BPDFamily.com

My daughter who is 19 in three months and has lived on her own for just over one year, has blocked me on her phone and is "cutting me out of her life" she says.  This happened yesterday after a friend of hers told her that I had not believed her when she had called me to report that my daughter had overdosed.   This is completely untrue and my daughter believes her friend over me.  So, this is yet another episode in this merry go round of verbal attacks on me and not communicating with me.  This usually lasts a few days only and then she calls to apologize or ask for help.  She has a lot of suicidal ideation and will likely call when she is at risk.  My counsellor has advised me that I need to not rescue her this time and that I need to stop this merry go round.  She suggested I come up with a list of limits and boundaries including what topics are off limits.  In speaking with her counsellor she states that daughter misses many appointments and dropped her DBT group and that she is not willing to do the "work." My daughter blames me and says it's me and that I just lie and manipulate her.  I would very much appreciate some ideas from others who have had to take this approach.  She is so young and I worry for her however this has been a pattern since she was 12.  On top of my emotional health this is now effecting my physical health as well and I can't go on like this anymore.

Your daughter sounds a lot like mine at 19.  I don’t have many words of wisdom other than to follow your therapist’s advice to set firm boundaries and keep them. I haven’t always been so good at that myself and my own dd24 is no better for it.

I wish you good luck & know that you’re not alone...good support & advice here.

DoneMom

My DS (23) has also cut me out of his life and blocked me on his phone (that I pay for).  I've experienced the "yet another episode in this merry-go-round of verbal attacks." 

My son doesn't respond to limits the same way I would expect a 19-year-old to respond.  The limits are challenges to get me back to the merry-go-round.  The limits are yet another way that I'm a horrible parent and no one else's parents do that and his friends all agree with him (maybe he's exaggerating their reaction or maybe they do agree with him because of the way he twisted the story).  In other words,  his fall-back position is to blame me. I accepted at least some if not most of the blame for a long time.  Then I learned about BPD and realized that this often is about his limitations. 

It doesn't mean you don't set limits, I'm just saying that you set the normally expected limits and live in the knowledge that they're not unreasonable, even when you're told emphatically that they are. 

It doesn't work when I try to set limits on topics of conversation.  Like politics or music or whether the sky is blue.  He's constantly challenging me about whether I have to see things his way or I'm an idiot and he won't let me change the the topic.  You're not crazy if your daughter is the same way and I'm still trying to figure out how to shut down those conversations before my level of frustration boils over.

About six months ago, I realized that I wouldn't like me if I were looking from the outside in.  Angry.  Tired.  Having arguments with my brother over my son's behavior.  Instead of trying to change DS's behavior, the only thing I have control over is to change my own.  I've had to learn to recognize and shut off the mental rehashing of arguments to get some sleep.  Enjoy my cup of tea. Make  conversations with friends and family about something fun or at least something outside of my own worries.   Change the topic when my brother asks about my son.  In other words, the only control I have over the situation is my own reaction and my own mental calm, when I can succeed at achieving either of those.  I fail sometimes but I'm better at it.

Now I'll stop acting like I have all the answers.  If only.  I hope this helps in some small way.  Hang in there.

In a similar situation, my own hard task was to not get angry at the punitive aspect of it all and accept that her rollercoaster mentality was baked into the cake and unlikely to change.

Threatening a parent with suicide/drug overdose is a terrible, terrible thing to do. It reveals these people's bottomless suffering and their willingness to do anything to put it on someone else.

Wise words from Done-er. We’ve had many thought provoking threads here about suicidal threats made to caregivers/parents here. I remember a particular discussion where I was clearly told that it was not ok to feel like a captive to my DD’s threats to harm herself if I didn’t give in to a request I had denied. This was a lightbulb moment for me and I began changing the way I responded to her manipulative/sick threats to self harm if I didn’t...

I’ve been watching some of the videos that Skip has posted through the years here and they are immensely helpful, as well.