Maintaining a relationship with BPD brother (long)

[Guest guest]

My fellow survivors,

This is very long, but I would be grateful for any insights some of you may care

to offer about parts of my post.

My BPD mother passed away earlier this week at the age of 82. She went

peacefully and we are relieved.

My BPD brother and I had been estranged but due to the need to communicate

during Mother's illness, I initiated contact with him again.

He is 10 years older than I and is a very inwardly troubled man. Yet, he has led

a successful life and is comfortably retired. He can be very verbally cruel.

Why, you may wonder, do I think he is worth the trouble? I am rather Schizoid

and have very few close friends. My brother is one of the few people whom I know

who has a lot of interests similar to my own in terms of science and philosophy

and art. We are very different people yet have enough wiring in common that when

he is on his game, it feels very good and right to exchange emails with him. He

is bright and very educated and broadens my horizons.

Sometimes he sends messages to me that I believe are deliberately intended to

try to hurt my feelings. He caught me off guard yesterday and I fell into a

depression, but after a good night's sleep, I recovered. He really had me going,

he really had me down on myself. I can't let that happen again.

He sent me another hurtful message today, and I chose just to deflect it with a

casual little joke.

Because of what I have learned recently about BPD, I understand that they do

that push-you-away-pull-you-closer thing as part of their illness.

The thought occurred to me that I would never deliberately set out to toy with

another person like that.

Considering the people whom he apparently thinks are A-OK, I wonder why he

doesn't like me at least as much as he does them. I struggle with feelings of

envy of those people, yet I would not want to be like them. To me, the people he

likes appear superficial with no depth and without intellectual curiosity. I

think I would find them somewhat boring although pleasant.

Something that I did not know until he told me recently, is that I was conceived

shortly after our BPD mother and he had returned home to live with our father

after " running away. " His story is that our mother took him and left our father

because our father had been beating on my brother. Several weeks later, Mother

asked Brother (who was nine years old at the time) what he thought they should

do and he said they should go back to Dad. He now wishes that he had said they

should go to New York instead.

If he had not advised returning home, I would not have been conceived and I

wonder if perhaps that has something to do with his dislike of me.

Our father has always been very stable and loving to me and it is difficult for

me to picture him having ever been abusive to anyone. I never saw him hit my

brother, but I remember getting a minor spanking from him one time myself.

(Mother spanked me a lot!) Everyone who has ever known my father has admired him

for his gentleness, kindness, and honesty.

My father told me that he had been beaten by his own father and because of that,

he had been determined that he would never hit his own little boy. So, either my

brother is gaslighting about having been hit, or my father now as a changed man

finds the memory of being cruel to my brother to be too painful to remember.

In my experience, it was our mother who was the insane, unstable one. " Walking

on eggs, " indeed. In fact, I think that if it had not been for my father's

presence as a stabilizing, calm, unconditionally loving parent, that Mother

would have gone off the deep end and would have been even more abusive to me.

She would get just as angry at him as she did me, and he would just leave the

house and go fishing when she did.

Our father did hard physical labor every day for years and years, and he

supported us. He occasionally drank a beer, but generally was a non-drinker. He

was faithful to our mother even though other women clearly thought he was

handsome.

One might wonder why this gentle, quiet man stayed with a crazy-making mentally

ill wife. Dad was very hard of hearing, and Mother was exceptionally good about

accommodating his disability, and she never put him down for it. She was a

slender woman who was beautiful by sheer force of will. She was an obsessive

housekeeper, so everything was always in perfect order and spotless. My dad

loved Mother's father as the affectionate father he'd never had.

Even though my brother seems to consider our mother as having been the " good "

parent for him and our father the " bad " parent, during the last years of our

mother's life even he tired of her dramaz and put her on channel ignore. He

continued to write long and detailed, chatty letters to Dad. If he really

resented Dad, why would he do that?

Dad tells me that my brother puzzles him just as much as he does me and that he

simply does not understand him at all. He loves us both unconditionally.

There are no grays in my brother's world, and there are nothing but infinite

shades of gray in mine. I rarely feel any strong emotion at all, and he

frequently feels very angry.

My brother is very judgmental, whereas I am more " perceiving " in nature. I think

he does a lot of splitting and I think from moment to moment, I am labeled

either good or bad. He seems to be very quick to apply labels of good or bad to

everything and anything.

I think that although I am younger and less worldly than my brother, that I may

be the more emotionally mature one?

A little anecdote that I heard frequently from Mother while I was growing up was

that when she went to the hospital to have me, my brother told her that if I was

a girl, not to come home. Then he missed her and sent a message for her to come

home anyhow. I recently asked my brother about that and he denies ever having

said it or ever having heard the story.

My mother frequently told me about how she had purchased the house where they

lived for 67 years with the money she received as a soldier's wife during WW2.

Yet tonight I read a letter by my Dad wherein he mentions having earned the

money for the down-payment on the house after returning home from the war.

I have no idea what is true and what is not, and for the most part, I suppose it

doesn't really matter.

I would like to think that one of the reasons that my brother says cruel things

to me that he apparently does not say to other people he is close to, is that he

knows my love is unconditional, he knows that I am tough enough to take it, and

I may be the only person who is close to him who challenges him enough

intellectually to be sometimes annoying to him.

I am curious about his relationship with the three other people in his life, his

wife and her two adult sons. I wonder what her adult sons really think of him?

He is very generous to them, so maybe they think of him as a Santa Claus. I

think it is nice that he is having some fatherhood type experiences, because he

was so opposed to having children of his own that he had a vasectomy when

married to his first wife.

I tell myself that I need not worry about whether my brother approves of me,

because his own behavior, despite his presentation of himself as judge and jury,

was not irreproachable. His first wife adored him, but he suddenly and

unexpectedly took all the money from their bank account, and took off with her

best friend. Yet, he still tried to manage the first wife's life after he left

her. She died of cancer not long afterward.

Going NC again with my brother is always an option if I feel the need.

In response to my brother's emailed barbs, is it OK just to ignore them or

deflect them and change the subject? I never got anywhere trying to argue with

our mother and I don't like confrontation. I figure it is best just not to take

the bait--is that OK? I feel like I can see that he is deliberately trying to be

hurtful, but that no one can hurt me emotionally without my participation, that

I am simply refusing to play the game. If he sees my lack of participation as a

" win " for himself, that is his issue, not mine. Right?

I have been seeing a skilled and compassionate therapist over the past couple of

months and I plan to stay with therapy until I get my depression completely

sorted out. Always before I have used therapy as a bandaid but this time I plan

to stay with it.

[Guest guest]

My take on this is: whatever approach works best for you is OK.

There really isn't a " should " or " ought " about it. This is solely about what

you can or can't tolerate, its not an issue of right or wrong.

If you've been arguing with your brother RE his emailed barbs and that is making

you feel upset, depressed or angry, then, I guess that approach is not working

for you. So maybe try something else.

Certainly you can try ignoring the insults or deflecting them and see if that

works better for you. (I personally don't recommend that approach, but that's

just me.)

Keep in mind that setting a boundary for yourself isn't arguing, its just

stating the facts and stating the consequences you feel comfortable setting.

An example of boundary setting: your brother sends an e-mail in which he calls

you a bad name. You could respond, " Calling me an ugly name like that hurts my

feelings. I don't treat you that way, and I don't deserve to be treated that way

by you. I won't respond to your e-mails until you apologize and promise to not

do that again. I hope you care enough about my feelings to want to apologize,

because you're my brother and I love you. "

You're the only one who can decide if you want to take the risk of never hearing

from him again, or not, by setting such a boundary.

There is no " magic incantation " of just the right words that will make your

brother see things your way, and make him care about your feelings. In my

opinion, all you can do is decide what you are willing to put up with, and what

you can live with and what feels best to you.

(I wish there was a magic incantation, I'd use it all the time!)

best wishes,

-Annie

>

> ....Going NC again with my brother is always an option if I feel the need.

>

> In response to my brother's emailed barbs, is it OK just to ignore them or

deflect them and change the subject? I never got anywhere trying to argue with

our mother and I don't like confrontation. I figure it is best just not to take

the bait--is that OK? I feel like I can see that he is deliberately trying to be

hurtful, but that no one can hurt me emotionally without my participation, that

I am simply refusing to play the game. If he sees my lack of participation as a

" win " for himself, that is his issue, not mine. Right?

>

> I have been seeing a skilled and compassionate therapist over the past couple

of months and I plan to stay with therapy until I get my depression completely

sorted out. Always before I have used therapy as a bandaid but this time I plan

to stay with it.

>

[Guest guest]

Have you read the book Safe People? I highly recommend it. Your brother does

not sound like a safe person at all. My T always tells me " your life is a

garden, and its up to you what you want to have grow there. " Personally, I

don't think I would want that brother to grow in my garden. There are lots

and lots of people in the world, and you can choose the ones you want to

share your life with. I think of it as creating my own little world - if

someone is shitty, I stop watering and fertilizing them and watch them

transplant themselves elsewhere. Eventually, my little garden is walled off

and quite beautiful and since that is my entire world, I'm trying to get to

a point where my world is beautiful too. I've spend a lot of years living in

a shit hole (regarding the people around me) and I think I deserve better.

You do too.

About the memories - where your nada and brother remember things differently

than you do. I would say this is total and utter trademark BPD. My nada

changed her memories constantly to fit her mood. I would actually see events

go down, and then hear her blathering on the phone later, retelling with a

ton of energy and passion. I remember pulling on her sleeve and saying

" that's not what happened, what are you talking about? " She had absolutely

no problem changing reality to fit her distortions. Essentially, she told a

hell of a lot of lies. My dad referred to it as her " poetic lisence. " How's

that for a euphemism?

XOXO good luck

On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 9:57 PM, anuria67854 wrote:

>

>

> My take on this is: whatever approach works best for you is OK.

> There really isn't a " should " or " ought " about it. This is solely about

> what you can or can't tolerate, its not an issue of right or wrong.

>

> If you've been arguing with your brother RE his emailed barbs and that is

> making you feel upset, depressed or angry, then, I guess that approach is

> not working for you. So maybe try something else.

>

> Certainly you can try ignoring the insults or deflecting them and see if

> that works better for you. (I personally don't recommend that approach, but

> that's just me.)

>

> Keep in mind that setting a boundary for yourself isn't arguing, its just

> stating the facts and stating the consequences you feel comfortable setting.

>

>

> An example of boundary setting: your brother sends an e-mail in which he

> calls you a bad name. You could respond, " Calling me an ugly name like that

> hurts my feelings. I don't treat you that way, and I don't deserve to be

> treated that way by you. I won't respond to your e-mails until you apologize

> and promise to not do that again. I hope you care enough about my feelings

> to want to apologize, because you're my brother and I love you. "

>

> You're the only one who can decide if you want to take the risk of never

> hearing from him again, or not, by setting such a boundary.

>

> There is no " magic incantation " of just the right words that will make your

> brother see things your way, and make him care about your feelings. In my

> opinion, all you can do is decide what you are willing to put up with, and

> what you can live with and what feels best to you.

>

> (I wish there was a magic incantation, I'd use it all the time!)

>

> best wishes,

>

> -Annie

>

>

>

> >

> > ....Going NC again with my brother is always an option if I feel the

> need.

> >

> > In response to my brother's emailed barbs, is it OK just to ignore them

> or deflect them and change the subject? I never got anywhere trying to argue

> with our mother and I don't like confrontation. I figure it is best just not

> to take the bait--is that OK? I feel like I can see that he is deliberately

> trying to be hurtful, but that no one can hurt me emotionally without my

> participation, that I am simply refusing to play the game. If he sees my

> lack of participation as a " win " for himself, that is his issue, not mine.

> Right?

> >

> > I have been seeing a skilled and compassionate therapist over the past

> couple of months and I plan to stay with therapy until I get my depression

> completely sorted out. Always before I have used therapy as a bandaid but

> this time I plan to stay with it.

> >

>

>

>