors and she just wouldn't respect what they had said, because the info went through me. Then I felt we were back to scratch. Business as usually. She wanted everything to be about her needs, and she talked and talked and really didn't listen to me (or my mother) because I guess she was so overwhelmed with her feelings - as usual.

Retrospective I regret trying to share all info with my sister. And I regret trying to give her a few responsibilities for my dad, because she couldn't cooperate with me as a team, and that was what I had hoped for during the years I tried to establish the contact to her again.

I was totally stressed out from all the work the years my father was sick, and sister didn't help at all, all those years, and now she came down when he was terminally ill and didn't want to give him space alone in his bed at the ward, because she wanted to be there. When I asked her for small jobs, like picking up medicine for dad, because she lived in his old house and I lived 60 kilometers aways, she just didn't want to hold her mobile phone on. That was just one of her pecualiar principles that was more important to her, than cooperating with me. So she refused to turn on her phone, even though she came by my dad the same afternoon and I didn't, so I had to buy the medicine and travel down to dad.  Every time I spoke to doctors and made agreements with them, I told my sister everything as soon as I could, when she was near. Often just hours after. I really wanted to share all info with her, because it was her dad as well. And she liked that she got the info, but again, never thanked me, but always came with 10 new questions about how we could do something else than the doctors suggested. Like it was a kind of trade.  I asked the nurses if my sister could call them, since she had so many questions all the time, and the nurses said "Of course. Any time, 24-7". I told my sister, but she never did call them, never wanted to. When I tried to share jobs with her, like if I moved all dads personal stuff, furniture and clothes to his home/hospice, if she the could buy some coffee beans and electric kettle , she answered "Yes of course" and everything seemed fine. But she never did buy those things, and she never told me why. Months after dad died I found out that we could buy coffee at the home, just taking the homes coffee and leave a dollar. But she never told me anything about that. So when I visited dad - when she was not there - I could drink the tap water from his bathroom. Well, it's not because the coffee is a big deal, but it was all about sharing duties to me, and no matter how hard I worked to share info and jobs concerning dad, she never shared anything back, and sometimes she only wanted to communicate with me through texts, which is a pretty bad medium when were talking about taking care of a cancer patient. She lived in another country and that also made the texts not go through to me perfectly. They broke up, so I often only got one third of the text. I told her. But she still wouldn't call (said she wouldn't be a slave to a cell phone), and then she wrote to me in texts again. I was hopeless and sometime I got so furious that I had to call a cancer hotline where I could cry for half an hour just to get relief for my frustrations.

I'm sorry I had to write so many examples of what she did (or rather not did), but I think it's the only way to give a picture of how it worked out.

Now I'm no contact with her again. She don't want to speak to me. Every day I'm scared if my mother gets ill, because I can't cope with such a cirkus agoin. I had a major depression after my dad died. I felt so alone.

I don't know if you can use any of what I learned, because it is:

1) My sister can't take any responsibility - at all
2) My sister has something against me - I think - but I never found out what it is? So if she can work things out to get her own needs fulfilled, she will, and she won't give my the info, like I gave her every information
3) I think all the info I gave my sister, might have calmed her down a bit, so she wasn't 100% overwhelmed, but may only 80% a lot of the time. So giving info, well I think it could work, but don't expect to get anything back  - at all.
4) I really don't know if I'm glad that I tried to share everything with sister when dad got ill. It was 14 days in hell to me, but I guess I HAD TO try it out. Now I can just say it didn't work out. I'm really not sure if I would do anything like that again when my mother one gets ill. I don't think I have the energy and patience and I don't want another depression. Actually my plan is that I will tell the nurses that I have a sister who won't speak to me and ask them if they will call sister with the info about my mother (So I don't have to do it again).

 I won't jeopardize my own metal health again. I can't  I can't hold my own feelings and frustrations down, just to keep 'a "good" connection' to my sister. I can't act as a pro nurse and therapist just to try to get a good connection with sister, because it always is on the cost of my own health.

i WOULD LOVE to share anything with my sister concerning my mothers health in the future and in her last days, but it's just not possible. I 100%  sure I'll break down with depression and anxiety attacks again, if I do.

All best Snoopy

[Woolspinner2000]

Hi Kiri, 

Welcome! So many great responses have been shared with you! I'm glad you are here.

Are you married and could your spouse or even another family member or close friend relay the information to your sister? That way they can be the one in the middle without the emotional connection that a sibling has. You are doing well to encourage her and understand her as you have been. 

Wools

[Panda39]

Maybe just send her email updates.  Then she is informed but you don't have to take the verbal pounding.  Maybe have another family member read the responses and pick out anything that legitimately deserves a response.  The rest of it just leave alone and don't respond to it.

Panda39