Have been struggling with my sister for a while

[Shark]

Hello all!

    My sister has an unbelievably long history with mental illness, exacerbated by the traumas of losing our mother and being subjected to sexual assault. There have been years and years of therapy, treatments (including medication, electroconvulsive therapy, and most recently transcranial magnetic stimulation). Her diagnoses include bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, and borderline personality disorder. The BPD diagnosis seemed to always stand in the shadows while the others took precedence in terms of what was addressed. However, reflecting on my sister's behavior and how she interacts with people in her life, including myself, my father, and her husband, I realize it is indeed a major player in the stark difficulties our relationship has undergone.

To give some background on myself, I am the forgotten sibling. I have had periods of depression, and am going through one right now, but for the most part, I have been fortunate enough to make my way through life, get a Master's degree, and hold down great jobs. I have had to take a backseat to my sister for most of my teenage and adult life when the problems started (I was 13 and my sister was 14 when our mother died). I have always tried to be there for my sister, but I often find myself exhausted and pulling back because of her behavior.

At this time, I have shifted to become a "disgusting" person to my sister. She is having marital troubles and has been feeling suicidal. I encourage my sister to tell me how she feels, and I have 1 or 2 people in my friend circle not connected to her that I confide in and share my feelings with. I trust these people implicitly and have been able to move forward in helping my sister because of my discussions with them. In this case, she is upset with me that I shared information about her marriage, and she is no longer speaking to me. She also shared the information with her husband, who is no longer speaking to me as well because of the information. I asked her why she told her husband, as he has a history of anger issues and she knew his reaction would be negative towards me. She responded by saying it was "disturbing" that she couldn't tell anyone that I betrayed her/hurt her. I responded by telling her that I wasn't upset that she was hurt, just that I wish she wouldn't have told her husband since she knew his reaction would be negative towards me.

We haven't spoken since.

I'm not sure how to move forward, honestly. Logically, I know that her reactions are a part of her mental illness, and I truly love my sister and don't want to give up on working on our relationship. However, after years and years of this behavior, I'm having trouble springing back. (I'm 27). Any advice, feedback, comfort, honestly anything, would be so truly appreciated.

[Woolspinner2000]

Hi Shark, 

Welcome to the board! Thank you for coming here, being brave enough to post, and especially for sharing a bit of your story. Did you find it hard to put into a few words the complexity of what you know has taken place? I know I sure did when I first posted. Each of our stories are unique, and yet here you are a part of a family that really understands much of what you will share. We have been through our own very difficult struggles and valleys with the BPD person in our lives. Mine was my mom.

I'm really sorry for how hard life has been for you with your sister. Right now it must hurt a lot, after all the bridges you've tried to build and keep strong between you, only to have her turn away. How painful! Can you tell me what you have done for you, to encourage yourself? Do you think in the past that you were able to feel better by comforting your sister and now that it seems to be gone for a bit of time, do you feel worse? For myself, every time I worked at helping my uBPDm feel better, it helped to give me a sense of value and comfort. It has taken me a long time to begin to turn to comfort myself, just because I am worth it. You are worth it too.   

I look forward to hearing what kind thing you have done for yourself today, and also of hearing more of your story.

 
Wools

[HappyChappy]

Hi Shark,

You situation does sound very harrowing. When people are unhappy they lash out, your sister has three ailments that normally included depression as a symptom. They’ll be focusing on the none BPD ailments because those have low cost, higher success rate solutions. Bi polar is considered to be a chemical imbalance, treatable with medication. Do you know if your sister is taking her medication, and having the regular check ups ? Because a BPD finds it hard to accept they are anything less than perfect, not taking the medication is a way of denying there’s anything wrong.

It does sound like your sister is unfairly projecting blame onto you. They are the biggest gossips going, so accusing you of that sounds about right. Also a BPD often does the push pull thing. There’s a BPD book called “I hate you, don’t leave me.” So just make your sister know you’re available. Let her know where to find you.  Easy to say, hard to do, keep reminding yourself its not personal. By allowing her to paint you as the “disgusting” person, thats her way of self soothing.  Also use S.E.T. or a simpiar technique with her. This is where you use Support, Empathy and Truth when helping her. Lots of “there, there’s” and “Oh, I knows”. When my BPD use to scream down the phone at me (she’s the aggressive type) for hours, I would put the receive on the bed so I could hear the volume, and when the volume died down or when quiet,  I’d pick it up and say “Oh I know.” or “Really”. It seemed to sooth my BPD mum. Obviously better if you can pay attention, but the point is, sometimes just knowing someones on the end of the phone was enough for my BPD. I wish you and your sister the very best. Post as often as is helpful for you.

Also don’t forget to think about your own mental health. Are doing things to give yourself the needed breaks ? 

[cesk]

I have been thinking about my difficult relationship with my sister.  I never understood her blame but now understand how our family created unhealthy dynamics and I was taking too much responsibility for her, and really wanted her to love me in a way that I did not get from my family. It helped me come to peace with our difficulties, to not blame her or me, but to understand we were in bad situation b/c of our parents' problems.  I also was the nurturer, helper and healer but she turned on me after my son was born and we have not really gotten along since.  At first I was so baffled but slowly understood how the messed up dynamics of our family led me into a dance with her where she was overdependent on me and then when I had my own child she felt really abandoned and lashed out nastily, even when I was trying to help. Her behavior towards me is narcissistic-like, though I don't think she is like that to the rest of the world...  Something about our dynamics brings that out and I can do nothing right because of those...  Not sure that helps, but it really did help me to see the relationship in the setting of my entire FOO.  Took a lot of talking with therapists to get this perspective and to forgive myself for "failing" her. I still deal with a lot of guilt about it (though she is doing fine and I am the one struggling with depression, anxiety, poor self-care, unemployment, etc. -- I STILL take the blame and swallow the toxic guilt I get from her even in our minimal interactions)