Zero-sum game

[LemonLime]

I am realizing a few things about my high-functioning BPD sis:
1) her boundaries a very screwed up.  I never realized this before.   It explains a lot.....she thinks she can read minds, and thus makes ridiculous assumptions that she thinks are facts.  She says "You think.....".    She thinks she should be able to control people's actions to make herself more comfortable.    She has no idea what a boundary is.

2)  Many situations to her are a zero-sum game.  There must be a winner and a loser.   She will not be the loser.  So the other person MUST lose (even if they are not aware there is a war going on).  There is no such thing as a win-win.   She will stop at almost nothing to prove that she is right, and the other person is wrong.  No such thing as a misunderstanding.   No such thing as others merely being imperfect humans who are trying to learn and survive.  Nope.  People are nefarious and must be taught a lesson by her, the all-knowing and all-wise woman.   

3)  People owe her.  The universe owes her.    Even though she has perfect health, a partner who loves her, and many many blessings, the Universe and others have let her down.  She has been shortchanged.   She is stoic and strong for having overcome that, and that goes largely unacknowledged and unappreciated.  She is a martyr.

4)  she has no insight into any of this, so .......yeah.

Ugh.  Anyone else have a high-functioning sib?  One that others outside the family think is just great and fun and cool?   It's so frustrating.

[StayWithMe]

Give us an example of No. 2.

[LemonLime]

Yes, an example of #2:  she felt I did fewer dishes than she did on our tropical vacation.   So she raged at me and accused me of being a terrible person.  I let her know that I see the situation differently.   Nope.  There is no such thing in her book.   She can only see that I am a terrible person, and now I am even worse for suggesting that there is another way to see things.   Then she tries to dig up a whole bunch of dirt from the past, I suppose to support her position that I am indeed a terrible person, and deserve the rage.   She has raged at me in front of the whole family, so I suppose she is embarrassed.  But she does not back down, and in fact she doubles down.   She will make the crime fit the punishment, even if she has to distort the facts and exaggerate.   It all could have ended well if she had simply said "I'm sorry I lost my temper.  It triggered me when I felt you didn't do your share of the work.  You didn't deserve that.  But I do want to talk with you about splitting up the chores".      Instead, it's World War 3, and she spins it around to being victim, saying I need to apologize to her.   OMG

[athene1399]

#2 describes my sis as well. She lives with SO and me. She was once convinced that he would do the dishes on purpose while she was in the shower (so that her water would get cold- she actually takes like an hour long shower, so that's probably why the water goes cold. But she doesn't see it that way), so one day when he was in the shower she turned ever faucet in my house on hot water full blast. I heard all the water running and was like "what the heck" so shut it all off. Later I made the connection that this was "pay back" for the imagined wrongdoing of SO. I told him and he laughed because he didn't notice a thing while in the shower.

I unfortunately have 1 through 3. I've been working on not having to always be right. #3 just started recently, so I have to figure out what's going on there. It's like I went from feeling like I deserved nothing to feeling entitled. But at least I am self-aware. And my mom, sis and I all have screwed up boundaries. I've been working on that because I know when my boundaries are violated how that feels, so I try to be mindful of the boundaries of others. When I was in my 20s I was not self-aware at all, so I am making progress I guess. I am so sorry you have to deal with this, Kat.

With my sis, I know I can't argue with her when she is like that. I just have to drop it or we will be fighting. Trying to be mindful of not JADEing helps me with sis and mom, although I don't always catch myself. You can try neutral apologies like "I'm sorry you feel this way" or you can try "I can tell you're upset by this, I am sorry about that." they kind of validate how she feels without saying you were at fault (because you're not). Or you can try a variant without an apology. There's unfortunately not much you can do. If she isn't self-aware, she probably won't have the insight to try to stop the behavior or apologize after. Radical acceptance may be able to help with that. But it does really suck when you want a better relationship and it feels like you are putting all the effort in.

I'm often the black sheep for not seeing my parents every weekend like sis, so I get that aspect of it too. She also tries to make me seem like the bad guy to our mutual friends because I won't go out with her, but she goes out every night. I don't have time or money to do that. And with her she always says "it's just for one drink" but it's always more like five so I know better now than to be tricked. Then she tells the friends she's meeting up with to text me to guilt me into going. She must tell them I'm doing nothing because when I text back with the long-list of what I am doing they're like "oh. didn't know you were busy". So I'm sure she's making it sound like i just don't want to go out. I try to accept this is just how she is, but some days I get so frustrated.

[MyEyesROpen]

Kat1984, your sis sounds like mine.

My youngest sis is a full on uNPD and I'm no longer in contact with her because of her lies, followed by rages because we wouldnt accept her lies. She had to win every argument she provoked. Even if you just had a different opinion to her, her opinion had to be right and yours had to be wrong. Each point she "won" in this manner was followed by storming off and raging. She could never be reasoned with and had no awareness that her behaviour was irrational. It was always the other persons fault. As for reading minds, yes, she always knew exactly what others were thinking  it just so happened to be what she herself was thinking, but again she had no awareness that she was just projecting her thoughts onto others.