Need advice

[Depression = 72% of members]

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.

[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.

[beatricex]

Hi Chanel2000,
I have a similar problem but with a different twist.  It's my mom that has BPD and I feel all I do is enable her.  I finally had enough and stopped communicating with her and my Dad.

They reached out to my husband and I today in not "crisis" but asking for help.  The anxiety is so high when I see it's them contacting me again?  Why?  My mom had back surgery i didn't contact her, mother's day came and went, I didnt contact her.  The last text message I sent to my Dad was like "what no apology?"  he did apologize but I never responded back.

We are just supply.  no more no less.  put your efforts into meaningful relationships, ones where u get something other than pain out of it.  at least that's what i'm trying to tell myself today.

what are u doing to self soothe?  i mean besides the nicotine and unhealthy stuff?  not here to judge but i realized awhile ago that way of self soothing just leads to more stress and we are literally killing ourselves slowly when we do that (i quit smoking 8 years ago btw)
 
b

[Chanel2000]

Hi Beatrice. Thank you for getting back to me.
I do struggle with all of this. I guess the guilt I feel when I don’t respond is so intense. Then I’m enabling. But what if I don’t respond and she goes off the rails, or tries to kill herself. Would I be the one partly responsible as I didn’t talk her down? These are the things that go through my mind.
My therapist said that she is a master manipulator. How can she hurt people in the way she does. Is she in that much pain that she wants everyone else around her to feel the same way? Does she tell me she is going to kill herself because she wants to see my reaction?
If I stop contact, will that make her feelings of abandonment more intense which will then make the situation worse. I don’t know any more.
Reading about how you should always help some with mental health issues and how bad ignoring their pleas for help is not ok, is very confusing to me. I was getting text from her pleading for help. How do I walk away from that. It’s not in my nature. But at the same time I need to look after myself and my family. This is all very logical. I understand the logic of setting boundaries but find it nearly impossible to implement. I have turned my phone off right now but in the morning I know that I am going to be a mess pressing that ‘on’ button

[Chanel2000]

I’ve lost count the amount of times she has told me she was going to kill herself. I’ve had text suicide notes, calls with wondering if I knew the best way to kill oneself as she has tied the belt around her neck but could not get it to tighten properly, even calls on the face that she had just tried to hang herself but the scarf unraveled and now she was bleeding from her nose from pressure. Her husband has caught her a couple of times trying to hang herself and on one of thousands occasions had to pull her down.
She tells me that her husband is telling her to go kill herself and if she does, to not do it in the house. I asked him about this and he said that never happened. That he never said that. So confused. Is she lying, is she in deep turmoil. I don’t know.

[beatricex]

definetly  in deep turmoil, I dont know about the lying.

She has latched onto u as her savior, u listen afterall, u r her sister it's your "duty" or whatever is in your family script.

you need to sit down and write out your play.  you are the star of your play.  whatever relative with mental issues is trying to get in the way of your being the star of your life, you need to write them out of the script.

and btw that does not mean you've abandoned them and if she commits suicide, no it's not your fault

i'm sorry this is so tough for u

my brother and I recently had a phone convo and in it he spoke a lot about killing himself.  a gun was brought up real specific.  i consider him my closest relative.  if he does something stupid I will in no way feel responsible

it's his life, he has a pretty good one if he could just see that

[Chanel2000]

Still no contact. Turned on my phone s total mess and nothing. Is this her manipulation of me.
She was seeing a psychiatrist who recently dropped her siting she would no longer see her as she was sick of her threats! I don’t know what that means as to quote my sister, ‘ she done nothing wrong’
She takes bonzos which have to be hidden from her as if she finds them she takes handfuls at a time.