Christmas, another casuality of my sister's BPD

Hello to everyone, and those who may respond to this post. This is my first post on this board, or on any board for Borderline.

I do know what it is, and I am familiar with the general info and pages on the net about it. My father and some other family member's are quite certain my older sister suffers from BPD.

I don't want to sound so full of my problems, when I am sure others are having just the same or worse, but I needed to share my experiences in the hopes that maybe others with experience will be able to shed some light to enable me to see myself and others through this situation.

To begin with my sister is 31. I am 17, we have a semi large family, 6 kids. There are 2 sisters between me and my sister with BPD.
My sister with BPD owns a two family house, one apt upstairs which she lives in, and the one downstairs my father lives in, and so do I when I am staying with him. I have known my sister has BPD for a couple years, and my father is somwhat knowledable about mental illness and disorders. Which has enabled him to cope with her.
When I first began staying here my sister was very stormy and uncertain how she felt about it (my own inference) as I went back and forth between my parents homes, I began to stay here (my dad's) more. Gradually, she accepted me into her strange world, and I have become somwhat of a confidant, but I am not trusted overly much. I do not wish to be in these positions, and I have never tried to be, I feel more at the mercy of her wishes than anything.
Anyway, several months ago while staying at my mother's house, several states away, (even though I love my father, I would not stay here if my mother was not suffering from schizophrenia)
My BPD sister, and another non-BPD sister hatched a plan for my non sister to visit my BPD sister with her two children over christmas. I was not for this, as I sensed it would be overwhelming to my BPD sister, but they continued with their plans. I got sucked into the plot, by virtue of my other sister never having flown before, and since I would be coming back anyway, I should just fly with her...
This was all done without any real sensitivity to my needs, which were not compatable with this plan. My BPD sister paid for the tickets for my other sister..which I believe factors into her blowout.

Anyway, this comes to pass, and we flew here last week, things were a bit bumpy but I am used to a certain amount of buffeting. A few days ago my non BPD sister went to visit another sibling a few hours away, there was a whole plan worked out for christmas, which was not to my BPD sister's liking. Anyway to skip that story they were all at my other sibling's house for christmas eve and christmas morning, I returned home on the eve to avoid what I thought would be trouble.
At about one in the afternoon christmas day, they return here. It starts with a huge scene between my sisters, my BPD sister was raging ostensibly because my other sister used the bathroom before helping with the luggage. This caused her to claim my non sister was lazy and useless, she began slamming the luggage around and threating to punch my other sister in the face. Obviously this upset the non sister and there were more nasty words before BPD left in a huff, my other sister was very upset and said BPD sister had been insulting and nasty for the whole ride home. She was inconsolable and crying for several hours, now this sister gets offended easily and is hard to deal with in her own right, however having experience with my BPD sister, it is no exaggeration of insults, it is deeply crushing to be treated so.

All this upset me, and I was sad and angry that christmas had been mostly ruined. And of course she felt justified and continued to be vitrolicly angry the rest of the afternoon upstairs.
Later on I went upstairs to see some redecorating she had done with her gifts, though I did not want to. It was a mistake. The main reason for her upset that day came clear, her old boyfriend of several years ago whom she is now taken up with again, this is the man she claims she truly loves... anyway he apparently said he might visit, so she was in a huge hurry to get home to clean and ready everything for him. He has been the screwy factor in everything this past week. On the one hand she is slightly more stable when she is in a relationship, but she is even more prone to horrible outbursts when things go seemingly wrong or upset her in the slightest.

I have not met him recently and she wanted me to come up to see him if he stopped by...this was after she said my other sister was basically a lazy liar and she wanted to 'rip her throat out' I told her I was upset that the day had been ruined and I didn't feel or look very good and I didn't think I wanted to come up this evening.
That ser her off and she claimed everyone was ungrateful and when I offered to save a plate of food for him which she indiacted she wanted earlier she told me no, and in fact I could 'shove it up my ass'

Great christmas huh? I suppose I should be greatful there was no physical harm, and we wern't in the emergency room, or god forbid the police station.

I'm just wondering how we will get through this next week until my other sister's flight leaves. I feel as if I am in hell, a nightmare that you can't wakeup from, it feels that way because the mental state of my sister is so bizzare that it throws you into a spin of reality and non reality.
She will probably come around in day or two and pretend nothing happened, which I doubt my other sister will go for, so there will probably be clashes until my sister leaves.
I am just so angry over this, but mostly hurt and saddened, I know it is pointless to be angry with her, and I know it won't make a difference, but I feel it anyway. I just don't want to be drawn into this mess any more than I already am, I don't want to take sides, or feel that I have to do things for my BPD sister, which she already tried to do last night.

I'm very sickened, and I realize that I have to get out of here soon.

Anyway this was long, but I hope readable, if anyone has any advice or insights I would be glad to hear them, I don't expect anyone to solve this, because it isn't solvable, I guess I was just looking for somwhere to air these problems, to people that would hopfully understand.

Also, this sister does not really understand she has this, and has no seeming intention of pursuing any help, therapy ect for this condition.

I read your whole post, but what makes you think she's suffering from BPD?

And please don't label her with any diagnoses, especially if she hasn't seen any mental health professionals yet, because your sister's condition can be just anything.

Well I believe she is suffering from a terrible problem, most likely BPD because she fits about every criteria, she has seen therapists before, but gave it up rather quickly, now she has a delusion nothing is really wrong, and you better not even suggest that anything is wrong.

The reason I believe she is BPD is because she fits very well almost every description I know of for it. My father is also psychoanalytically trained and believes this is what she suffers from.
But obviously how can you formally diagnose a person who refuses to see a therapist to be diagnosed?

Lane wrote:Well I believe she is suffering from a terrible problem, most likely BPD because she fits about every criteria, she has seen therapists before, but gave it up rather quickly, now she has a delusion nothing is really wrong, and you better not even suggest that anything is wrong.

The reason I believe she is BPD is because she fits very well almost every description I know of for it. My father is also psychoanalytically trained and believes this is what she suffers from.
But obviously how can you formally diagnose a person who refuses to see a therapist to be diagnosed?

I'd say your sister's case is very complicated as you mentioned your mom suffering from schizophrenia. You know schizophrenia runs strongly in families. Your sister shows great emotional lability which is one of schizophrenia's main symptom. I think the mental health professionals would rule this possibility out first as there is other schizophrenia-like mental disturbances that are not classed as true schizophrenia.
Also BPD runs in families (my mom, other sister and I have it), my dad and youngest sister suffer from Asperger's disorder.

Sarina5 wrote: Your sister shows great emotional lability which is one of schizophrenia's main symptom.

Actually no; schizophrenia patients usually show less emotion (sometimes show inappropriate emotion, but that is an eomtion not appropriate to the situation, not an inappropriate *level* of emotion) than 'normal' people. They tend to be emotionally withdrawn and express emotion much less.

She does not sound like she has schizophrenia. Why is it not ok for Lane to suggest her sister has BPD and yet it's fine for someone who's never even met her to suggest she has schizophrenia when there is almost nothing in Lane's posts that suggest she has *any* schizophrenia symptoms??

Lane, I grew up with a mother who has severe depression (and personality difficulties - she'd probably have been given a BPD diagnosis today) and family gatherings at any time of year usually got really stressful. Christmas was potentially explosive most years. It is really hard to feel you are caught in the middle of it - since talking to your BPD sister is unlikely to gain much, maybe you could try talking to non-BPD sister? Explain how this is making you feel, explain to her how it's likely to cause more problems if she does remain confrontational when BPD sister doesn't. Maybe that will buy you some breathing space for now.

Most of all I think you just need to try and find your own space, do your own thing, as much as you can for the next week. It won't be long to wait in the end. I'm sorry Christmas has been such a horrible time for you.

Isme wrote:

Sarina5 wrote: Your sister shows great emotional lability which is one of schizophrenia's main symptom.

Actually no; schizophrenia patients usually show less emotion (sometimes show inappropriate emotion, but that is an eomtion not appropriate to the situation, not an inappropriate *level* of emotion) than 'normal' people. They tend to be emotionally withdrawn and express emotion much less.

She does not sound like she has schizophrenia. Why is it not ok for Lane to suggest her sister has BPD and yet it's fine for someone who's never even met her to suggest she has schizophrenia when there is almost nothing in Lane's posts that suggest she has *any* schizophrenia symptoms??

Lane, I grew up with a mother who has severe depression (and personality difficulties - she'd probably have been given a BPD diagnosis today) and family gatherings at any time of year usually got really stressful. Christmas was potentially explosive most years. It is really hard to feel you are caught in the middle of it - since talking to your BPD sister is unlikely to gain much, maybe you could try talking to non-BPD sister? Explain how this is making you feel, explain to her how it's likely to cause more problems if she does remain confrontational when BPD sister doesn't. Maybe that will buy you some breathing space for now.

Most of all I think you just need to try and find your own space, do your own thing, as much as you can for the next week. It won't be long to wait in the end. I'm sorry Christmas has been such a horrible time for you.

I will second that. Well said! And I also would like to say a person with a schizophrenic parent only has like a 10% chance of getting it themselves. Not quite sure on the actual stats but It is actually surprizingly low it may be even lower that 10. I'll have to check on that. It certainly does not sound like schizophrenia to me.
Take care,
Aims

She does not sound like she has schizophrenia. Why is it not ok for Lane to suggest her sister has BPD and yet it's fine for someone who's never even met her to suggest she has schizophrenia when there is almost nothing in Lane's posts that suggest she has *any* schizophrenia symptoms??

right on!!! why is a very good question. seems to be a common occurance on all these pd forums.

I NEVER said Lane's sister is suffering from Schizophrenia.
I only said they'll rule out this possibility first.

I didn't say you said she *had* schizophrenia - but at the same time as condemning Lane for suggesting she had BPD, you suggested that her sister showed 'a main symptom' of schizophrenia. She doesn't, not at all. I doubt that anyone seeing Lane's sister professionally would even suspect a possibility of schizophrenia from what Lane has said.

In fact a diagnosis of schizophrenia works the other way round - they don't rule it out first, they rule out any other possible cause of schizophrenic type symptoms. It takes months at the least for a psychiatrist to arrive at a diagnosis of schizophrenia. It's a complex condition that needs to be diagnosed properly, by someone who works with the person suffering over a period of time - I just think it's a bit rash and unfair to make suggestions like that to someone who is already clearly suffering and doesn't need any extra (and needless) worries on top of that.