u/xxhunnybunny

My baby is 6 weeks and we just started exclusively nursing in the past 10 days after a rough start with my anxiety about EBF and not being able to see how much she was getting. In the beginning I was pumping and giving bottles despite her latching well, and I decided to make the leap and try just nursing to foster our connection and because everyone says it’s more convenient and easier.

The thing is, she will not stay latched for more than 10-15min. The majority of the time, it’s only 5-8 minutes.. she either falls asleep, or just acts full. Is this okay? I did a weighted feed at 4 weeks, in which she got an ounce and a half in 8 minutes. I’m not sure if that’s a lot or normal or what? I guess she could’ve gotten even more efficient in the last two weeks too right? Does anyone have a similar experience? It’s just hard to believe this is okay when all I ever see is how other people babies latch for 15 min ON EACH SIDE! Mine only does one side at a time and for less time! She has been steadily gaining an ounce per day. I bought a scale to ease my anxiety. She has plenty of diapers. She always acts satisfied. But I’m just blown away as to how she is getting enough in that time?! The doctor says it’s fine and she’s doing great. I guess I just need someone to say they’re experiencing similar for me to believe this!

So this past year (last May), my husband and I moved from Georgia to North Carolina. We bought one vehicle in Georgia, and our other vehicle is a lease that we started the same day we bought the other vehicle in Georgia. So two vehicles, to my understanding both have Ad Valorem Tax from GA tacked on to monthly payments. When we moved to North Carolina, we then had to register the vehicles, and pay property tax on them. Did we get screwed having to pay two different taxes on these vehicles for two separate states? Was there a step we missed to stop paying Ad Valorem or be exempt from these crazy property taxes in NC? Together, both vehicles came out to nearly $1500 in taxes for the year in North Carolina. Please explain this to me like I’m 5. I’ve googled to no avail, and I can’t help but think there was a way around this. We are lost and with another year coming to an end we don’t want to pay another property tax in NC if we don’t have to.

If it helps, both vehicles are in my name (wife). Would it make a difference if I “sold” the vehicle to my husband while in NC? The real question is, is there a work around for this? Send help.

I am about to give birth, like, this week. My sister (26F) has BPD and she’s also an addict. For some background, she pretty much made my life (30F) a living hell for about 10 years, to put it lightly. Most of her issues are always self inflicted. Her addiction has also infiltrated the lives of people that care about her, and cause her episodes to be more violent and unhinged than they normally would be (I think). However she has acted abusively towards me and many partners sober many times (usually she tells me the partners are abusive- later I find out she’s the one doing the abusing). I can’t trust that she’s ever telling me the truth, I can tell when she’s high but I can’t ever know if she’s actually been sober for as long as she says as I don’t see her every day. She has lied many times about it before. There’s so much trust that has been broken and so many times I’ve been subjected to trauma either by her own doing or some crisis that has happened to her that I stupidly tried to save her from or help her fix. I felt an obligation to look out for her after our mom passed, but no one should have to do the damage control that I have. I guess I didn’t have to, but it’s so hard seeing your little sister struggle.

Our relationship became unsustainable and horrible for my mental health, often making me physically ill. Last year a chain of events happened worse than ever before and I finally had to say enough is enough. We went no contact in November after she blessed me out for being pregnant and not telling her first. (Even though I tried and she had refused to speak to me, because she was on another tirade as usual about how everything that had happened to her was somehow my fault).

Since November, she had been sending me random updates about her life as if nothing had happened, which was bizarre. Saying how great she’s doing, trying to tell me about yet another new boyfriend she met once in person and then moved in with, how everything is just rainbows and butterflies. All the while, I’m not replying and I have received updates from family that she was still having issues with having episodes and fits of rage and things were indeed not going okay. So, more lies. Not once did she ever ask me about my baby, how I’m doing, or even asked what my baby’s name is going to be. Not one time. I ignored her until about three weeks ago, because I felt as if I now had to place some boundaries because she wants so badly to meet “her niece” (This is the only way she will reference my baby) and I am due soon.

I told her I did not think now was a good time to start a process to healing our relationship, and therefore I was not comfortable with her being involved with the birth or coming to visit in person. She hasn’t tackled any sort of therapy, she says she’s been sober for 6 months but for me that is not a long enough time to be sure she’s not going to fall back into her regular patterns. She is now with this random guy, which I also found out she got engaged to, which also concerns me greatly because she has a VERY bad history with relationships and idealizing them and then things crash and burn QUICKLY. This conversation ended in her telling me I was disrespectful, didn’t treat her as a human, and I was mean to her and hurt her by not involving her in the pregnancy. So, once again everything is my fault.

She contacted me again a couple days ago, with a 10 minute voice memo saying how sorry she was and how she was thankful for everything my husband and I have done for her. Mind you, she was prompted by a family member to do this, even though she had months to do this on her own. As bad as it sounds, I knew she was trying to manipulate us into letting her come see the baby. I then reiterated my thoughts and boundaries. I told her she either needed to respect those boundaries or we would need to block her. She then got pissed and lashed out again... saying she was indifferent to whether we blocked her and that “she got engaged but I guess that doesn’t matter.” I just didn’t reply…

I just don’t think I am in a spot, about to give birth, where I can handle trying to just act like I’m not incredibly triggered by even just her presence. I can’t trust her, and I don’t want my baby around her or even want her as an influence.. There’s a part of me that feels bad, because she is my sister, and that makes her my baby’s aunt, but I just don’t want to.

Is that selfish? I am a FTM. I feel like I need to protect my child. I just want her to leave me alone honestly, but I feel horrible for feeling that way. I just found this subreddit, I haven’t looked into a lot of support groups for BPD family members, only ones I’ve found that seem more centered on romantic relationships. Which obviously don’t apply to me, but I see similarities in those stories and her romantic relationships. It’s all very overwhelming. Should I just continue more no contact? Is there even any hope? I’m so burnt out by her, I just can’t see a world where this can be resolved because I’m so hurt. I feel like I can’t explain the situation well enough to highlight how much damage she’s done, and this is already too long. Any advice is welcome! I am so tired.

***This is an extremely long post for a first time support seeker that includes a lot of what might be triggering events. This is just my experience, and I guess I’m mostly venting and seeking advice. The title will make sense at the end. Skip if you don’t want to read a novel.

My sister has BPD. I’m new to seeking any advice or help, honestly because she’s also an addict, also has been diagnosed with one of the types of bipolar, also ADHD, and also because I never know what to believe because she is a compulsive liar and the definition of an untrustworthy addict. She’s a doctor shopper and she never takes her meds correctly, causing psychotic episodes, periods of manic behavior, and she’s been through many therapists due to either …becoming friends with them… or not liking what they have to say. She herself I know believes she has BPD (she doesn’t believe any other diagnoses except using the ADHD diagnoses for abusing adderall bc her DOC is cocaine), so I suppose some form of self awareness is there in that she knows she “splits” and abuses people one second/idealizes them the next, and upon reading some of your stories and doing some very light, fed up, research I must say I can agree she seems extremely borderline at least.

I’ve been 5mo no contact after I finally just couldn’t take it anymore. For some background, it’s been 10 years that she has been an addict, it got worse when our mom passed away unexpectedly in 2020. Way worse. I suppose she has always shown characteristics of BPD, although I thought originally she was just kind of self centered sometimes, and blamed a lot of behavior on her addiction. I had my blinders on a bit due to having an estranged father from the time I was 17 (I’m 30 now) and her being my only family member and source of “support,” especially after our mom passed which was traumatic to say the least. For 10 years I have been lied to, SCREAMED at, blamed for her addiction and anything else bad that she has been through (literally all of which were self inflicted events), berated, belittled, and all while I have just tried so hard to be there for her and tried to just forgive her and understand her struggles with mental health.

The last chain of events that lead to the no contact began with Thanksgiving 2 years ago, when she got extremely upset that I had gone to see my husbands family for the first time since our mom passed instead of staying home with her. Mind you, I invited her to come with us, which she didn’t remember due to being high or drunk or both. We told her we’d make it up to her, and bought $200 worth of Thanksgiving food to recook the following weekend so that we could celebrate together. I always tried to be empathetic around holidays because I knew they were hard for her without our mom.

At the time she had a roommate that she had been doing drugs with and sleeping with, and wanted to bring him with her to the Thanksgiving dinner. I was not surprised but also angry that she would ask this, because we had already had and talked about the issue of her wanting to introduce us to a different man every month- for some reason especially during holidays or birthdays (sex and negative male attention is another addiction she battles), so I told her no, I’d rather not have her fuck-buddy stranger in my home when we are trying to do something special for her to “make up” for seeing my husbands family. Is that not messed up.. those types of things were a trend with her. My delivery could’ve been better, yes. But wtf?

Anyways, she refused to come over because she said I called her a whore, and so we ate another Thanksgiving alone for nothing. She then didn’t speak to me until Christmas Eve, in which she said she was going to kill herself because I ruined the holidays for her and then blocked me. I didn’t see her again until my mom’s birthday in March, where I asked her to please just acknowledge that none of that was okay, and then she proceeded to have another episode, screaming at me and storming out of the restaurant we were at creating a scene.

Our birthdays are also in March a couple of days apart, and we had made concrete plans for her birthday to have dinner together with her new boyfriend. (Different than Thanksgiving man). Luckily, this guy was someone I knew from highschool, so at least I had met him beforehand. I had plans at the park with my friends to have a picnic before dinner, which I invited her to, and she said no she would rather spend the day with her boyfriend. Well, her and her new boyfriend got in a fight, and of course she calls me while I’m at the park with 15 people demanding I pick her up (she totaled her car months prior when she was high) because her bf was a “piece of shit” and “mean to her.” When I refused to leave all these people at the park that I had invited, she again threatened to kill herself. I told her if she was having a mental health crisis that she needed to call the police and be admitted. For the first time ever, she did.

So my sister is now admitted to a mental health facility in a different city a couple of hours away, because that was the only place with a spot open. She is there for about a week, in a different city. I bought her clothes and shoes and shower items and whatever they would let her have in there to make her more comfortable and talked with her on the phone every day. I took care of her 3 pets, cleaned her home, and did everything I could to help any way I could. I had hope that maybe this was a turning point. When she got out, things got worse.

It ended up that Thanksgiving man had moved out (shocker) and she was behind on rent/couldn’t pay it on her own so she was now getting evicted. In order to ensure she got all of her belongings out I had to personally speak with her landlord, rent a Uhaul and help her, and find a place for her pets to go while she got back on her feet. She stayed with my husband and I for almost 3 weeks afterwards while I tried to convince her to move in with our father, yes the estranged one, because that was literally her only option besides sober living which she refused to go to because she wouldn’t give up her pets. She didn’t have any friends at the time (I’m talking zero) to move in with or lean on because she would have episodes and scream at them and she lost them all. This is all happening while I’m also in the middle of moving to another state myself, and I’m obviously not taking her with us. Stress, stress, more stress. Oh! And then, we find out she’s pregnant!

So now not only am I rekindling a relationship with my father against my will for the sake of finding her a safe place to go with her pets, moving, moving her stuff, dealing with her emotions, dealing with EVERYTHING, I’m also trying to get her to REALLY think through whether or not it’s the best time to have a baby. Something I typically would completely leave up to her had she been in a stable environment because it is NOT my choice it is hers, but she is so manic at this point and flip flopping so bad that I don’t even know what to do besides try to just encourage her to really think through all of her options. I have never in my life been put in such a situation. All of this has nothing to even do with me, truly, and in true fashion I am the punching bag for it all. It is all my fault, and she continues lashing out at me all the while.

She decides not to have the baby, which I will just leave to whoever is reading this to judge or understand, and she moves in with our father. Has her own room, he is paying her bills, provides her transportation, and all she has to do (literally ALL she has to do) is find a job, save money to get on her feet, and begin trying to heal. 2 months go by, we are talking everyday. Shes with our dad, I’m in my new home. She still has some depression, but all in all seems pretty stable considering all that went down. She is stable on her meds, finally, with the help of the people from the mental facility she was in.

BUT THEN! In the pattern that never ends, what does she do? After two months of stability? STOPS TAKING HER MEDS AND HAS ANOTHER MANIC EPISODE. Just like she’s done COUNTLESS times. Because SHE doesn’t believe that what they gave her is right. Because the meds “made her dehydrated.” So she just quits them all! The antidepressant, anti psychotic, and whatever other thing she was on. Cold turkey, KNOWING that that is going to completely mess her world up. She then lashes out at me AGAIN, she is a victim to all these things that have happened, and I just have Fucking. Had. It.

Welp, after two years of trying, now, I get pregnant right after her meds episode. And I cut her off completely because I’ve had it and what better time than then to no longer subject my baby and my body to the stress she puts me under. And here we are. In the last 5 months, and I say 5 months because I did try to talk to her and tell her about the baby in November ironically around Thanksgiving when she had another episode about us not including her in the pregnancy, she has continued to text me a couple of times.

It has been completely bizarre. Acting like everything’s fine because she met a new person online in an NA group and then proceeded to have him set her up in a house and take care of her, basically. She wants my husband and I to meet him. Meanwhile she hasn’t asked about my pregnancy, or our baby and its wellbeing at all. She hasn’t even asked what her name is going to be, and I’m due in 2 weeks. What has set me off to take the time to write this is that she texted me yesterday on Mother’s Day to let me know she was going to see a concert with her boyfriend and that she’s doing good. I’m like… okay???? No shred of accountability taken at all in these past months. Even for the episode on Thanksgiving. In fact, in February she sent us a 6 page letter that she clearly wrote in a manic episode, walking us through the 12 steps and saying that she was not going to say she’s sorry for everything, because it was her addiction and not her. But also demanding that she is a part of her nieces life. Somehow she still managed to forget to ask how she even was. Just made the declaration that she NEEDS her niece.

So what the fuck do you do? I mean, I don’t know where the line is even drawn anymore because despite all that happening it’s truly the tip of the iceberg when you talk about 10 years of chaos and abuse. The trauma she has caused me, my husband, even her ex-friends. The excuses made from the mile high stack of reasons why, (her addiction, BPD, etc) I guess the way she’s treated me is not something worth apologizing for. Should I EVER expect her to take any accountability? Where should my empathy even go anymore? Or should I be empathetic at all? Addiction is a disease, but BPD with awareness and no accountability seems like a trend that I shouldn’t stand for? I don’t even KNOW where to begin healing our relationship, or if there’s anything to even be done at this point. I have to protect my child from this now, and to give my child the best version of myself, I can’t subject myself to this sort of thing. Is it just over? Do I block and move on completely? I don’t know. It’s the not knowing what to do and confusion that is hard. I truly feel guilty because I DEFINITELY enabled her over the years, but I can’t be too hard on myself, right? I was chasing a version of her that I’m really not even sure is there anymore. I don’t know, I just don’t.

So if you’ve made it this far, hey, thank you. Any advice at all is appreciated. Any support is appreciated. Any relatable stories are appreciated. This is all just so crazy. I never thought in a million years I’d feel this way or be treated this way when all I ever tried to do was love her. What a mess… my condolences go out to every single person on this sub that has been through something similar. It’s truly a nightmare.