RE: New To This-Brother With BPD I Think

[Jacqueline1*]

I think, that my brother is suffering from BPD. Our relationship is so difficult. This has gone on for years. He is very manipulative, and blames his family for everything. He doesn't take responsibility for his actions and behaviors. He thinks, others are the problem. He is like a Dr. Jeckell/Mr.Hyde personality. He can be very nice one minute, and very mean the next. It is so frustrating. He's in his thirties, and shows no improvement in the last twenty years. He's goes to find help, but it seems like the counselors are never good enough for him. He's a perfectionist, quite intelligent.

I am asking for advice from people out there. Thanks for your time and input.

[Kwamina]

Hi Jacqueline1* and welcome to BPDFamily

Sounds like your brother is quite a challenging person to have a relationship with.

You mention him being very manipulative. In what ways do you feel he manipulates people?

You have a very difficult relationship with him. How is his relationship with other family-members? Does he also treat them this way?

The Board Parrot

[zachira]

My heart hurts when I read your post. Know that you are not alone. There are quite a few us on PSI that have a sibling with BPD.  I have two siblings with BPD, my only living siblings, and your description of your brother could be a description of how my siblings behave.
You are asking for advice. First of all, I would allow most of the time the contact with your brother to be one sided. In other words, let him tell you what is going on with him, while limiting what you reveal about yourself and others. In my experience with my family members with BPD which includes a mother with BPD and other relatives in addition to my two siblings, people with BPD get angry when having to hear about others as they expect the conversation to only be about themselves. The person with BPD will get angry with the person sharing about themselves to their face if they are a close relative, and rage later about people whom they are not so close to who shared about themselves and others when that person is out of the room. My family members with BPD, and there are quite a few of them, constantly smear other family members, and limiting what they know about others can help to curb the smear campaign. I would be cordial with your brother, while limiting contact with him when possible. Sometimes you will have to stand up for yourself, if he is being abusive. The best thing to do is to walk away, hang up the phone, do what you have to do to get away from him. You do not have to tolerate abusive behaviors.
I am not sure all that I have written is very helpful. You may be would like some help with getting treatment for your brother, and I am afraid I don't have much to offer, though other members might. Can you tell us more about your relationship with your brother and what kind of help you would like from us?

[shield-me]

I think, that my brother is suffering from BPD. Our relationship is so difficult. This has gone on for years. He is very manipulative, and blames his family for everything. He doesn't take responsibility for his actions and behaviors. He thinks, others are the problem. He is like a Dr. Jeckell/Mr.Hyde personality. He can be very nice one minute, and very mean the next. It is so frustrating. He's in his thirties, and shows no improvement in the last twenty years. He's goes to find help, but it seems like the counselors are never good enough for him. He's a perfectionist, quite intelligent.

I am asking for advice from people out there. Thanks for your time and input.

Oh my God, are you me Jacqueline? I'm going through the same thing you are going through. My brother has uBPD. I'm going through abuse hell.

[Methuen]

Hi Jacqueline1

As you can already see, this is a community that "gets it".  You will find lots of support here.

I would allow most of the contact with your brother to be one sided. In other words, let him tell you what is going on with him, while limiting what you reveal about yourself and others. In my experience with my family members with BPD which includes a mother with BPD and other relatives in addition to my two siblings, people with BPD get angry when having to hear about others as they expect the conversation to only be about themselves.

Bingo!  I'm chiming in my support to Zachira's advice here, because it's a great suggestion and it works!  The challenge is to not have your own "emotional reaction" to whatever the pwBPD is saying, because they will push your buttons and say things to trigger you.  They feed off that reaction like a cancer.  The trick is to not give them a reaction.  Any reaction you give is rewarding their bad behavior and feeding their drama.  I found it really helpful to "emotionally detach" from my pwBPD, because that helped me to gradually learn to not take the things they say personally.  I don't know how to describe it except that it helps to become more of an observer (like a robot without feelings), than a participant in the drama.

Limiting what you reveal about yourself (like Zachira said) is super important.  Don't talk about your feelings.  Don't talk about your hurt.  Don't talk about your daily life or give them any personal info about you (politics, friends, work etc).  They don't want to hear it, and if they do hear, they will store that info until an opportunity to use it against you becomes available.  Just listen to them.  If they start to abuse you, exit the situation i.e. "I have to go now."

Perhaps for a while, LC is the way to go, so you can take care of yourself.

Have you found the link "how to get the most out of this site?"  There is a ton of super helpful info there, to help you move forward with this problem.

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=334882.msg13028391#msg13028391