My 19-year-old has BPD. He is extremely abusive towards me emotionally. We didn\’t speak for about six months (by my choice. I was dealing with a crisis and could not deal with his manipulation to get my attention when my attention was needed on my younger kid). Recently I reopened the lines of communication to see if we could resolve things, and he went right on the attack again with some classic BPD tactics such as gaslighting, alternative history, and making himself into a victim in a situation where he was actually the abuser.

My dad is pushing for us to reconcile and talk to each other, and honestly my heart starts pounding and I tense up and want to cry just thinking about talking to him on the phone. Is it okay for me to just not have a relationship with him?