Advice please

[Chanel2000]

Hi, this is my first post. I’m struggling with my sisters BPD. She is in crisis right now. I live far away. I have spent the last few days talking with her. I have been begging her to get help but she refuses. This has been going on for 5 years. It is constant threats. This evening she ended the text conversation by saying she had lost everything and that she was leaving her home for good. I was begging her to listen to me. Told her how worried I was about her but she said that was her final word to me. I don’t know what to do.
To be very honest with you she terrifies me. I love her but when her name appears on my phone, the anxiety I feel is so intense I feel like I am going to have a panic attack.
She tells me how lonely she is and how anxious she is. She has a husband and children but they are also at their wits end. Her husband never sorts out therapy. When things get really bad he takes her to the hospital, she stays there a few days. Then she comes home and no follow up is done. She lives in New York and I’m at the other end of the country.
I try to be there as much as I can but I’m exhausted and am living on my nerves at the moment. That along with coffee and nicotine. I’m so anxious I can’t eat.
What do I do. I’m saying to myself, this is not in your control but I love her and want to help. I just don’t know how to.
If she leaves the house. What happens. What if she tries to kill herself like she has tried various different times. Her husband won’t answer the phone to me.

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[Swimmy55]

Maybe the first step is you taking care of you.  This would include you maybe putting in a boundary on when she can call or she can't be verbally aggressive to you unless you will hang up. Or some such.  Also, don't borrow trouble.  We can't know what the future holds or what her actions will be.  Is it possible for you to get help for you first? Maybe read up on BPD - there are book suggestions in the library here.  Or you can try a 12 step program like Codependent;s anonymous.  It is free and it is for those of us who struggle with co dependency, feeling like it is up to us to rescue.   Thanks for writing here, please keep us posted- you are not alone.

[Sancho]

I agree with Swimmy55. But I understand exactly where you are at with this. For years every time the phone rang, my BP would rise and I was on high alert. The intense emotions of the BPD left me with signs of PTSD - on high alert, panic attacks when the phone rang etc.

So instead of one person with a mental health problem there were two!

It is important to understand BPD and the feelings of abandonment that they experience. Gosh I hear this phrase so often 'I've got nothing. No one gives a stuff about me. I do everything for everyone and no one cares'.

It is hard to take when I pay all the bills, raise her daughter, etc etc.

But in the early days I was the rescuer, and I didn't understand the illness. I have come to learn that these emotions flare up and can subside pretty quickly. The threats of suicide used to make me frantic, but now I know I have done all I can do and that I am not responsible for her actions.

I started with not immediately answering phone calls. There would be a message of course but I would wait a while till I rang back. Sometimes by the time I had rung back the crisis was over!

If you can step back and love your sister, but not feel you are totally responsible for her welfare, that would be a great first step. There are lots of good reading materials here to start your journey if you have not read them already.

It's a process of 'letting go' - I can't do it for another.