We don't believe her story... confront her?

[Think About It....]

So much of what has been shared on this thread makes me think of all the validation skills I have been learning and practicing from this site. It shifts to focus from Facts to Emotions. Validation helps to say 'I believe this is how you fee'l without having to agree with or accept their version of reality.

Great book on validation: 'I Don't Have to Make Everything All Better" -- Lundberg

Valerie Porr also has lots about this in her book, "Overcoming BPD"

qcr

[qcarolr]

So much of what has been shared on this thread makes me think of all the validation skills I have been learning and practicing from this site. It shifts to focus from Facts to Emotions. Validation helps to say 'I believe this is how you fee'l without having to agree with or accept their version of reality.

Great book on validation: 'I Don't Have to Make Everything All Better" -- Lundberg

Valerie Porr also has lots about this in her book, "Overcoming BPD"

qcr

[vivekananda]

Yep QCR, validation is the way to handle it when it is our child, or someone we feel a sense of responsibility to.

However, for those adults we read about such as peaceplease has experienced - or my sad sister - I think we need to protect ourselves from them. The last time my sister tried to manipulate me, I was direct and said to her, in a mild but definitie voice, 'don't try to manipulate me (name)'. She immediately withdrew her hand from my arm and hissed. It was extraordinary. Of course there had been lots of tooing and froing before I was so direct. She simply takes advantage of the bounds of common courtesy and abuses that 'trust' we all show to each other in our social interactions. Since then sis knows I know and I have had no further problems with her. I have my next response already rehearsed for her if she tries anything again.

cheers,
Vivek  

[Forgetmenot]

She simply takes advantage of the bounds of common courtesy and abuses that 'trust' we all show to each other in our social interactions.

That's it exactly!

[j's friend]

One of the things confused me when I first found this board were the number of members who spoke about their d's and dd being kind gentle souls who are compasionate and have empathy for others. I really couldnt identify with them and even thought of leaving the site as I knew that those descriptions just didnt fit my dd although I did identify with a lot of the behaviours that were being described. Some even described their kids as doing anything for anyone.Well not my dd.

dd's p dx dd with emerging PD couldnt or wouldnt say which one he thought it was and it has taken me  a lot of reading to figure out that  my dd seems more Npd with BPD traits. Maybe she has another PD altogether but I see many of the Npd traits in my dd. Even my own mother has said that she thinks that dd has the capabilites to be very dangerous. Often she will try to manipulate and triangulate people to get her needs met. She is such an intelligent girl who uses much of her time to scretively plot and scheme and will take advantage and railroad others to get her own needs met which I have witnessed with my own eyes.

Short bursts of validation work well with my dd in the way that it allows her to feel safe enough to open up a little bit and talk about her feelings,(always the victim) but if I use it too much she will get angry and accuse me trying to be her therapist.
When I feel that dd is trying to manipulate me I have told her that I believe that she is trying to manipulate me it has stopped her in her tracks and she has dropped the b/s and behaved much better. I would also say that most of my dd's anger seems to be around jealousy. She is always jealous of what other say, do, or act and is such a strong negative emotion.

Does anyone know the best way to validate the feelings of jealousy which dd denies she feels?

[Forgetmenot]

JS,

I can sympathize with having to deal with a more narcisist personality.  My ex husband was more like that.  My D17 is sometimes like that but more often is just dysregulated and goes into general rages and tantrums but deep down inside she really is a nice person.

I'm not sure how to validate jealosy.  Maybe one of the more senior members here can help you with that.  I'm just learning to be more patient and lower my expectations.  Validating is hard for me as it feels pretty un natural.  When I am able to do it right it does seem to help.

All I can offer you is my support.  Come back and post often and maybe we can help you figure it out together.

 

[vivekananda]

Validation takes a lot of practice for me, it doesn't come naturally - I am a logic thinking person - but I do respond so well to having me emotions validated. I am so pleased now to be able to recognise it. I only wish I had known about validation before, it would have made my life so much easier and may have helped my with me own dd.

One of the things confused me when I first found this board were the number of members who spoke about their d's and dd being kind gentle souls who are compasionate and have empathy for others.

I think some of that is that we remember the child we used to have and our dreams for our children. We can remember good times and we hope for good times again. It helps us to hang in and not lose faith in the possibility of an improvement. We all love our children so dearly. Typically they save their worst behaviours for us I think. Sometimes it seems as if this BPD is like a protective shield they wear and underneath it is the core of who they are - of course, what we see on the surface is the shield, some of us like to look under it (or think we can look under it).

Does anyone know the best way to validate the feelings of jealousy which dd denies she feels?

Thinking out loud here: my sis who seemed to be motivated to be spiteful because of jealousy would deny it too. I'm not sure now it was jealousy. I think it was needing attention that was motivating her. So, I'm not sure that validating jealousy is the answer...

Maybe saying something starting with, 'I understand it doesn't feel fair ...' could be a beginning. Although I think if I started a sentence like that to validate something my d said, would probably lead immediately to a full blown rage.

I think I would need to learn a bit more about things before I felt comfortable trying to validate jealousy. Jealousy is different to feeling sad, or hurt, or angry etc. Jealousy is a powerful emotion, more of a super emotion.

Short bursts of validation are good, but perhaps we also need to practice ways of diverting conversation to subjects which don't carry emotion also. I could understand a d spotting the use of techniques and getting angry. And she would be right, I am not a T. It is not my job to change her (my dd is 31), but it is my role to try to keep my relationship with her alive.

I wish I knew the answers... but if I did, would I be here?

love to you all,

vivek 

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[qcarolr]

It took me a long time - many months actually - to be able to validate anything with DD26. I did a lot of practicing on more 'safe' people. Co-workers, friends, dh and gd7. And I realized that I needed to learn to validate myself first - to actually ask for or teach my dh to learn to be more validating of me and me for him. This self-care piece had to come first to guide me away from the intense anger and resentment I had toward DD and the misery that she had brought with her into my life. No longer 'blame' her for this trauma.
As the book "I Don't Have to Make Everything All Better" clearly discusses in the first chapter - we have to get in a sincere place before we can be successful with validation. And this book is not focused on 'BPD'. It is learning this skill for ourselves in every r/s we have in our life.

The companion for validation - and required for the validation to work - is getting clear on our values. Where are the lines in the sand that we will not allow anyone to cross. And them to work out these as values-based boundaries. It is not to change the other's behaviors - I have given up on having any control or impact on DD, very few specific expectations for her to be in our home. It is about protecting what is most important to us. Here is a really good workshop on this type of boundary - and it does work with my DD when I am able to do it.

http://BPDfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=61684.0   'Boundaries-Living our values'

I also get that having a higher level of narcassitic traits does change the picture of feeling manipulated and may require more intense, specific boundary setting. My DD lacks some empathy, esp when it is an emotional situation - ie. I am feeling intense emotion about a difficult situation and she is telling me to just get over it. SHe is kind of shutting down - I see this as an unconsious self-protective strategy she has to keep her own emotional roller-coaster in better control. I used to try to defend my feelings and tears (I cry so easily as do many in my FOO - reunions are messy sometimes!) which led to lots of raging from DD. Now I just state that I am having lots of feelings and this is OK. THen I walk away if possible or change the subject.

Jealousy - DD is very controlling in her r/s's and very vengeful when they are not working out or she is trying to seperate from them. When I used to try to get involved she projected a lot of this onto me in the form of blaming me for the failure of a r/s. I have learned to stay out of her r/s's as much as possible. I listen to her, acknowledge how much this must suck for her (her language works better than mine) and listen somemore. THe most important thing is to avoid giving advice or making judgements about anyone or anything in her life. THis, over time, has decreased the blame projections - I have stopped taking it in so it doesn't work for her with me anymore.

Hope this is helpful. I wish I could say things with fewer words ---

qcr

[muffetbuffet]

Thanks for all of the stories.  Not that I wish bad things on anyone, but it helps to see that we are not alone.  Alot of what we are dealing with is pretty "normal".  I guess it depends on the person and the situation about the confronting.  My daughter's therapist did approach her about the pregnacy and miscarriage.  I received a phone call last night from our daughter who is still at an RTF.  She was happy and talked about lots of other things (how was your day, what she did today,etc.) She has a 10 minute time limit on her phone calls.  As we were approaching the last minute or so of the conversation, she changed her tone of voice and asked why I would tell her therapist what had happened.  "I was not ready to talk about it yet"  My reply to her was that I was concerned about her.  Before anything else was said, she told me she had to go.  No goodbye just hung up the phone.  Still manipulating the situation... We have a family session on Tuesday and I am sure this will come up again.  Until then, I have no plans to visit our daughter this weekend.  If there is phone contact, I have no intention of bringing it up.  Will serve no purpose at this point.  Have a wonderful day everyone and thanks for letting me vent. 

[vivekananda]

I wish I could say things with fewer words ---

me too! 

vivek 

[Forgetmenot]

The ten minute limit on phone calls is genious!

[muffetbuffet]

I too love the 10 minute limit on phone calls.  Just when our daughter gets heated about something, she is told it is time to hang up...