Personality Disorder and Boundaries

[Anonymous]

OP, I totally understand where you are coming from. The issue is not the coat or the notebooks, it is the emotional manipulation, guilt trips, anger. It is exhausting. Perhaps give your brother a lump sum - maybe $250? That's it. From the lump sum he must buy what he needs.

By the way, my sister and your brother are identical twins if you know what I mean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I totally understand where you are coming from. The issue is not the coat or the notebooks, it is the emotional manipulation, guilt trips, anger. It is exhausting. Perhaps give your brother a lump sum - maybe $250? That's it. From the lump sum he must buy what he needs.

By the way, my sister and your brother are identical twins if you know what I mean.

Okay, OP here. It’s not just the cost, but it is the unending asks and manipulation. I was clear that direct costs to get into program was covered; I have spent about $800 on that so far.

I was expecting maybe some additional fees of $15/month that he would show was the extra expense from the treatment versus what he was using before; that was the accounting.

But now every other day, there is some problem (he’s cold, his pens don’t write well, his shoes hurt from walking more, etc) and the solution is to always buy something new, but he doesn’t even directly ask at first. First he complains (and all we ever talk about ever is his complaints, let’s be frank), then it’s “wishing” he had such and such, and after I don’t jump into fix it with a gift, in a few days it becomes a guilt trip that I promised to help and he wouldn’t have don’t this if he had known it would be so expensive but now he’s emotionally attached to his therapist and group...

I let my guard down, I gave an inch bc the therapist recommended it, and now he’s taking a mile. It’s not just the money (though that is a source of stress) but also the attention and complaining. His therapist is not much help bc he has many poor destitute patients, so if he can see a way for his patient to “save” money he encourages it, and I’m sure my brother paints me as a this rich urbanite who won’t even notice (he lives in a very poor rural state).

[Anonymous]

I would absolutely buy him a coat and a notebook! If I could. What a petty thing to begrudge a notebook and a coat! If it gets his more functional and going out, that's a good thing? Reevaluate when he asks for something major.
If you have the money, and if you have DH, and he resents you getting a notebook and a coat, you need to take a look at your marriage relationship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I totally understand where you are coming from. The issue is not the coat or the notebooks, it is the emotional manipulation, guilt trips, anger. It is exhausting. Perhaps give your brother a lump sum - maybe $250? That's it. From the lump sum he must buy what he needs.

By the way, my sister and your brother are identical twins if you know what I mean.

Then why didn't she set up those "boundaries" ahead of time? It sounds to me like OP is playing a cat and mouse game with her brother and that is completely unfair. She is being so passive aggressive in not defining her "boundaries." OP's brother is not the only person with the mental health problems in their brother-sister dynamic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I totally understand where you are coming from. The issue is not the coat or the notebooks, it is the emotional manipulation, guilt trips, anger. It is exhausting. Perhaps give your brother a lump sum - maybe $250? That's it. From the lump sum he must buy what he needs.

By the way, my sister and your brother are identical twins if you know what I mean.

Then why didn't she set up those "boundaries" ahead of time? It sounds to me like OP is playing a cat and mouse game with her brother and that is completely unfair. She is being so passive aggressive in not defining her "boundaries." OP's brother is not the only person with the mental health problems in their brother-sister dynamic.

I did set boundaries. But therapist asked if I could help cover this one thing, which wasn’t one thing.

[Anonymous]

OP, I've dealt with more than one personality-disordered family member. Decide what you are comfortable with and do it. Send him a $15 giftcard for incidentals at the beginning of each month and tell him that is all you can do.

He will whine, complain, maybe even rage. You need to learn to ignore that. That is part of the disorder and how he is used to getting what he wants. Shut him down when he does that. End the conversation, don't respond to texts or voicemails until he can communicate properly. Don't bring it up again later - when he calms down talk to him normally. If he becomes abusive freeze him out. It sounds harsh but the guilt trip and demands will be neverending if you don't learn to shut down the manipulation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I totally understand where you are coming from. The issue is not the coat or the notebooks, it is the emotional manipulation, guilt trips, anger. It is exhausting. Perhaps give your brother a lump sum - maybe $250? That's it. From the lump sum he must buy what he needs.

By the way, my sister and your brother are identical twins if you know what I mean.

Then why didn't she set up those "boundaries" ahead of time? It sounds to me like OP is playing a cat and mouse game with her brother and that is completely unfair. She is being so passive aggressive in not defining her "boundaries." OP's brother is not the only person with the mental health problems in their brother-sister dynamic.

I did set boundaries. But therapist asked if I could help cover this one thing, which wasn’t one thing.

Obviously what you set was not well planned and inadequate. Don't you wonder why that happened? Aren't you going to take responsibility for that? You sound very good at casting shade but not at all good about taking ownership for your own bad decision-making and boundary-setting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I totally understand where you are coming from. The issue is not the coat or the notebooks, it is the emotional manipulation, guilt trips, anger. It is exhausting. Perhaps give your brother a lump sum - maybe $250? That's it. From the lump sum he must buy what he needs.

By the way, my sister and your brother are identical twins if you know what I mean.

Then why didn't she set up those "boundaries" ahead of time? It sounds to me like OP is playing a cat and mouse game with her brother and that is completely unfair. She is being so passive aggressive in not defining her "boundaries." OP's brother is not the only person with the mental health problems in their brother-sister dynamic.

I did set boundaries. But therapist asked if I could help cover this one thing, which wasn’t one thing.

Obviously what you set was not well planned and inadequate. Don't you wonder why that happened? Aren't you going to take responsibility for that? You sound very good at casting shade but not at all good about taking ownership for your own bad decision-making and boundary-setting.

It was inadequate in the sense that my brother needs more help than anyone can give him. It happened because I listened to his therapist, who I realize now probably is less concerned about health family boundaries than the solvency of his patients (in the sense that money problems exacerbate things; my brother is no where near the problems his other patients face b/c of a trust). I had set boundaries of only giving money at holidays and birthdays, and not giving advice (he is always looking for someone else to take care of him and make his decisions for him). I still didn’t give advice but I wanted to support the therapists new approach, but didn’t appreciate the divergent concerns between the therapist and myself.

When my parents were alive, my brother never lived off his own income, even with advanced professional degrees from good schools. He always had help from our parents to live the way he wanted; they weren’t rich but basically bankrupted themselves trying to get him to adulthood. He would call them several times a day to get reassurance or have them make a decision for him. I do not want to be on that role, but I know my brother is looking for someone to take it (he had an older married sugar mama for a while, but predictably that ended in drama)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I've dealt with more than one personality-disordered family member. Decide what you are comfortable with and do it. Send him a $15 giftcard for incidentals at the beginning of each month and tell him that is all you can do.

He will whine, complain, maybe even rage. You need to learn to ignore that. That is part of the disorder and how he is used to getting what he wants. Shut him down when he does that. End the conversation, don't respond to texts or voicemails until he can communicate properly. Don't bring it up again later - when he calms down talk to him normally. If he becomes abusive freeze him out. It sounds harsh but the guilt trip and demands will be neverending if you don't learn to shut down the manipulation.

This, decide what you feel comfortable giving financially (if anything), make it clear, and stick to it. You can offer to help him make a budget and he will probably get angry. But then just say "I can give you a XX gift card XX often" and then kindly end the conversation/hang up. It's not about notebooks, or a coat, or any item... it's an unhealthy cycle and it is not fair to you to get sucked in. Agree that his therapist is not focusing on appropriate boundary setting with family members. Maybe seek some counseling for yourself if you haven't yet?

[Anonymous]

Call the therapist tomorrow (Monday). Discuss this issue.

[Anonymous]

Set a budget of how much extra you will give him for x amount of months. If he asks for something else, that will have to wait until the next month.

[Anonymous]

Op, what is his disability? By calling it a "personality disorder" I a think you and others here are thinking narcisism or borderline personality disorder. But if he's on disability, he has to have been determined by the federal government to be unable to work in any way that could be self sufficient. There is a real deficiency in functioning going on, whereas you're characterizing him as a lazy mooch.

Also, do you know what his financial situation is? Can he actually afford rent, utilities, food and clothing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op, what is his disability? By calling it a "personality disorder" I a think you and others here are thinking narcisism or borderline personality disorder. But if he's on disability, he has to have been determined by the federal government to be unable to work in any way that could be self sufficient. There is a real deficiency in functioning going on, whereas you're characterizing him as a lazy mooch.

Also, do you know what his financial situation is? Can he actually afford rent, utilities, food and clothing?

Exactly. Not only is she characterizing him as a lazy mooch to us but she apparently is treating him as such. If he is on disability then his mental health issues put him in a similar classification as someone with a physical disability like loss of a limb or limited eye sight or deaf.

[Anonymous]

We get it. You hate your brother. Damn him for asking for a coat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am surprised by all the people supporting OP. She sounds very cold and harsh. Her brother's requests seem quite reasonable. I think she needs to step up and help him and cut it out with all this "boundaries" crap.

OP is not responsible for her brother, PERIOD. That she is even willing to provide for him at all is generous and now he is asking for more and more. On an individual basis, wanting a warmer coat sounds reasonable. But as she said, these are examples -- and my experience with mentally ill takers like his is that there is NO END. It's not just go get him a coat -- because he has learned that he asks for x and gets x, so he will keep taking.

And he hung up on her when she tried to talk to him about it. So honestly, she is being above and beyond generous, IMO. It will never end with him.