a thought about minimalism and negative musings

[Parents! Get help here!]

Hi BPDfam

So I just wanted to share a small inner experience I had this week.  My dd had wound up receiving several thousand dollars from me and family in quick succession for a variety of reasons, and it was really bothering me on a few levels, to the point where I was experiencing intrusive negative thinking first thing in the morning and continuing in the day any time I wasn't engaged.  One of the thousand was supposed to be a loan, and on the day it was supposed to be paid back I hadn't heard anything, which escalated the negative thinking.  However, I very much wanted to avoid an outburst or anything that would set her back.

I realized at some point that I needed to do something, but that it needed to be the simplest and most concrete thing.  So a combination of simply in a very positive and I hope natural manner, mentioning the loan and that I had an expectation of hearing from her, and accepting her response of promising next month, plus also just expressing my feelings to my husband (and asking him to recognize I wasn't accusing dd of anything, I just needed to offload feelings), was enough to stop the neg-train in my head.  So that was interesting to me, because I didn't say to her any of the various intrusive negative thoughts, just addressed the concrete bit that we'd mutually agreed on, in a non-accusatory way (I even acknowledged maybe I'd forgotten the date?  But she honestly corrected me that no, I was right). 

I've had many blow-ups in the past, and I'm very glad I avoided one now, even if she is also having her version of negative thoughts perhaps her responses to me are polite, fairly appropriate and quick.  So I think that will help us move forward, and I have to take my own responsibility to avoid providing more financial support than I'm comfortable with in the future. 

This is just in line with some of the skills here, I think, but the key for me was sort of waiting until I could do the minimum possible response, that would let me move on.  I like doing minimum work/reactions in other areas :-) so this fits well with how I'm comfortable. 

Sharing here has sometimes been part of my response!  Or just reading other people's situations and getting perspective, helps me a great deal.  Actually I think responding to someone else's post here let me get enough handle on myself to open the communication with her.

[incadove]

Hi BPDfam

So I just wanted to share a small inner experience I had this week.  My dd had wound up receiving several thousand dollars from me and family in quick succession for a variety of reasons, and it was really bothering me on a few levels, to the point where I was experiencing intrusive negative thinking first thing in the morning and continuing in the day any time I wasn't engaged.  One of the thousand was supposed to be a loan, and on the day it was supposed to be paid back I hadn't heard anything, which escalated the negative thinking.  However, I very much wanted to avoid an outburst or anything that would set her back.

I realized at some point that I needed to do something, but that it needed to be the simplest and most concrete thing.  So a combination of simply in a very positive and I hope natural manner, mentioning the loan and that I had an expectation of hearing from her, and accepting her response of promising next month, plus also just expressing my feelings to my husband (and asking him to recognize I wasn't accusing dd of anything, I just needed to offload feelings), was enough to stop the neg-train in my head.  So that was interesting to me, because I didn't say to her any of the various intrusive negative thoughts, just addressed the concrete bit that we'd mutually agreed on, in a non-accusatory way (I even acknowledged maybe I'd forgotten the date?  But she honestly corrected me that no, I was right). 

I've had many blow-ups in the past, and I'm very glad I avoided one now, even if she is also having her version of negative thoughts perhaps her responses to me are polite, fairly appropriate and quick.  So I think that will help us move forward, and I have to take my own responsibility to avoid providing more financial support than I'm comfortable with in the future. 

This is just in line with some of the skills here, I think, but the key for me was sort of waiting until I could do the minimum possible response, that would let me move on.  I like doing minimum work/reactions in other areas :-) so this fits well with how I'm comfortable. 

Sharing here has sometimes been part of my response!  Or just reading other people's situations and getting perspective, helps me a great deal.  Actually I think responding to someone else's post here let me get enough handle on myself to open the communication 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

[MomMae]

Thank you for sharing this, Incadove!  You are an inspiration 

[heartandwhole]

Great work, incadove. That is, indeed, inspiring. I can relate very much to those intrusive negative thoughts. And learning how to appropriately express what needs to be expressed is something I'm always working on.

I really like your approach of "minimum possible response." If I've understood correctly, is that a way to address the issue in which you keep to the barest facts and needs? I know that the negative thinking adds on loads of unnecessary stuff, when in fact, we want to find out when the money is coming back (in your case).

Sharing here has sometimes been part of my response!  Or just reading other people's situations and getting perspective, helps me a great deal.  Actually I think responding to someone else's post here let me get enough handle on myself to open the communication with her.

That is what is so great about participating here. I am always inspired and learning something.

Thank you for sharing your progress, and well done! 

heartandwhole

[Yepanotherone]

Incadove I love this ! I too have learned to very much apply the minimalist approach to responding . And it works a treat !
It certainly doesn’t come easy for me to do because my natural instinct is to lecture! But I’ve learned from experience , that minimalist responses work best .

For example , just today , my DD asked me to plait her hair for her before she went to work . She was sitting on my bed as I worked on her hair. Now my DD has lost quite a bit of weight (26 lbs ) due to exercising more and making better food choices . She has her lovely trim wee figure back and is quite rightly proud of herself . Her sister remains a bit overweight . So anyways ,my DD started talking about how her sister is overweight , how she needs to lose that weight and how she could help her sister to lose it , and “ if she’s only cut out certain things from her diet she’d lose the weight “ yada yada yada . Like a little miss perfect know all !
Now under normal circumstances my response would have been something quite cheeky and along the lines of “ hark at you miss know all “ and in my minds eye I’m thinking to myself “don’t you be having a go at your sister when you’ve literally been the devil incarnate and put us through absolute hell for much of your teenage life “  .
I said neither of those things . I merely said “hmmm” a lot then said “ it’s nice that you want to help your sister but you can’t force anyone to do something they aren’t ready to do , it needs to come from within “.

She knew what I was saying and reads between the lines . She knows I was also referencing her own struggles . Minimal response though from me when really , I could have said a lot more ! but it definitely works to keep relationships running smoothly with our BPD loved ones

[incadove]

Thanks for the replies loves!  Its odd my own mental state is so relative, like when things are just awful then they turn up I'm deeply happy; but when they are generally really pretty good a slight downturn will throw me off.  Not entirely rational beings, are we?

heartandwhole yes, its sort of that, sometimes its less concrete but its like the least harmful thing I can say that still lets me sort of get back to an even keel and preserve where the relationship is.  Its not even so much the money as knowing that my dd's word is meaningful, that really matters to me. 

The funny thing yepanotherone is that when I'm closer to my dd's, I'm much more cheeky!  I'm downright mean to my non daughter quite often!  Sometimes I've felt pain doing the detached positive thing because I miss the more genuine but more rocky relating, but it has to be limited to what won't tip the boat over.   With one of my dd's I can go fairly far because we're at a place where we can actually express limits and pain to each other when necessary, so we can get back more easily from the precipice.  But other dd will walk off, so if that's not a good outcome have to be careful.  She will chat about it later on text, so sometimes its ok if its just a conversation and she's off, but if its about something practical that must get done, I have to really watch the boundaries of what might set her off.  

I have to admit, I'm more reactive still than I ought to be.  Tiny things on the order of 'get me some water' if said the wrong way can really trigger me inside, but I'm working on modulating my reactions to have just a little truth in them without being out of proportion.   And sometimes we can have a good laugh with each other even about the things - if could do that more often it might help the most.  I think maybe that's what Marsha Lineham meant about the 'irreverant' being a key part of DBT!

Anyway, thanks for listening to all my musings!  You guys are great.