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My BPD adult daughter can't tolerate being alone even for very short periods of time.  This has been a relatively recent development.  She doesn't live with me. The moment she is alone she will call me.  When her fiance returns from groceries or wherever he may be she immediately says ok goodbye.

I can't keep continuing to have my days hijacked when she wants me to come over or be on the phone so she isn't alone.

I am new to all of this and am not sure what to do?

She is annoyed with me because she will be alone all day Saturday and I'm busy going to Family Connections. It is the first meeting.  I am hoping to learn a lot there.

BPDs fear abandonment. Perhaps when she is alone, she is trying to remind herself she is NOT alone... .

Her fiance can help. Often BPDs feel better by having something with them that reminds them of their partner - so he can give he a personal photo, or charm, or something that is visual that reminds her that he is "still there".

BPDs also can't respect boundaries. So the only way that she "hijacks your days" is if you let her. (Sorry - but you're the adult, not her). As difficult as it is, you need to define what you will and won't tolerate, then stick to  it. (Using SET will help this when you talk with her - Sympathy, Empath, Truth)

Your boundary for instance may be only talking with her for 10mins. Tell her. Say you love her, you know she's alone, you know it feels yucky, tell her you believe in her to be able to survivie it, and that your limit is 10mins. But at 10mins, you need to say goodbye. Be hard - she won't agree - you don't have to wait for her to agree to hang up. Just state you are going to, and do it.

(It will annoy her, she may call back (don't answer), she may abuse you etc. Just bear with it. When she sees that you MEAN this, she will accept it. )

Hi valleymom

I'd like to join ArlieighBurke welcoming you to bpdfamily  

You are new to this and we are here for you as you move forwards.

Wow, you are attending Family Connections this weekend  |iiii Can you let us know how it went for you?

WDx  

A strategy I use with my DD31 when she calls while bf is out is to ask where he is, remind her he always has come back so he will this time too, she has made it through the last time he was gone. 10 minutes is too short a time in my case. We usually talk for up to half hour. This has not always been the case.

Hanging up on her and then not taking her calls really makes the abandonment fears so much worse. I can usually get off the phone by asking her to text me when bf returns. Texting works well for us, especially when anger is part of the emotional energy with either of us.

This is what is working now for us. Things have been harder in the past when she was an active substance user. Then I would tell her I needed some time out, I was going to hang up and turn my phone off for 2 hours, then she could call me back. It was a rare occasion when she called back that same day. I am so very very grateful that we have a better relationship now. It was a hard time coming.

carol

We are really struggling with this subject right now also.  My daughter was hospitalized in December and now is on an 8 week daytime treatment program which meets in the mornings.  She went on medical leave from her job to do this, and thus is "borrowing" money from us to pay her rent until she goes back to work.  (We don't know if the money will ever really be paid back.)  After she gets out of her morning treatment, she comes to our house and sits in the living room all day looking at her phone.  I mean hours, all day.  Or she sleeps on the couch. She stays for dinner, waits while the dinner is fixed, eats (if its something she likes), and then leaves, making no attempt to help prepare food or clean up dishes.  After discussing all this with my own therapist, It was recommended that we not allow her to do this anymore.  Part of the root of the problem, we think, is that she doesn't want to be alone.  She has always been afraid of being alone.  Ever since she was a toddler, even, she could never entertain herself for five minutes in a row.  She wanted to be held and played with and read to every single minute of the day.  I was mentally and physically exhausted by her extreme neediness and became depressed myself. 

But back to the present. In the past week, I have been suggesting that she go out and do things, or go home when she was going to sleep.  She has her own apartment. She was asked to help out when asked, or even when not asked.  She has flatly refused to do things to help, and when I asked that she go home to sleep or do something instead of sitting on the couch all day, she refused to leave. She says that she is "taking a day off to rest", even though she has done nothing but go to treatment in the mornings. I told her that I didn't believe it was helping her to sit on our couch all day.  She said she wasn't sitting on the couch all day, so I asked her what she had done.  She replied that she had eaten lunch and let the dog out. AT this point I got frustrated and told her she needed to leave, on the grounds that she was not bettering herself by sitting on the couch all day looking at her phone.   She again refused to leave, saying she was waiting for her sister to come home from school.  When our younger daughter came home, she had other things to do and didn't want to spend time with BPD daughter.  So BPD daughter finally left. 

I talked to my husband about this later.  While he agrees that she should not be sitting on our couch all day, he seems to think the whole state of affairs is my fault and that I am not being nice to BPD daughter.  "She just wants your love," he says. He seems to think it is all my fault that there is a problem and that we are just not getting along, when in fact I am just trying to set limits with her.  He and I have discussed setting limits with her, but then when push comes to shove, he is willing to compromise every time and she ends up getting to do what she wants.  I am almost as frustrated with him as I am with her.  I've requested of my therapist that we have some family sessions with me and him to discuss what we are trying to do in the presence of an expert opinion. 

hi Almost Lisa - thanks for posting, I think you are on the right track by trying to find some healthy limits to set with your daughter.  She does indeed need to know you love and care for her but it is so much easier to feel that love when you feel respected and heard also!  Do you think there are baby steps you can take that would be successful, that maybe you have leverage to make happen?  Perhaps asking her to set the table before dinner, when it is somethign she likes, and simply waiting until it is set before serving it?  Or some other situation in which you have natural leverage to make a positive thing happen.  Another way is the gentle nag, rather than asking her to leave simply asking repeatedly for her to do a simple task, and reinforcing that request with some small consequence.

Cathy Glass has a book 'Happy Kids' that has really practical techniques for this, that she used with many foster children.  If you feel a bit in control and that she is contributing it may be easier to show her the positive love and attention she is craving!

Good luck!

Almost Lisa -- I think how you encouraged her to move off the couch worked pretty well. Sounds like gentle pressure to get her to do something different, even if just going to her apartment. She does need your love, and you are giving it. Encouraging her to change her routine is a loving limit.

It might be helpful to remind her that she is welcome to come each afternoon after her therapy for lunch and a bit of rest. Maybe you can brainstorm one thing she can do to fill her day - ask her to brainstorm with you. What are some things she had an interest in before this recent decline? What kind of work does she do? Is there an activity related to that area she can be encouraged to do? Maybe taking the dog on a walk instead of just letting him out? Baby steps.

carol