BPDFamily.com

Hi everyone,

I'm feeling..confused this days. After having a big fight with my father, he suddenly turned...very calm. He seems to be careful this days of what he's doing, and has been suddenly been more involved in helping me with a health problem that I have.
My issue is that things are waaaaay to quiet. It makes me nervous. I' m wondering when will be the next time he'll explose. The other day, I repeated something to him that he didn't understand, and he told me (very calm) that "I shouldn't talk to him like that". Even though I think I was...normal about it? Not judgemental, not angry.
I'm not sure how to react to all of this. I don't feel like we're done with his possibly BPD, and he hasn't taken any apointment with a psychologist (wich was something we agreed on like 3 years ago that he had to do). But he's being waaaay to nice.
And the worst of it, it makes me doubt myself. What if it's me who's just making a problem out of nothing? Why can't I forgive, forget, whatever, like a good daughter?
What can I do in this situation?

Self-care, mindfulness, self-care and more self-care.

You might worry about the next fight, you might worry about the calm,  partly because it activates guilt too. You wonder if you are to blame, did you push it too far, are you a bad daughter, are you what he says you are ..

You are not.

Shut down those critical and harmful voices in your head.

Here is a nice website that can likely help:
https://self-compassion.org/category/exercises/

Self-compassion for yourself. No guilt. No shame.

If he is calm, if he doesn't call you out and act out then now is a good time to look inward and take care of yourself. To assess your own reactions TOWARD yourself. Look at the blame you put on yourself, your own tendency to gaslight yourself. And give yourself sympathy, because you have been through a lot.

Don't underestimate the amount of self hatred you internalized, simply being raised by a parent with BPD.

Don't reach out to him, don't try to appease or prevent.

Turn your attention back to yourself. You need you.

The most important thing is to not let your guard down, especially because he’s helping you with your health problem. It’s highly likely that he has an agenda for helping you and that he’s trying to ingratiate himself towards you, which will increase your guilt feelings and make it harder for you to hold to your boundaries.

Keeping your interactions to the absolute minimum (if that’s safe), spending as much time as you can out of the house, and being prepared to leave the house as soon as you sense that the inevitable explosion is about to happen might all be possible strategies for you to consider. If you have any support groups in your area for people who have family with mental disorders, these can be quite helpful. If you have counseling resources at your school I would also encourage to take advantage of that, as well as to consider making a plan to move out as soon  possible. It’s just not worth the toll on one’s mental health to live with a BPD parent if one can possibly avoid it.