I will be writing this thread about my sister and what it has been like dealing with someone with both BPD and DID as she was diagnosed. And also about the sorry state of her health as a result of being so. In this forum I feel like we talk a lot about the damage we have done to others or the damage other disordered people have done to us, but rarely the damage the disorder does to the person. This little glimpse into me, is for my own release, and possibly to help me come out of this numbness and turmoil that feels like it's been pulling me under to drown. But maybe you will learn a little something as well in the process... and I welcome the insight of those who care to take the time to read this with an open mind and heart.
Sisters
My sister became ill in April of this year. I remember the month because the first sign of it was when I was moving out of my 3rd story apartment, and she was supposed to helping me. I rolled my eyes when I saw her curl up into a ball on the floor of that apartment because, "Here we go again!", and because she was the only one I could get to help me. This was so typical of her. We spent the first 2 hours upon arriving at the apartment, trying to sort out her feelings about her childhood relationship with me, and how insecure she still was. How she always had this warped view of me in comparison to who she was. A conversation we've had many times, and it never seems to bring her any relief.
Once we got started, she managed to fill up two small boxed with stuff, and then got dizzy and sick to her stomach, so spent the rest of the day sleeping on the floor in my apartment, while I scurried around, and up and down four flights of stairs, trying to get as much as I could, done. I was so pissed at her! I knew that she was really strung out on her meds, and had gotten wasted the night before. She said there was something else going on, but it was hard to believe. When you grow up dealing with someone so dysfunctionally disordered, who has abused themselves and your relationship for many years, you become apathetic to their needs.
I had closed myself off to her emotionally years ago. But I still helped her as much as possible in a sort of auto pilot kind of way. I couldn't say I loved her. I couldn't even say I liked her anymore. I was beginning to wonder why the fuck I stilled bothered to have her in my life. She triggered so much in me. Homicidal things. She is the most difficult person I've ever had to be around. Everything upsets her. Her feelings are so easy to stepped on. Her insecurities and self loathing... overwhelming. She is every kind of crazy imaginable, and somehow I feel it is my job to keep her from losing herself to the abyss. No one else bothers anymore.
I spent four days moving everything out of my apartment by myself. As a result I ended up in the hospital due to a heart condition I've been ignoring for over three years. She took me to the emergency room, which I didn't want, but had no one else. I knew she would be a mess. She had switched over to one of her more unpleasant personalities and she had not slept in days. A least this alter could drive. The five year old cannot.
This personality was her most narcissistic one. Her self important, all knowing, superior one. One I had not been acquainted with until we were already in our late twenties. She was being so rude and demanding. Telling the hospital staff how to do their jobs, and complaining about how incompetent they were. She also kept talking over me. Said to anyone who would listen that I had this terrible habit of minimizing my problems, and making them seem like nothing.
"You'll never get them to take you seriously if you aren't honest about how bad it is!" She kept saying to me. I started to shrink inside myself after she gave a long and very dramatic speech about how great she was for being so "Christ-like" and forgiving our child raping father. How awful things would always be for me if I didn't let him back into my life, as God would surely do. Because of the pain I was in and the misery of all the swelling, I felt even more nervous and paranoid about having to be with this stranger. I never really quite know how to act around her alters, and this one was a close toss up in terms of tolerance, with the alter who makes sexual advances at me, and binge drinks until she is nearly poisoned.
So I switched too in a way. I became little sister. The one who could not speak for herself- who she had to be the voice of throughout our childhood. Now I can relax. Let her run the show without having to feel like it's my adult responsibility to put her in check. Because there is no putting her in check. It is an exercise in exhaustive futility.
She is like a force of nature. At times- a catastrophic storm that wipes out an entire family, only to disappear into the atmosphere like vapor- leaving the ones left standing, to deal with the aftermath in its wake. You will not find her helping you with the salvaging of what remains. She will be curled up in some cozy cave, content as a cat after a fish dinner... without a care in the world.
To be continued...