Hey! I don't know if I'm welcome here since I don't actually have a mental illness myself, but I'm trying anyway because I'm getting a bit desperate. 

I need help with my bipolar cousin. She's currently staying with me and my parents after losing her apartment in Cali and more chains of unfortunate events, but that hasn't exactly been going well. My cousin refuses to get help of any kind. She won't go to therapy, she won't take her meds, she won't get a job, and she's very much convinced the whole world is out to get her. 

Having positive interactions with her are practically impossible because she will find a way to turn anything into a problem. I can't even begin to tell you how many times you start off with an innocent non-problematic statement and somehow she manages to make it escalate into how everything is wrong with the world. 

She also has a habit of going off on people for doing or saying something she doesn't like. You don't want to do something for her? Verbally berated or guilt tripped. You have a different opinion? Verbally berated. You're literally just vibing and she's not digging it? Verbally berated. She's verbally berated me numerous times and majority of the time, I've just held my tongue to avoid making the situation worse. 

I could only take this for so long before the resentment started building up and overflowing. After a while, I started defending myself or calling her out for her crap. Most of time, they were just hesitent, softly spoken comments. "I don't exactly fancy playing taxi", "I don't think that's a good idea", "Don't you think you're going a bit too far?". Then, I started getting more bold and outright expressing the extent of my displeasure. "I'm not driving you places at the drop of the hat", "I'm not doing that", "I'm not talking to you when you get like this" and it's been utter hell. 

My parents have me apologize even though 95% of the time, she's the one completely in the wrong. They say it's to keep the peace and to make sure she literally doesn't run away and try to live on the streets, but all it does is make my emotions feel invalidated no matter how much they say it isn't the case. 

I understand she can't completely help it. I understand she has manic episodes in which she gets a certain way. I understand I'm not supposed to take what she personally and that she family, but I'm really nearing my limit. 

It's getting the point where I've started considering just distancing myself from her in general and just refuse any and all interactions. We clearly can't get along, so...why bother? But then I think about it more and how I'd be a shitty family member to abandon her just because she has mental health issues. 

As of right now, me and my parents agreed that I should just go up north to stay with my older sister until college starts back up again to get away from all the chaos. Despite agreeing and actually being the one to kind of suggest it, I still feel like I'm being ran out of my own home. The resentment just keeps building up towards her and makes it feel as if there's nothing left of this relationship to salvage. 

I want to be a good cousin and be there for her no matter what, but it's hard and draining. I need advice on how to go about this. She's clearly not going anywhere any time soon so I'm still going to have to deal with her on holidays. Everything just...sucks. 

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TL;DR: Bipolar cousin is  aggressive and a bit self centered which makes interacting with her emotionally draining. I want to salvage our relationship rather than let what's left of it crumble into dust.