Feeling Sad

[Ruby22]

My adult daughter has cancelled vacation plans with us because she’s mad at me for telling her how I feel. I’ve held my feelings in check for 6 months. I don’t know how to go forward or how to have a good relationship with her.

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

[Sancho]

This is a hard time you are going through. Our  BPD loved ones seem to push us into the corner all the time. On the one hand they can be so hurtful to us, but if we just say the smallest thing about how we are being affected by the comments/behaviour, they  can be so hurt, vindictive, aggressive even.

If I was in your situation now, I probably would be going through a range of emotions: relief that I had finally expressed how I feel; regret that my doing this has resulted in having the plans cancelled; exhausted from having to deal with this for so long etc etc.

I don't know if you have spoken about your feelings to her before. If not, you might have taken the first step towards taking something of your life back. When we are walking on eggshells, trying to avoid anything that might upset our BPD loved one, we lose our lives to this terrible illness - and in the long run we don't help them to learn that people have boundaries and they need to be respected.

Perhaps use this time to take a check on how you are caring for yourself. Tick off the fact you have put up your boundary and said how you feel.

I hope you keep posting to let us know how you are going.

[By Still Water]

Ruby22,
    I agree with Sancho. May you find comfort in the fact that you shared your feelings, as she said. I sense there can be a tendency for the BPD loved one's intense devaluation to generate false guilt in us, as if even one iota of self-flagellation will ease our pain. I've stopped going down that debilitating rabbit hole,  though constructive self-examination is always a given for me. May you be lifted up, today, by remembering all you did right as a mom.  Please let us know how things go. Virtual hug.