BPDFamily.com

My 28 year old daughter I am sure has BPD but it is undiagnosed. It feels like her life is split in two - our relationship up to 19/20 and the last 8 years. Her first 19 years we were so close but the last 8 have just been so hard - impulsive, unreliable, lies, drug use, manipulation , selfishness, volatility, distorted thinking ,emotional abuse.. …,, I find accepting where we find ourselves just so hard. We all walk on eggshells and shape shift to try and avoid an explosion. It’s exhausting. If things are going her way , she is Center of attention and being continually praised she can be loving and kind , but if she does not get her own way or we dare to call out her bad behaviour there is a huge explosion we are told we are emotional abusers and are then usually ghosted.
I am now having to lean away as I just am not prepared to take any more. So I am now left dealing with this huge sadness …..
I’d like to know how people get their diagnosis as my daughter doesn’t think for a Minuit there is anything wrong with her as she takes no accountability for anything it is always someone else’s fault. She has been in therapy for anxiety for the last 8 years but it has only served to strengthen her belief that she is the one being abused. The only thing that did make a significant difference was when she started on antidepressants. I can tell immediately if she hadn’t taken them because even looking in her direction can cause an explosion when she is not taking them ( unfortunately she frequently forgets to take them) .. Her birthday is coming up and I just can’t take seeing her this year as birthdays have historically been a nightmare, and it is the realisation that I no longer want to spend time with my daughter that I am struggling to come to terms with .

Hi

I'm in the same boat, exactly. My son is 35 so I've been at this for around 20 years. We go through cycles of being in contact, having no contact, and missing each other or I guess missing the idea of having a loving relationship with each other.

Now, I've legally disinherited him completely due to his treatment of me which is so disrespectful that it's almost unfathomable. He's not physically violent with me but insanely verbally abusive.

I don't want to be around him and I'm mostly relieved that I don't need to be. I do feel the FOG stuff... familial obligation and guilt etc, but its not enough to motivate me to continue with his verbal and emotional abuse.

This forum is more for folks believing that the family members 100% take all the burden to make these relationships work. I disagree so I'm not sure how long I'll be welcome here. I DID agree with that concept for maybe 15 of the 20 years I've been stuck in this hell.

If you don't want to spend time with her then you have no obligation to do so. Protect your peace.

Please don't listen to people who aren't walking in your shoes who will be quick to say you must learn to navigate someone else's mental illness. If you want to learn that, then great. If you believe on the other hand, that all adults are responsible for their own mental health, then find ways to nurture yourself and be happy without her, at least for now. Do what you love as far as hobbies or interests, and follow your passion.

My vast experience with this is that when I back off he wonders what is going on, and it compells him to reach out again. Like the boy who cried wolf, I now don't believe him or trust him at all. He's pushed me to the point that I'm going to just keep slowly walking in the other direction. It's tragic really.

When our adult uBPD kids refuse treatment or diagnosis then many times their only relief comes by using us as a punching bag.

I wish I could've gotten myself here sooner than 20 years of this. I love my son tremendously. I love him as much as I did when he was my golden baby boy. I had so many hopes and dreams and couldn't wait to see who he'd become.

I'll tell you this now OP (and I hope you arrive here sooner than I did): I love myself more.

How do you come to terms with where you are? Time and distance. Fill your life with what makes you otherwise happy. Don't let others guilt you into feeling like it's your job to learn to navigate someone else's mental illness.

Thank you for your honest reply   I wholeheartedly agree with what you say , I have reached the point of ENOUGH. I cannot see how being her emotional punchbag helps either of us . i just find the whole situation so sad.
I am sorry that you have had such a hard time with your son . Mental illness can be so cruel

I have also reached the point of "enough" and I'm going to continue to work on the acceptance part actively with a therapist. My daughter is only 19 but the past 5 years have been absolutely hell-like with abuses of all kinds regardless of the type or level of professional intervention. Nothing changes because she's not ready to change, perhaps because looking inward is too painful. However, I can't manage her emotions for her, and I can't be a healthy support if I'm also part the the cycle of abuse by continuing to tolerate it. I'm hoping that when my daughter sees me taking care of myself and maintaining objectively healthy boundaries with her, that this will be a good model for her as an individual. I have no doubt that my daughter loves me and that she doesn't like herself. It's sad and complicated.I wish you well and the strength to take care of yourself as first priority. 

Hi desperate parents,

I think I understand where you are coming from. I’m a stepparent of an adult with BPD, so perhaps it’s easier for me, as I don’t walk in a FOG of fear, obligation and guilt. But my BPD stepdaughter has been dysfunctional for a long time now, and no matter how much money, therapy and umpteen chances she gets, she still self-sabotages and hurls hatred our way. I’m pretty fed up with it, she has generated a lot of stress and dysfunction in my household and marriage. She recently left our home once again, purportedly because we are “abusive” when the opposite is true. She was supposed to be working on finding work, but she knew full well she was slacking off, and even if we refrained from asking her about her job search except for every other week, she felt the pressure of failure and blew up at us, blaming us for her woes in the process. Typical victim attitude and running away in avoidance. I bet she’s telling others she’s “homeless” to get sympathy and a free couch to sleep on for a few weeks. Anything to prolong her unemployment. Frankly I’m relieved to have her out of the house for a while, even if I know she’ll be back. I’m wondering if we’re at the point of not letting her back in. She needs to forge a life for herself already. She can’t just be a freeloader her entire life.  I have tried to be uber-understanding, reassuring and supportive, but I’m wondering if it will ever be enough. Ultimately it’s not up to me. It’s up to her. I suspect she’s so afraid of messing up in life that she’s decided it’s easiest not to even try. Thus she’s constantly running away.

Anyway I would support a period of low contact or even no contact. We deserve to have a life that doesn’t revolve 100% around another person’s mental issues when they are treating us like crap. Just because they have BPD doesn’t give them a free pass to be cruel and entitled. In fact I think we should model what a healthy adult’s life looks like, and that includes doing things for yourself, and not letting others treat us awfully.

Just my two cents.

CC43 I always find you to be thoughtful and I commend you for how you continue to deal with things. If you don't me asking, where is your step daughter's mother in all this? I know from reading a number of your posts/responses that you and your husband are the rock to your step daughter and I never hear anything about her mom, even now when she left your house in a storm. My daughter doesn't have another parent aside from me to rely upon although he's not totally out of picture. That relationship is a major going ongoing hurt for her, and it's only made it more difficult for me to hold boundaries that I know are really needed.

Hi Win,

To answer your question, my stepdaughter has been estranged from her mom for several years now. I’ve lost count of the years but I’d say it’s something like four or five. Her mom is a high-conflict person and the two of them are explosive, so estrangement is probably not the worst thing. I don’t know her mom very well but I wouldn’t be surprised if she had mental health issues of her own. Nevertheless I suspect my stepdaughter misses her real mom deep down. My stepdaughter remains estranged from her siblings and extended family too. She maintains that everyone abuses her, but her version of events is highly distorted and she’s always a victim. My theory is that she won’t be in a position to resume contact with any of her other family members until she sorts out her own adult life. She’s basically still living like a teenager which is a huge hit to her self esteem. In other words, her siblings and cousins have grown up and left her behind, and it’s too painful for her to bear. It’s easiest for her to avoid everyone, even if it means feeling lonely and left out.

Hi Whizz,

You are under no obligation to spend time with you daughter if you feel the way you do birthday or not. I havent seen my udd31 for 5years and I can honestly say that I dont miss her.

My udd has never been dx's but at 14yo I took her for a mental health assessment but was told by the therapist that I was being an overbearing parent and that udd was just "finding herself"!  Im sure From there her behaviour got even worse.... if that is even possible. So after years of trying to maintain some kind of r/s with her I decided to stop and my life got better  She isnt even someone that I like to be around.

Hi
I have been reading around this subject as our 42 year old daughter has spiralled resulting in a stay in a mental hospital and now discharged is in denial and wanting access to her children . This is being resisted by their father thankfully.
This recent horrendous episode has made me read up on the subject of BPD 
I feel that I should not behave as I have done in the past by seeking  contact and accepting her behaviour , throwing money at her to make her feel better and ignoring all the verbal abuse and false accusations My husband and I have reinforced her behaviour.
My new mantra is to accept the three C’s Did not cause it cannot control it and cannot cure it We are stopping feeding the monster and disengaging from the daily worry and getting off the rollercoaster of her behaviour
It is actually very cathartic to accept these principles . We are going to leave her to run her own life and take all the consequences of her actions .
We can focus on helping our grandchildren when required.
I do think as parents we should not feel that stepping back is not the right decision both for the family but also for the BPD child too.

There are many newer members in this thread so this isn't for anyone in particular.  I've walked the same path with my 26 year old BPD daughter.  From 11-23 she was a nightmare, with each year worse than the last, and the past three years have been fantastic.

How did things change?

At 21, we kicked our BPD daughter out and cut off almost all communication.  We had two rules; you're welcome home if you can be respectful and help out.  Otherwise, you're not welcome here.  And our kid hated us with a passion, me in particular, and told everyone that would listen that I was the devil.

She was semi-homeless for two years, bouncing from couch to couch and overstaying her welcome for the exact two rules we asked her to follow.  I did continue paying for her cell phone, just so we could track her (since something always happens), but otherwise she was completely cut off from us until she was ready to follow two rules.

Around 23, my daughter's world came crashing down after a nasty breakup.  She was emotionally cheating on her partner with her best friend, and the best friend told the partner...and my kid was suicidal.  She called and asked me to take her to a mental hospital, and I happily obliged.

Over the following six months, my kid really dug into therapy and wanted to get better.  This is literally the only thing that makes a difference....someone realizing they're sick and actively trying to make changes.  My kid had to hit absolute rock bottom before she saw the problem within though, and in many ways we "saved her" by forcing her to be homeless.

We stood our ground on "be kind and helpful if you want to live here."  And when relationship after relationship failed for basically the same reasons, my kid had no one to blame but herself.  She finally got it and I stopped being the enemy.

I said all of that to say there is hope- at 26 my kid has a good job, pays her own bills (including a new car payment), and makes mostly good decisions.  She still has days where she's way down, but she'll reach out to me as an ally and it makes all the difference in the world.  I can talk her through almost anything to help her relax and reset, and I'd have no problem if she wanted to live with me. 

When she's around, she cooks and cleans as a member of the family...not because she has to, but because she wants to take care of her dad.  It's pretty amazing compared to where she was only a few years ago.

Don't give up hope- if you have to go no contact for a bit, so be it.  This can and will get better in time if they're forced to be adults on their own.

Not necessarily.

My son is 35 and very successful, has a professional career and owns a home and several cars and is a new dad. We've gone the gambit of everything you descrjbe while he was in his 20s, and are way way past it.

I think one misunderstanding here at play is that posters to this board assume more time in this bpd family forum space equals more wisdom or more experience. It does not.

We can't "kick him out" or otherwise leverage financial support in exchange for good behavior. So no, forcing him to be an adult will not work. He is already an adult.

He gets fired or quits from most positions due to not being able to get along with bosses or co workers but hes so high up that another company recruits him. But yet of course its always someone else's fault. He seems confused as to why the world is this way. Its heartbreaking.

He is in no way able to admit he needs help. Until he does, if ever, he will be out of our lives. Sometimes this is just the end of the story.

These are some important points to address. BPD is on a spectrum, and there can also be elements of the other PD's as well. These are lifelong conditions and so how much of "getting better" can vary.

However, I think the best chance of someone becoming more responsible if it is possible is to not enable and allow them to be capable- but capability can vary too.

We can not change another person. Gaining knowlege via this site or anywhere else won't change another person. I think it does help to have peer support, understanding and ways to look at our own behavior, and change any ways we may be contributing to the dynamics by our own reactions or possible enabling.

Boundaries are important and we can have them. Boundaries are about ourselves, not something we impose on another person. Boundaries also can vary. One might be that until someone seeks help, there's no contact- it then becomes up to the person to decide that or not. Written in another way "I will not have contact with a person who is verbally or emotionally abusive or who will not acknowlege responsibility for their actions".

We can also define being an adult in different ways. One step is being financially independent or more independent. It seems to me that if an adult child is able to provide their own house and pay bills, one way or another, they have accomplished this task of being an adult, if not others. Another family may have another goal.

How to find acceptance. These are significant relationships. As much as we wish the other person to get help, we, the people who are closest to them also need counseling/therapy due to the dynamics and the situation. I think it involves understanding the limits of the person to have relationships, as well as grief at times.  We need to know our own boundaries and be able to maintain them. People can choose no contact, or low contact according to their situation if this becomes necessary.

My story doesn't involve the pwBPD acknowleging that they need help for that. I was able to learn how to relate to her better, accept the limits of the relationship for what they are. I still think the best chance to allow someone to be more self sufficient is to not enable them as much but we can't predict the outcome.