BPDFamily.com

Hello,
I am new to this group. My daughter is 25, married with three young children. She barely manages the children and I help daily with them. My daughter creates chaos when ever she starts spinning, as I call it. She makes fake allegations about family members and creates a whirl wind. She is not allowing me to see the children since I won’t support her newest allegation. I’m exhausted. I just don’t know what to do anymore.

She refuses to see a its psychiatrist. The children are crying for me everyday.

Martin77,

*welcome*

We are here to listen to you and support you emotionally.

I will share a post I made recently of a false allegation made towards me and how I handled it and how my borderline wife thinks in order to create this false narrative and false allegation.  Please read it to see if it resonates with you at https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=356799.msg13205655#msg13205655

Can you be a bit more specific on the false allegation that you are not supporting her on, and I will do my best to offer up some possible solutions and/or strategies for you.  In the meantime, try and see your daughter's perspective, like I did in my post I referenced, and validate her feelings, without validating the false narrative that your daughter has distorted to match her feelings.  Do not validate the invalid.

I am sure that this is very stressful for you, please be sure to do some self-care whatever that might look like for you, in order to 'fill your own cup' to give you enough energy to get through this crisis.

Take care.

SD

How heartbreaking. I'm so sorry she's not allowing you contact, that's really painful. I'm guessing you're their grandma? It's unfortunately not uncommon for BPD mamas to do this, there are other stories here on these boards. 

What are some of the things she's alleging?

How old are the kids?

It's hard to do, but the most successful stories are people who figure out how to be emotional leaders. Not easy, and not intuitive. Many of the relationship and communication skills are not intuitive and must be learned.

Maybe take this time to let dust settle? I know it's hard -- there's often a lot of grief and cortisol coursing through us. Hopefully the way your daughter's BPD presents means she'll go through a tender cycle and want contact when she's back to baseline. By then, with help from members here, there may be some helpful tips to understand what's driving the allegations and how to manage them without getting pulled in.

Thank you so much for the replies. I am the grandma to the children. My daughter believes my husband is grooming her by helping financially. My husband and I both help as they do not have enough money to support her family. Since I won’t listen to her stories any longer she has added to them and changed the story. She seems to this when she is having trouble in her marriage. I took a step back to remove myself from the chaos. This has only fueled the fire.

The children are 8,5 and 3.

Martin77,

You're welcome. 

Can you help me understand what you mean by 'grooming' as it can be used in so many different contexts?

I am sorry you have to be at the mercy of your dear daughter, and being cut-off from your three young grandchildren at this stage of their lives when they are most impressionable and vulnerable to a toxic home life.

Borderlines typically change or distort their facts to make a distorted or even blatantly false narrative as their feelings can never be wrong - from their perspective.  Whereas, a normal person will look at the facts and shift or adjust their feelings to match the facts.  This is perhaps the hardest thing for a borderline to understand - mine has made good strides in dealing with her anger management, and even some success on her mood swings; however, she still distorts her version of the facts in order to make them match her feelings -  and gets very upset when I point out otherwise.

Without knowing specifics of the 'grooming', my suggestion is to figure out her emotions and feelings, and focus on validating those alone, without looking too closely at the facts (for now, until a stable relationship can be re-established, and then use SET communication at a later point in time), as her perception and yours will differ and that will be a source of conflict, contempt, and complaints, things that should be avoided when talking to a borderline as they will be triggered severely by this.  Do validate her emotions - example "I can see how this [fill in the blank ______] can make you feel so frustrated / despondent / angry / etc."; however, do not validate the invalid - her false and/or distorted facts that she has fabricated in order to support her feelings. 

In essence reflect back to her what she is telling you using different words, and exaggerate the emotions she is telling you, if she uses 'angry' reflect this must make you feel 'furious'.  If she uses 'irritated', reflect back that she is 'angry'.  This will show her that you understand how she feels, as most borderlines will feel emotion at a much stronger level than you or I, so you need to speak to the level where she is at.

Stepping away from the chaos, is a form of stonewalling, which will create more contempt and fuel her fire.  However, it may be necessary if she is irrational / dysregulated to do this - a temporary form of stonewalling called grey rocking is what I use with my pw BPD until she is re-regulated in her emotions, and then I use the SET communication method using "I" words which is less likely to trigger her.

Keep coming back, and ask more questions.  The more you share with us, the better we will be able to help you.

Take care.

SD

The idea is to become a 'safe' person to your borderline, by validating how they feel. 

At least initially bite your tongue on the false narrative they are saying, until they feel safe being with you, and trust you.

Once they trust you, and this can take some time, gently, one fact at a time, using "I" statements tell them your version of the facts you see, omitting what they have told you, and let them figure out the differences, as no-one likes to be told they are wrong.  However, if they can see your perspective, they might be able to see the differences (even though it is painfully obvious to you) and take ownership, or at a minimum stop using their false narrative once they realize it is on conflict of what others are observing as they will be too ashamed to admit they they are wrong.

Make sense?

Thank you! This makes sense.