Can anyone with MH/ personality disorder experience, please armchair diagnose my relative and their weird behaviour?

[Fffffflip]

It’s my sibling

They like to push-pull. Friendly one day and cold the next with no clear reason why. Very very low self esteem and poor mental health, it seems they feel they are being attacked by everyone (family, friends who are well meaning) but they are always the victim of any situation or fall out. Somebody else has always wronged them and if you diplomatically suggest anything otherwise then you are gaslighting them and invalidating their experience. Outwardly extremely confident and assertive and enjoys to just talk about themself, glazes over when there’s mention of anyone or anything else. Likes to appear like they are doing very good and helping others but this is just to be seen by others, if nobody’s watching they are nowhere to be seen.

What’s going on here? I’m trying to persevere with developing a better relationship with them even though I find it wearing and draining. I want to be present in our niece and nephews life and it’s nicer for my parents if everyone gets on.

Thanks.

I'd wonder whether they were suffering from severe depression, and only just keeping a lid on it.

Have they always been like this ?

I'm a chartered psychologist. What you describe could be anything from the DSM5, standard personality, or you and your family being gaslighting bastards HTH

Sounds like 90% of the human race.

Since being a teenager or young adult I’d say

Haha thank you that’s fair enough. I don’t think that is the case but maybe I’m wrong. They played mind games with me for years and convinced everyone else I was the crazy one, it’s only recently people have begun to see true colours.

Work in a relevant field, and could hazard a guess but I'd ask why? I'd be too concerned that it will be used to label, or thrown at the person to win an argument/ belittle them

What would having an unconfirmed diagnosis do to support you? It would need to be the individual that needs to engage with support services etc for there to be any movement

Sometimes the focus needs to be less on what's wrong but more on how you live with it

If you Google it I'm sure you could come up with people with similar stories

I genuinely want to help them and preempt their behaviour before it happens so I know not to trigger them. I just want to be able to get along with them when we need to without provoking them

"I genuinely want to help them and preempt their behaviour before it happens so I know not to trigger them. I just want to be able to get along with them when we need to without provoking them".

People from dysfunctional families end up playing roles?. What are your roles here? How do your parents get along with your sibling?. All this likely goes back to your childhoods and furthermore prior to you both being born.

The purpose of the push-pull game, is for the narcissist to have you exactly where they want you… always. To remain in full control.

Be honest with your own self as to your motives here. WHY exactly do you want to help them?. What needs in you would be met by trying to do so?. Ask yourself why you are trying to persevere with developing a better relationship with them even though you find it wearing and draining. It takes two to make a relationship work and besides which you cannot make a silk purse out of a sows ear. If this person refuses to engage with you anyway there is no way of making them think otherwise.

You cannot rescue someone who does not want to be helped. With due respect how can you help this person anyway?. They do not want your help and or support.

I have a relative who is similar. They meet all of the descriptors for EUPD - when I first read about it I was startled at how this could be a description of my relative. I have read about strategies to help but they only work if the person has some insight, and my relative's perspective is that they are the only reasonable person in the whole world and pretty much everyone else is awful for some reason.

@Summerdazed I would never, ever tell my relative I suspect this unless I was asked by them, which I think is about as unlikely as seeing pigs flying over the roof and nesting in my nesting boxes. I find it helpful for my own peace of mind and my own capacity to let the behaviour go, rather than to just think they're being an utter knob on purpose.

seems they feel they are being attacked by everyone (family, friends who are well meaning)

Haven’t a clue but I guess you would need their side to the above statement.

As in, why do they feel they are being attacked and what exact form does “well meaning” take?

In what sense of the word do they have poor mental health?

You've described someone you clearly don't like.

You haven't mentioned any obvious mh issues - psychosis, seizures, ocd, depression or anxiety.

Most of what you have said is human traits that at an extreme might be a problem.

So for example sometimes cold and sometimes welcoming, well most people have mood variations and if you ring them in the middle of dinner with their kids playing up they might be cold and short with you where another time they have been welcoming.

I'm presuming this is at an extreme level for you to think it's a mh problem but with no examples it's not really possible to tell.

Just sounds like a bog standard narcissist (npd). A covert, woe is me variety of one.

You however, are the reqlly interesting diagnosis as you have to wonder why, when someone treats you like shit, you are thinking to persevere with developing the relationship. Codependency? Martyr compex? Low self esteem as a result of an abusive past, making you think you are responsible for other peoples poor behaviour and that if you can persevere, they will love you? And you need them to love you because otherwise what does that say about you? That you are unlovable?

The point is, you need to break away from bad people. And that's what this person is. Bad. Rotten.

And you need to establish why you need the approval of such people to afirm your self worth.
Or how you've been conditioned into thinking you need to persevere with people treating you like shit. Forget their personality disorder. What's going on with you? Because it's not healthy.

She wants to be present in nieces and nephews’ life and it’s better for DPs if everyone gets along -seeOP

OK but she's NOT going to get along.

And why should what she wants matter? She's a nasty person. And she certainly shouldn't be anywhere near kids.

Perhaps I have a hairline trigger for this as my grandmother was one. And everyone was all about what she wanted. And I ended up suffering her abuse as a result.

Nasty people don't belong around children.
They don't belong in our life either but at least we have a choice.

I know you maybe want to support your partner but, if he thinks your children should be exposed to horrible people then you actually need to be the voice of reason.

Maybe he's too scared to rock the boat. That's fine...if it's all about him. But not now you have kids.

I'd say she's the scapegoat in a narcissistic family based on the fact you've posted this thread under the guise of helping her. You're probably the golden child and have been pitted against her by your parents.

*sorry I thought it was his sister not yours.

Time to put the big girl pants on and go low/no contact.

Anyone advising you to keep toxic people in your life is just telling you what's 'easy' not what's right. And of course in the longrun, it's the much harder option.

I can't see anything to suggest she's a scapegoat child a pp said. Considering she also falls out with friends not just family. But scapegoats of narcissists can become narcissists too tbf. An abusive childhood does not excuse being a shitty adult either way.