I’ll start by saying that my brother and I have never gotten along. Its really a shame because our parent are older and we have no other family once they are gone. Over the years my brother has always exhibited very clear traits of BPD, depression and anxiety and it’s put a huge strain on our whole family. He’s never held a job, has very few people in his life, the relationships he does have are very strained (even with my parents), and lately I hear he spends most of his days alone in bed. 

All of this had been the norm until a few years ago when a girlfriend of his broke up with him because she could not deal with “a sick person who is never wrong and is never at fault.” He spiraled after this and started having difficulties doing even small things day to day. Again, he and I aren’t close so my parents really filled me in on most of this. I would reach out during these times by text (because he didn’t answer the phone) but typically I would get a long message about how bad everything was, how his life is worse than I could imagine, he’s chronically in pain (he has back problems) and no one is ever there for him. At first I’d offer suggestions, which would be responded with that I don’t understand. I’m a doctor, so I reached out to some psychiatry friends who recommended listening without saying much in return and just let him vent. So I tried just listening and saying “I’m so sorry, that must be really hard.” Im only human, and after a few weeks when every message was responded to with more complaints it became very taxing so I would try to send a positive messages with good things, or even randomly just a cute photo but those would also be responded to with negativity. 

All this went on for awhile, and then he started reaching out to MY friends (who he had met only a few times years ago) on Facebook with complaints about me and then vague suicidal phrases. I called my parents (as I live 3 hours away) who went to his house and found him still talking about suicide. He agreed to go to the hospital, but not for a few days... and then it never happened and everyone seemed to move past it, but me. I was begging my parents to have him taken to a hospital for weeks, but he was adamant that too many psychiatrists/therapists have screwed him over so he won’t go.

Well a few more weeks ago by and then out of the blue he calls my husband and says “if anything were to happen to me please do X with my stuff and please contact these people.” When asked what’s going on, my brother responded with more vague comments and hung up. My husband calls me frantic and asks what he should do. I told him to call the cops, because it only takes once for us to be wrong and something to happen, and maybe worst case they could take him to a hospital where he could get care. The cops were called, he tells them he is fine and nothing comes of it. EXCEPT now he refuses to speak to my husband or me because we over reacted to his “what if” and that we should have known better. He has told us to pretend he’s dead. To make matters worse, my mom also blames me for calling the cops, because “they could have shot him” so we should have called her instead.

It’s been over 2 years. Occasionally I will send him messages like “I hope your well” or “I really hope to see you at dinner tonight” or even a funny meme once every few months. However this has been relayed to me by my mother as “triggering.” I happened to see him at the house when I came to visit and he straight ignored my presence a few month ago. 

How do I fix a relationship when the other person isn’t willing to speak to me? It’s tearing my mother apart, and to be frank she’s not the healthiest person. I want him to get help, and would be willing to go to treatment with him to fix our relationship, but he refuses to have anything to do with me. What can I do?