Setting boundaries with family who have mental illness

[Ashii]

I’ve posted here before about my experience being a carer to a sibling with mental illness.

I’ve been having a lot of trouble with setting boundaries. My boundaries are often disregarded, forcefully entered (in the sense of my bedroom and personal space) and setting boundaries usually results in self harm, manipulation and/or anger.

my sibling has also spoken about feeling possessive of me, jealous when I’m hanging out with friends and has previously said they enjoy causing other people pain when angry and feeling little to no remorse. They’re in contact regularly with mental health services and are looking into a BPD diagnosis.
I have been thinking about potentially moving in with just the two of us, particularly because their support needs, but I’m unsure if that will make my current problem worse. Any advice around this would be appreciated.
I’m wondering if I should contact their psychologist about what I’ve mentioned here and I’m also wondering how I can set boundaries in a way that has less impact than it does currently. 
Thanks for reading.

[Sophie_M]

Dear Ashii,

Thank you for posting your confusion around boundaries. This is often quite a confusing concept for many of us.

We know that We use boundaries to help us remain physically and/or mentally and/or emotionally safe. The confusing part is, we use these boundaries to help us deal with people who don't want to respect our own personal space. Put another way, our boundaries are for those who don't want to respect our boundaries. Unfortunately, those who don't want to respect our boundaries, such as some close family members, often try to get us to feel guilty so that we stop using our boundaries and let them back into our private personal space.

A good question to ask yourself is: is that person's need to violate my personal self more important than my need to protect my personal self?

We would encourage you to call our experienced counsellors on 1300 22 4636, any time, day or night. The counsellor should be able to help you sort out how your boundaries could work; or at the very least, help you find local resources which might be able to help you with this issue.

Warm regards,

Sophie M.
 

[geoff]

Hello Ashii, if you try and contact their psychologist, not much will be told to you, because of the privacy act, so you won't be ble to get any answers to the questions you want to ask.

Although your intentions are good, I'm not sure it will give you any freedom, because everywhere you want to go, they will want to know and may also want to go with you.

Your privacy won't be as it is now and even when you're on the phone, they will want to know as where you are going.

The idea sounds to be good, but you might always have someone looking over your shoulder and restrict what you want to do.

Geoff.

Life Member.

[Ashii]

Thank you for the reply!