from hopeful to shattered in one afternoon

[karaokequeen]

Hello, everyone. My first post here with this username. I had a different one a decade ago and posted a handful of times but wasn't been able to log in recently. Anyway hi! This forum has helped me so much even as a long-time mostly lurker.

My sister is BPD and our relationship has been tumultuous, including multi-year NC spans, as well as low-contact civil periods that have lasted just as long.

Why I am writing today: after blocking my sister's texts two days ago, when I refused to respond to rage texting and insisted I would only do a phone call to have a real conversation, my Dad the best flying monkey ever, asked me to call her.

I did. Three times, in fact, because she hung up on me twice. I thought eventually we had come to an understanding and I felt hopeful that we could move toward a more honest relationship. I even called her son and told her that while I understand he wants to distance himself from her because it's painful that I really felt she was working on things and deserved our empathy.

She called me 30 minutes later about a fun thing and it seemed like old times.

An hour later, she's sad texting and I'm trying to comfort her and tell her people care about her. It starts getting desperate and near-suicidal.
 
A minute later, she's rage texting me again, and I told her I respect that she needs more time to process and to please just call me because I don't want to do these unproductive accusatory texts. Her response:

F*(%$ off! You ruined my life. More    It's all your fault. I hope you got what you wanted. My life is over.

So now she's blocked less than 3 hours after reconciling.  I am exhausted. Beat to crap. And heartbroken too. I was so hopeful and now just ughhh.

I had potato chips and a CBD soda for dinner.

Any thoughts, perspective, advice? Thank you for listening. 

[Woolspinner2000]

Hi karaokequeen, 

Glad you're back to interact with us. I'm really sorry that the drama has picked back up again in your life. It's tough walking through the merry-go-round of cycles with the pwBPD who is in our life.

What are you doing for some self care these days?

 
Wools

[karaokequeen]

Thank you for asking. I went thrifting and got a nice lunch out. Still felt beat up from the week but getting better. Therapy appointment Monday.

[madeline7]

Your dinner was potato chips and a CBD soda, mine was fritos and a champagne cocktail! Not funny but true. The "hope" that I once had has left, and acceptance has replaced it. Acceptance comes with a mixed bag of emotions for me, but I no longer expect things to change. Recently my uBPDm demonstrated zero empathy for a family member going through a health crisis, and with this ultimate display of narcissism, I felt numb and detached from her. I now understand that I cannot fix her, and must focus on staying healthy and staying detached from her toxicity.

[lillylou2]

hugs

[lillylou2]

Hello, everyone. My first post here with this username. I had a different one a decade ago and posted a handful of times but wasn't been able to log in recently. Anyway hi! This forum has helped me so much even as a long-time mostly lurker.

My sister is BPD and our relationship has been tumultuous, including multi-year NC spans, as well as low-contact civil periods that have lasted just as long.

Why I am writing today: after blocking my sister's texts two days ago, when I refused to respond to rage texting and insisted I would only do a phone call to have a real conversation, my Dad the best flying monkey ever, asked me to call her.

I did. Three times, in fact, because she hung up on me twice. I thought eventually we had come to an understanding and I felt hopeful that we could move toward a more honest relationship. I even called her son and told her that while I understand he wants to distance himself from her because it's painful that I really felt she was working on things and deserved our empathy.

She called me 30 minutes later about a fun thing and it seemed like old times.

An hour later, she's sad texting and I'm trying to comfort her and tell her people care about her. It starts getting desperate and near-suicidal.
 
A minute later, she's rage texting me again, and I told her I respect that she needs more time to process and to please just call me because I don't want to do these unproductive accusatory texts. Her response:

F*(%$ off! You ruined my life. More    It's all your fault. I hope you got what you wanted. My life is over.

So now she's blocked less than 3 hours after reconciling.  I am exhausted. Beat to crap. And heartbroken too. I was so hopeful and now just ughhh.

I had potato chips and a CBD soda for dinner.

Any thoughts, perspective, advice? Thank you for listening. 

hugs 

[zachira]

It is a long painful process detaching from a disordered family member whom you love and care about. I don't think we can ever fully accept that a family member who means so much to us, really doesn't care about our wellbeing and uses us as a place to dump dysregulated emotions on. One of the best pieces of advice my therapist gave me was when in the presence of a disordered person to focus on what I was feeling inside instead of getting lost in observing and taking on the feelings of the disordered person. We are here to listen and support you on the long journey. Post as often as you need to and we will respond. Many members have been here for a long time, and are in a much better place than when they first became a member of PSI. Many members like you have done what you are doing, taking breaks from PSI and coming back. We welcome your return though sorry for the circumstances that bring you here.

[karaokequeen]

Thanks, everyone.  I so appreciate your responses and your understanding. So many people who don't have siblings with personality disorders really just don't understand and just don't get it. I'm sure you've often heard: "oh, but they're family. You won't always agree. You have to work things out! They love you!"

It's so good to be here where no one says that. I'm sorry we have this shared experience, but I'm relieved we have each other. Sorry about champagne and Frito dinners but it does help to know I'm not alone.

Also, this: "really doesn't care about our wellbeing and uses us as a place to dump dysregulated emotions on"

I can SO RELATE.

Thank you, friends. 

[Notwendy]

I can totally relate too. Sadly with giving up hope also comes grief. Grief at the loss of the relationship you wish you could have, but acceptance that it's not possible.

I do have a suggestion. While calling up your nephew was something you learned was doing good, as a child of a BPD parent who have heard countless times from her relatives that I need to make efforts to be good to my mother, this doesn't consider the unique experience of being a child of someone like that. Relatives may have a sense something is not right, but they have not witnessed her actual behavior towards me.

As hard as it is for you to distance yourself from a sister, it's also hard to distance oneself from a parent. Your sister's son isn't distancing himself by choice, he's doing it because he feels he has to. He's also grieving too.

Because I have not been supported by my mother's family, I have had to become distant from them as well. I can't change the fact that they are critical of me for not being as close to her and since she blames me for that, I fear they believe her. And I have grieved too. Grieved for the loss of the relationship with them.

My father's family did understand it, support me and love me unconditionally. Even if your nephew is grown, he does not have a functional mother who loves him unconditionally. My father's family members provided some of this love, which was greatly lacking.

Fast forward, my kids are close to their cousins on my dad's side. They are the only family members I trust and feel comfortable with. You may not be able to change your relationship with your sister but it's possible you can be a loving figure to your nephew, and a loving great auntie to his children if he has them.

[karaokequeen]

Thank you so much for sharing. Interestingly, this is exactly the reason my sister raged at me - for supporting her kids and empathizing with them and not HER during her outbursts. She sees it as the deepest betrayal. I told her: your daughter called me hyperventilating and having a panic attack because you yelled at her in a locked car for 30 minutes straight and she thought she was going to lose her mind and I gave her the support she needed. My sister's reply of course is that I don't understand her side of things and I should have called her to ask and not reassure her daughter.

In an effort to reconcile, I told both of her kids how much I loved them and supported them and understood them but I was going to try not to talk about their mom to them. Maybe I shouldn't have done that, because apparently that wasn't enough to satisfy my sister since the kids don't want to talk to her anyway and now that is all my fault and that is why i have ruined her life.

Sadly with giving up hope also comes grief. Grief at the loss of the relationship you wish you could have, but acceptance that it's not possible.

So this that you said is starting to really make sense. Maybe instead I should double down on the kids instead of trying to find a way to have a relationship with my sister.

Definitely some food for thought. Thank you again.

[Notwendy]

My BPD mother would react the same way too. She sees people as either "on her side" or "not her side". The Karpman triangle helps explain this. Your sister feels like a victim. When you support the kids - she sees you as a persecutor.

One reason I had to let go of the relationship with her family was that they "took her side" or at least tried to play both sides. Had I told them what was really going on, they'd be in a position to choose. They don't want to get involved with that. I let them "be on her side".

My father's side of the family and my mother didn't get along. They tolerated her for the sake of my father but were not worried about her not seeing them "on her side". She didn't see them that way to begin with.

My father was also in the position of "her side" or " not her side". It was always her side.

My kids are grown now. My mother was infuriated when we took a trip to visit my father's side of the family. I understand how it felt- to see us make the effort to get the kids together to visit them, and not have chosen to visit her. But the honest truth is that my kids love my father's side of the family and were excited to see them.  I am so grateful for the example of "normal" they modeled for me as a kid.

My mother yells at me in the car too. I won't drive with her unless someone else is in the car. I felt safe with my father's family. You won't change your sister by being a support to her kids. On the other hand, your being a support to her kids could be a game changer for them.

[karaokequeen]

I can't even tell you how helpful this is. And I am so sorry that you have had to go through what my niece and nephew have. I know how much this hurts and how hard it is to deal with. I thank you so much for sharing your story and perspective. It helps me so much. I had been feeling like a terrible person for talking to those kids but I see how it gave them another perspective and helped them feel validated and not alone. 

[Notwendy]

I am glad it helped and your post helps me too!

I had a hard time understanding how my mother's family ( they have their own issues but are intact, intelligent, adults) could have turned a blind eye to what was going on when we were children. I know they didn't know the whole of it but they must have known some of it.

The answer is that my mother's family is enmeshed and clannish. They act as if they are a single unit. I heard once that someone didn't invite all of them to a party and so they decided that none of them should attend out of family loyalty. I have heard my mother say she's attending a function out of family solidarity. So they feel they are being disloyal if they don't all support each other. But what about us kids? Were we not family too?

I don't consider myself a real "family member" in their world. I consider my father's family my family. But from reading your post, I see where my mother's family would have felt disloyal had they intervened. My mother would have been very angry at them if they didn't "take her side".  I can understand this but I don't feel at ease around them like I do with my father's family.