BPD son's email style worries me

[Kate4queen]

My 22 yr old BPD son who doesn't live with us, but is financially supported by us, has been 'communicating' about $ for his green card application (because you brought me here as a child, I had no say in it) and b) lack of health insurance.

First off, I agreed to pay the green card $

Secondly, I gave him the website details for ACA California.

Email rant ensued about us being cheapskates, how we should pay his healthcare, how we are responsible for him etc etc.

ending with Thanks for money.

I replied that the ACA has to cover him and that his costs because of his lack of income would be practically zero. I also made the mistake of setting out exactly why we hadn't been able to get him healthcare in the past and referenced my email asking him for his ss# when I was looking for our family when he refused to give me the number because "I would obviously use it for malicious purposes"

I closed by wishing him the best in his search for healthcare and politely asking him not to call me names like cheapskate, monster, etc

Three emails from him. Big, dense blocks of text, rhetorical ranting style of delivery fixating on my objection to his use of adjectives... . (i.e. insults) insisting that he can say anything he wants and basically ranting.

It reminds me of the writings of a cult leader like Charlie Manson. The logic is so twisted and impossible to even address... .

sigh, I suppose there is nothing you can say in reply as every attempt to validate or offer help is met with scorn and hate. It makes me sad, and his increasingly bizarre style of writing makes me worry about what he's doing to himself.

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[Verbena]

Kate4queen,

I'm sorry you received those ranting e-mails from your son. The sense of entitlement in our society is unbelievable, and pwBPD seem to have a double dose of it. 

I received a similar e-mail from my DD28 last summer, and the style concerned me too.  It was almost as if someone else wrote it--incoherent in places, rambling, full of grammatical and spelling mistakes she normally doesn't make, and laced with random Bible verses taken out of context to attack me.  I figure she wrote it while in a complete rage which may be what happened with your son.  Are you thinking drugs may be fueling his rage? 

You certainly had the right to ask him not to call you names.  I'm not surprised, though, that doing so elicited more e-mails that fixated on his "right" to say what he wants.  There's that entitlement again... .

I actually chose not to respond to the horrible e-mail from my DD.   I was still reeling from the venom and craziness of it when 36 hours later I received a normal, friendly text from her like nothing had happened. Again, I didn't know how to respond.  A couple hours later she put her husband up to calling me to say I had hurt her by not responding to her friendly text because she was just trying to be nice. 

Days later my husband took her nasty e-mail line by line and responded to it.  A lot of her insults and accusations were against him as well, and he wasn't used to being the target.  So he let her have it.  Strangely enough, she never lashed back at him for that.  Had it been me who responded, she probably would have.  It seems that the mother is the most frequent target of BPD children. 

I'm glad your son does not live with you given his problems, but I know you worry about him.   I guess my advice would be to not respond to any of the insults or irrational statements period.  But I know that's hard not to do. 

[Pizzas123]

I so identified with this post.  The ranting, all capital letters as if shouting.  Accusing us of being the worst, most unsupportive parents, telling us to forget we have a daughter, that she never wants to see us again, on and on.  Hateful spewing.  And then, later that day, normal texts as if the former texts never happened. 

Also, I am always the target, never my husband.  He can say almost anything, but I am the horrible, nasty parent - until this accusatory text mentioned above that we recieved a few weeks ago.  THIS time, she included my husband, and guess what?  He is fed up, now that he too experienced the hatefulness!  Before that it was always ":)on't engage her", ":)on't talk to her"... . NOW, when it directly involves him, he is done! He is feeling very bitter toward her at present.  Funny how that works.

My daughter is not using drugs now, due to pregnancy, and that has made a big difference.  Maybe that will be the case with your son, in the future. I wish you all the best.  Experiencing this is not fun, and takes it's toll, I know.

[co.jo]

I know it is hard, but when my daughter gets like that, I just delete it, knowing that is her illness speaking, not her. There is no point in responding to it, as it is not rational, And apologizing is not going to happen either.

Have you and your husband read Valerie Porr's book? It explains why some of this happens.

[Kate4queen]

thanks everyone.

I keep trying to establish basic communication with him, but it just doesn't work. He takes what he wants ($) and then uses the opportunity to denigrate and insult us.

co.jo, We have read the Valerie Porr book and many others, so know what the issue is, just feeling helpless in how to respond without triggering this response.

Actually what the emails do is make me sad because I realize how lost he is in this illness and that nothing I say will make things better at the moment. I'm not sure if he's using drugs again at the moment and have no one to ask, but it is his main coping strategy apart from demonizing us.

I do save the emails, but in a separate file in case I ever need to defend myself. He tends to make accusations against us on a regular basis and I've learned to keep track of my responses (always calm, reasonable and validating) and his increasingly deregulated replies.

I just feel so helpless.

[qcarolr]

When my DD27 rages at me, to respond or not often depends on my state as well as her's. When I can remember to let it slide off my protective 'force field', I can make better choices. When she is this dysregulated it does not matter what I say as she cannot really hear anything outside her own head at that point. This is my sense of it anyway. Too bad I cannot read her mind - well maybe that would not be so good either.

The other thing I remind myself is that each word of a ranting rage that she speaks is really a projection of what she believes about herself and is unable to accept or hold inside herself. It is just not safe. She has no tools or skills to cope with this empty loss of self worth. She refuses treatment of any kind.

When she is doing meth with friends the rages can shift into terrifying threats against our family. Focused on me as mom but also including dh and even indirectly gd8.

Gd's T has told me that a very likely scenario is that DD will never be able to accept the harm her rages have done to her daughter and their relationship. For now, gd wants nothing to do with her mom. No letters, no phone calls and definitely no visits, esp. in the safety of our home.

Kate4queen - hang in there. Keep the focus on your own mental health. This is what you have some say in. There is little impact on your DS when he is lost in his emotions.

qcr

[Kate4queen]

When my DD27 rages at me, to respond or not often depends on my state as well as her's. When I can remember to let it slide off my protective 'force field', I can make better choices. When she is this dysregulated it does not matter what I say as she cannot really hear anything outside her own head at that point. This is my sense of it anyway. Too bad I cannot read her mind - well maybe that would not be so good either.

The other thing I remind myself is that each word of a ranting rage that she speaks is really a projection of what she believes about herself and is unable to accept or hold inside herself. It is just not safe. She has no tools or skills to cope with this empty loss of self worth. She refuses treatment of any kind.

When she is doing meth with friends the rages can shift into terrifying threats against our family. Focused on me as mom but also including dh and even indirectly gd8.

Gd's T has told me that a very likely scenario is that DD will never be able to accept the harm her rages have done to her daughter and their relationship. For now, gd wants nothing to do with her mom. No letters, no phone calls and definitely no visits, esp. in the safety of our home.

Kate4queen - hang in there. Keep the focus on your own mental health. This is what you have some say in. There is little impact on your DS when he is lost in his emotions.

qcr

Thank you