Challenging daughter who won’t launch

[Stressedeastern]

Hi,
My 24 yo daughter has BPD, ADHD, Anxiety and a history of Addiction. She has been in a ton of treatment since age 15, Wilderness Therapy, Residential right after that, three inpatient stays, three Rehabs, and finally step down sober living til she quit that last June. She asked to come live with me , begged, to be here temporarily. I had told her to leave when she was 21, she seemed to do well and our relationship improved. I’m divorced and she was extremely detrimental to live with me - destroyed her bedroom (cost me a lot to fix), was super messy, super disrespectful and prone to rage and drug abuse. She improved with some DBT but her therapist retired. She was supposed to move out in September to return to college, delayed it, then was supposed to move out January. I asked her yesterday to tell me her plans and she went into a rage because she wanted me to say she could live here as long as she wanted to, at least 1-2 years. Meanwhile I’d been looking to move to a bigger house and told her that, which sent her into a long rage at me. Blaming me for causing instability in her life and that I shouldn’t move because she deserves stability. I’ve been in my home 8 years, and I had to move here to get her away from a drug infested area. My dreams for a better life feel completely destroyed. My boyfriend is having a hard time understanding why she can’t move out. I feel devastated and stuck, trapped by her threats. Help

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

[kells76]

Hi Stressedeastern and welcome to the group 

You and your family have been through a lot, and it sounds pretty non-stop for almost a decade, if not more. You've given so much in the best ways that you knew how, and yet here she is, still threatening, blaming, and raging. That's beyond exhausting.

It's clear you love your D24 very much, and yet it seems like the current situation is untenable. This group has a wealth of experience with learning and practicing new, often unintuitive approaches to parenting a child wBPD. Even though new ways can be difficult and uncomfortable, it can help to get unstuck and find a way forward for your family.

A great resource for starting to learn about new skills and tools is our section of articles on "How to get the most out of this site". It's a wealth of information and lessons -- if you decide to check it out, let us know which ones seemed to resonate with you.


One of the first concepts that came to mind after reading your story is one of those lessons, on "FOG" -- Fear, Obligation, and Guilt (sometimes referred to as "emotional blackmail").

Would you say that you're afraid of what might happen if you followed through on having her move out?

[Randi Kreger]

If I am reading your post, right, you need help with everything.

The first hopeful thing I can say to you is that it is possible for you to get in control of your life and in fact, that’s what I would advise that you would do. To be able to do that, you will need to face things that you’re afraid of, things that make you feel obligated, and any guilt that you might feel. Here We call it FOG fear obligation and Guilt. You need to work through this before you can set boundaries and boy you need to set boundaries.

What you have said seems to be that the house is not your own, and you feel obligated to have her live there.

[Pook075]

I was on a similar path with my 24 year old BPD daughter, and our house was chaos for about a decade.  Some nights, I'd be afraid to go to sleep because I didn't know if I'd get attacked or if I'd wake up in the middle of the night with the house on fire.  It was horrible and traumatic.

Eventually, I met a therapist for my daughter that made things crystal clear.  He said, "Why are you so stressed out?  This is her problem and you can't do anything to fix it.  You're making this so much worse on yourself by tap-dancing around her trigger points and letting her walk all over you."

We had a long conversation, and the therapist made it clear that boundaries should be set in stone.  Everyone follows the same rules whether they have BPD or not, and if my daughter didn't like it then she should find a place where she could make her own rules.

Long story short, we kicked her out at 21, took her back for a few weeks at 22 and then kicked her right back out again.  At 24 (almost 25), she finally took therapy seriously and has turned her life around.  But if I had allowed her to stay home all those years and throw temper tantrums every 10 minutes, we'd still be in the exact same situation because she didn't have a chance to learn and grow and fail.

My advice is simple- take your house back!  She's going to be angry and rebellious either way...whether it's on her own terms or actively destroying your life.  Put your foot down and refuse to accept that behavior any longer.