from a sibling...

[vortensity]

Hi all, I only just found this forum but wanted to just talk about my experience as a sibling of a person with BPD. Maybe so I can feel less alone, or maybe so other siblings can feel less alone? There seems to be little to no material out there geared towards siblings so I sometimes feel like our experience isn't even a consideration. Which funnily enough, my experiences not being a consideration, often even to myself prior to therapy, is probably exactly the best way to summarize how growing up with my sibling with BPD felt.

My sibling with bpd currently id's as non-binary, so I will use they/them pronouns in this post.

This paragraph is a bit of a tangent but on that note, tbh, they don't ever tend to stick to their gender or sexual orientation label (both change every few months or more often) but this is the one area where I tend to just take them at face value since I'd hate to assume it's another stunt for attention only for it to be the one time that it wasn't. Plus, I'm very pro-lgbt+ and am bisexual myself, I've actively donated to non-binary and trans friends' of mine transition gofundmes. I only bring up that my sibling in particular changes labels frequently as an example of how unstable their own understanding of themself is which is a core feature of BPD. [More tangent, but I have a friend also wBPD who does the same thing with sexual orientation and gender labels. Both of them are AFAB and have at one point came out as lesbians only to go on to only date men after doing so? The friend wBPD also started id'ing as non-binary recently. Maybe it's just a complete coincidence due to the fact I hang out with lgbt+ people, or just generally people with progressive values, but is this label cycling a common thing for people wBPD?]

Anyway, I have been in therapy for a few years, but recently had to switch therapists due to mine going on leave and it's shocking to me how much I've unpacked about my experiences with my sibling wBPD in that time when it was something that only rarely came up with my last therapist. I was 23 when I first started therapy and I think even then I felt unallowed to be affected or upset by my sibling's behaviors and actions due to their mental health issues. Official diagnoses varied and changed for my sibling over the years but included: BPD, bipolar, ADHD, panic disorder, and prior to the bipolar dx, depression and anxiety. They also have had a couple instances of psychosis though most have been induced by smoking weed, not sure if its their other meds or their brain chemistry that interacts badly with it. Needless to say they have a lot of things going on, but I do believe BPD is at least part of it.

I'm the oldest sibling, my sibling wBPD is the middle child, and my brother is the youngest. I think part of the reason that I refused to admit they affected me so much is because there was always pressure on me to be responsible the responsible. To be the bigger person if she was being dramatic. "Don't let it get to you," was a phrase always directed at me. Never the sibling with BPD.

I used to feel very protective of my siblings, being the oldest. But the older we got the less willing I was to stand up for my sibling wBPD unquestionably. Because often, when there were problems with other people at school (especially in high school,) they were of their own making. I just did my best to survive and avoid her messes at all costs. I was in all AP and honors classes, I spent every weeknight at the competition dance studio I was part of. When things got bad with my sibling, I made myself as busy as possible, in part to not deal with it and also in part to prove to others (and more importantly to myself) that I wasn't like them. When they flunked geometry and self-harmed because my dad simply asked them to do their summer school homework, I made sure to get an A in AP calculus the next year without complaint. The problem with that was instead of figuring myself out like most teenagers I knew were doing, I was so determined to be my sibling's antithesis so my parents would never have to worry about me, that there was no room for figuring out the real me. I repressed my emotions, I repressed my struggles, I repressed myself. If I could shove it down maybe it didn't matter at all.

Even from a very young age my sibling was emotionally sensitive and volatile. I can remember my parents, aunts, uncles all commenting on it, to the point that looking back on it, that level of sensitivity had to be anomaly compared to other kids. They were always the type to cry easily, to take everything as a personal attack, to the point where I had already learned to walk on eggshells around them well before it developed into full-blown BPD later on. I do wonder if them being so sensitive primed them for developing BPD? Because when their behavior turned into full-blown BPD, it wasn't exactly like a hard pivot, it was more like boiling frogs. If the frogs in question were the rest of the family.

There was at least one suicide attempt (that 7 years later they outright admitted to me was faked for attention), constant self-harm with no regard for who was there to witness it (I remember being particularly bothered she would do it in front of our younger brother, though I was also only 15 when this started so I don't think it didn't affect me to witness), an eating disorder that they begged my parents to get them into an inpatient program for that they also later claimed was faked and for attention. This was all going on in the early 2010s when suicide and self-harm and EDs were being de-stigmatized in some ways, but also these things were becoming glorified on sites like tumblr where my sibling was active. It makes me wonder whether some of those outbursts for attention weren't in some ways related to exposure to that. But if not faking an ED it would have probably been something else.

When they had (or didn't have, maybe, I don't know what to think) their eating disorder at one point they accused my attempt to express concern as me wanting them to be fat so I could be "the pretty one." It was that moment that solidified for me that no matter how much I proved otherwise to myself or them or anyone with my actions that I was someone who cared about others, that my sibling didn't care about me in return, and would use me as their villain of the day if it would serve their victimhood regardless of the truth. And, I'm done pretending that, and other things they said and say, didn't hurt or affect me at all. Or that its okay because their mental illness made them say it. The BPD doesn't have a mouth. My sibling does.

Ironically, I have since been diagnosed with ADHD and my stimulant meds really mess with my appetite. My sibling has no problems making snide remarks about how I should eat more. Which I know. I am actively doing everything I can to not lose more weight while on my medication and have kept my weight stable for months now. But it's like they love to have a reason to feel superior to me or more knowledgeable than me.

Once, I explained to them about how springs work in a light-hearted conversation about an old pull-out bed that our brother had to sleep on during a vacation. They acted like I had personally insulted them. Or was trying to prove something. I wasn't. I just happened to be in school and literally majoring in physics at the time and thought I could add to the conversation with some relevant information I happened to know. My mistake, apparently. I thought maybe I inadvertently used a condescending tone (which they're fully allowed to do to me, though, in their world) but even my brother was confused at their sudden outburst. I have probably a million other examples like this. I've never met anyone else who could hear someone say something as innocuous as 'The sky is blue' and manage to take it as a personal insult.

My brother, before he was in AA, once confided in me while he was drunk about all the things and mental health struggles he tried to keep to himself because our sibling wBPD's issues always took precedence with my parents. I did the same for a long time but instead of depression and addiction I ended up with raging anxiety and a perfectionist complex due to all that repression of... everything. Neither of us have told our parents any of that. What good would it do? It won't change the past. It won't change that we're in our mid-20s and they still have no choice but to help them more because they need more help than my brother or me.

I wish I could blame my parents. Blaming parents feels a lot more acceptable with my generation than holding people with mental health issues accountable for their own actions. And to be fair, my parents were never fully emotionally available, they had issues of their own that prevented them knowing how to do that. I'm sure that they never knew how to deal with a highly sensitive child like my sibling even before it became BPD which probably didn't help. And at times I think their ambivalence at the behaviors of a teenager with BPD led to a passive enabling. But they were not bad parents as a whole.

I think a combination of bullying in elementary school and an unexpected death of an extended family member that they were close with (which definitely resulted in them experiecing traumatic grief) led to my sibling's progression from just very sensitive to BPD. And yeah those things suck. But it doesn't excuse everything they've done since.

I do love my sibling. I want them to be happy. But I want to be happy too, and it took me a long time to learn that wanting to be happy is not a selfish thing. To be honest, sometimes I still feel selfish for wanting it.

I've also learned by now that you can't fix people who have no interest in fixing themselves.

One thing about coming of age in the 2010s was there was this idea that was really big at the time that people with mental health conditions suffered the most and therefore family members and loved ones shouldn't bring up how their relative's mental health affected them because it was secondary or "dehumanizing" the person with the illness or disorder. And I don't doubt my sibling suffers due to their BPD. But they also caused a lot of suffering. Suffering that led to me having clinical anxiety since I was a teenager and to my brother being in recovery for alcoholism before even graduating college. Our suffering matters too. My suffering matters too. Who is actually helped by pretending otherwise?

So, I guess this long post ends with, I'm done. I'm done pretending what affected me didn't. I'm done silencing myself. I'm done putting their experiences before mine.

[kells76]

Hello vortensity and welcome -- you found the right place to feel less alone, meet others dealing with PD siblings, and be seen and cared about. What has happened to you matters.

As I read your thoughts it felt to me like you felt relieved to finally be able to say what really happened, to not have to "pull your punches" as it were, to not have to euphemize or cater to feelings or "try to say it nicer". It seemed like you had space to just say what YOU wanted to say, how YOU wanted to say it, and not have to "tone it down" because someone else always has to come first. Is that close?

I think I hear some... frustration, maybe? Or perhaps just "noticing" -- about how there are expected attitudes, feelings, and vocabulary people are "supposed" to have towards those with MH issues. To me, it's almost like a tacitly imposed and incredibly rigid hierarchy, dressed up as "it's just being compassionate", and as long as you go along with it, there aren't problems. But once you start raising your hand and saying "Yeah, I get it, MH issues are devastating to the sufferer... and look around them, look at the trail of broken relationships and traumatized family... what about us? What about me?", then there's this expectation to not notice, to be nice, to be the bigger person, to shame oneself for being healthy!

I'm glad you are able to look back at your family structure, personalities, birth order, and, importantly, social context to understand this swirl of factors impacting the tacit and explicit expectations for you as a person with a BPD sibling.

This is a place where you can explore that, and "raise your hand" and say "What about ME?" and it's OK. There's room for you here.

...

This seems pretty core to your current experience:

I do love my sibling. I want them to be happy. But I want to be happy too, and it took me a long time to learn that wanting to be happy is not a selfish thing. To be honest, sometimes I still feel selfish for wanting it.

How has it looked (and felt) to you to rearrange your priorities and choose your own wellbeing first? What areas have been easier for you to do that? What areas have been harder?

...

Really look forward to hearing more from you, whenever works for you -- no pressure. Please feel free to dig back and look at other members' threads; you are definitely not alone in having a PD sibling and you'll find many members walking similar paths.

Again, welcome!

kells76

[livednlearned]

Hi vortensity,

I'm a sibling of a pwBPD and it defined my life even more than my parents did, in many ways. Although how my parents handled his BPD probably impacted me just as much, though similar to what you wrote, the two go hand-in-hand and are hard to untangle. I cannot imagine how my life would be different if my parents had been more emotionally available and proactive.

It's so unfortunate, too, that your first therapist didn't catch the ways in which your sibling's issues defined your childhood trauma. Having an untreated BPD sibling is often traumatizing. It's so hard to know whether you're seeing the right therapist and the wrong person can really waste a lot of time.

Thanks for sharing your insights into the ways having a BPD sibling affected you. I found it hard to find places where I could learn from others, too. My sibling is close in age and my own identity formed because he was always there for every milestone, it's hard to imagine life without him, or to imagine who I would be without him and his behaviors.

One of the most freeing things in my life was to validate how I felt, to put my feelings first. It was made easier by going through a high-conflict divorce with someone who in retrospect was very similar to my BPD sibling. I was raised to orbit volatile, angry, self-centered, erratic people so that's what I did.

The wreckage of that was severe and that made it somewhat easier to do a full reset and learn what I had previously chosen to ignore.

It was a bit rocky at first to put myself first, and I think I did it wrong. But I had to go through an awkward stage as I translated what it meant to be emotionally well. Many situations feel like an entirely new lesson although I think the upside is knowing there is a new baseline where my feelings matter regardless of what others might say or do.

Glad you're here and thanks for posting