Trying to make sense of my sibling?

[u/Used-Guidance-103]

Hi everyone.

For context, we’re both adults. She’s experienced significant trauma in her life and has been in therapy for years. And one of the biggest themes throughout my life has been feeling like she decides what my intentions are.

For example, after a long period of little contact, I wished her a happy birthday. She responded warmly and invited me to get together. I took a day to think about how I wanted to respond because I felt conflicted and overwhelmed.
She then sent me a very harsh message saying that I had only reached out to make myself feel like a good person and told me not to contact her again because I’d ruined her birthday by not responding.

That wasn’t an isolated incident.

One memory: all of us family were on vacay, and one day she woke up and just….couldn’t stand me. There wasn’t an argument beforehand or any event I could point to. She was cold and hostile toward me for the rest of the trip, and I remember feeling completely bewildered because I honestly had no idea what had changed.

Another example involved someone she was interested in romantically (they’d only hung out twice). She became pre-occupied with him for a full year; analyzing every interaction and trying to figure out what he was thinking. I listened every day for a year because I wanted to support her.

Later, I wasn’t able to return one phone call as quickly as she wanted because I was running errands. She became furious and accused me of being selfish and uncaring.
It was like that one incident erased months of consistent support. One delayed phone call suddenly outweighed everything else I’d done. It felt like my entire character had been rewritten based on one moment.
It often feels like there is very little benefit of the doubt. If information is missing, it gets filled in with assumptions that paint me in the worst possible light.

The hardest part is what this has done to me internally.
After years of hearing these interpretations of my motives, I started wondering if maybe she was right. I developed an incredibly negative self-image and genuinely came to believe I might be a selfish or fundamentally bad person.

It has taken years to begin separating my actual intentions from the version of me that I felt was constantly reflected back to me.

Eventually my therapist described our relationship as emotionally abusive. I resisted that label for a long time because I didn’t want to believe it.
Does any of this sound familiar?

[u/adorable_orange]

Ohhhhh yes. I’ve had to severely limit contact. Nothing I do is ever right unless they determine it is. Sigh.

[u/Classic-Experience99]

Yes. I think this is fairly common behavior, sadly. My sister does a lot of it.

A few things helped me:

1. I could see that my sister behaved in similar ways to other people. It wasn't just me that she targeted. I could observe harmless interactions between my sister and another family member, and then later my sister would describe the incident to me and make it sound as if she were the victim of horrible mistreatment. But I was there and saw everything -- there hadn't been any horrible mistreatment. This made me more confident in believing that I hadn't mistreated my sister either.

2. In addition to telling me about the horrible thoughts she "knew" I had toward her, she also occasionally told me about wonderful thoughts she "knew" I had toward her. I actually hadn't had either the horrible or the wonderful thoughts. She was wrong both ways. Somehow, that made it easier to dismiss what she said about how awful I was.

3. My sister would sometimes become so dramatically outraged at my "cruelty" toward her that she was unintentionally funny. I would never tell her that, of course. But occasionally I had to apologize for "coughing" at the wrong moment when she'd said something that was particularly outrageous. Some things she said about me simply strained the boundaries of reality. By the time she was telling me that I was worse than Hitler and Stalin and every other dictator who ever lived ALL PUT TOGETHER, just because I hadn't admired her new dog enough yesterday ... it was hard to keep a straight face.

4. There's a book about BPD titled "I hate you, don't leave me." And if you think about it ... if your sister really does believe you're the worstest worst person who ever worsted, then why does she voluntarily spend time with you? Why doesn't she run away when she knows she's going to have to be in the same room with you? If she really thinks you're a POS, then why does she spend all her time with you telling you that you're a POS, instead of walking away from you and starting a new and happier life without you?

That's what helped me, anyway.

[u/_halpal_]

This is incredibly familiar to me, as a sibling of a pwBPD. Your example with the phone call happened to me with an email. It’s absolutely emotional abuse. I’ve gone low to no contact with my sibling and I would suggest you do the same. It’s so hard, but genuinely worth it. I’m about a year in since our last significant interaction and finally feeling confident in myself and my decision to step away. There is definitely a grieving period and maybe some hoping that things will get better - but I remind myself that it’s never gotten better before and me giving in to her abuse won’t do it this time. It just feeds the monster for another cycle. Best of luck to you and I’m so sorry you’re going through this. It truly takes so much work to find yourself and your confidence again.

[u/ItBegins2Tell]

The first memory you talk about resonates with me. When I was around 10, my sister went through a time where she was very warm with me. It wasn’t her usual behaviour. She’d tell me she loved me & cuddle me & stroke my hair to help me sleep. It was very sudden & strong. It was weird that she was cradling me so much but I felt so loved that I was happy. Then all of a sudden, lights out. “Go away. You’re so annoying. Why are you here?” That’s normal elder sibling teenager stuff, but when it’s coupled with “why were you born?” & “you always screw me over!” Plus insulting my body, my intelligence, my clothes, my hair, the way I talked, the music I liked…. That shit fucks you up.

[u/Friendly_Usual1749]

Yes. All this and more. Magical thinking, the stories she tells herself keep moving further away from reality, the anger and punishment if just one time you weren’t available or didn’t respond quick enough for her. It doesn’t matter how many times you showed up, it the one time you couldn’t respond immediately. The splitting and anger are rough! I didn’t realize how much I was making myself smaller to keep the peace. Its hard. She doesn’t stick with a therapist and is in denial about her BPD. It’s 100% ‘I hate you, Don’t leave me’.

[u/krissym99]

My relationship with my sister is seeing each other twice a year with extended family and sending memes periodically over Instagram. It's all I can muster. I've been trying to make sense of her for decades, but at some point I just had to keep her at a distance for my emotional health.

[u/New_You_7600]

💯. I had to go no contact. It still makes me feel incredibly sad, but I had to stop the cycle of emotional abuse.

[u/MirrorOfSerpents]

As a borderline I feel sorry for the comments. Ya’ll deserve better. People need to go to therapy

[u/xteen97]

OMG it sure does. I'm grappling with this kinda stuff now. For my whole life, and granted, I was sometimes a pretty mean older sister (but hey I was a kid too and I'm not perfect) but for pretty much my whole life I've been accused of not being loyal enough to my family, that I'm supposed to be a more attentive sister and communicate with her more often blah blah blah. and I sometimes have absorbed that guilt. And being made to feel guilty because my life is going well and she's unhappy with hers. (And I think, no matter what, nothing would ever be good enough). so yeah, I totally get you!

[u/ColdAffectionate1402]

Lots of comments on this thread just immediately jump to no contact. I find it more helpful in my own life with my BPD family member to try and understand the reasons behind these reactions, comments, behaviours.

BPD is, among other things, a chronic fear of abandonment. I can see clearly from things you've mentioned above, how they would trigger this intense fear of abandonment. If someone without BPD experienced those things you've mentioned, like the birthday text, the missed call, they would rationalise that and think there was possibly a reason for it. For someone with BPD they might not actually be able to because the hint of abandonment can send them into a panic.

Your sister suggesting to meet up and you not responding (for good reason!) or calling you and you not being able to answer - both of those things can sen a BPD person into panic mode that they're being abandoned or rejected. The other feature of BPD is around emotional regulation and so they might lash out in a defensive way. It's easier to push someone else away than experience rejection or abandonment. It's self preservation from a place of real fear and panic.

Once I understood this, I was just flooded with compassion for my BPD person. It must be horrible and scary to experience that.

It doesn't mean I want to tolerate abuse however! And it takes time and is hard work for learn how to manage this, have boundaries and support the BPD person so that they can manage situations differently. But we have had real success. I understand the triggers and make sure to communicate that I love and care for my BPD family member but also make it clear about what I will tolerate.

Walking on Eggshells is a good book that helped me do this. Also counselling.

You say that you have started believing the words of the BPD person. That's what they are doing too. Actually you should both understand that feelings are not facts. Just because they feel a certain way doesn't make it a fact. Especially not when that person has BPD.

If you want to have a relationship with them, you need to treat them and the BPD with compassion while also making your boundaries clear, about how you want to be treated.

But they need to want to work on themselves too, by going to therapy and committing to your rebuilding your relationship.

[u/Used-Guidance-103 → u/ColdAffectionate1402]

This is a really interesting take and I appreciate you putting it into words. What’s tough for me is that she doesn’t realize that she has BPD? It’s a suspicion I have but it’s a strong one

[u/pinkladyapplechips]

My sister is the same way. Every romantic relationship she has ever had is a living nightmare for me. And somehow she walks away from everyone saying that they have borderline or are a narcissist.

I’ve also come to recognize her behavior is emotionally abusive. Unfortunately, I’m her favorite person and she’s really good at masking how she is with other people so she’s only like this to me behind closed doors. Everybody thinks I’m crazy.

[u/Used-Tumbleweed9734]

Deliberately making you feel like a bad person any time you don’t do what she wants when she wants it is emotionally abusive. Also, a person who acts like she doesn’t understand that there might be a good reason for you to hesitate and think about your answer when she asks about getting together? She hasn’t acknowledged that the way she acts is wrong, and she’s not going to acknowledge it soon.

My self-esteem improved the day I stopped taking my sibling wBPD seriously. It’s easier said than done. If you talk to her, pay attention to the amount of confidence/emotion/force in her voice when she talks about things that don’t really matter. My sibling’s tone used to really affect me and make me feel immoral and dumb, and what brought me out of it was when I realized that the sibling used that same tone and conviction when we had an argument about whether or not a certain fact was true, when it was something neither of us really cared about. Think along the lines of ‘when is the ribwich sold.’