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my mother texted me to tell me she is having lunch with my BPD daughter Friday; while i am VERY glad BPD reached out to someone, I am totally baffled, BPD never EVER wanted anything to do with my mother ALONE; why in the universe would BPD choose my mother vs (well...me!) her sister (who she texts & says I miss you) or her beautiful nieces who ask about her?  allll of the books i read about BPD do not help me understand! any thoughts?

Hi there,
It seems like you are being triggered by your daughter's actions/ choices. In my opinion, trying to outguess what is going on in the BPD's mind is almost a fruitless endeavor; their minds shift and change so rapidly. One person they idealize one minute, they devalue in the next minute ,etc.   Maybe in her mind, she wants a more neutral listener ( in her opinion) to spout on whatever is going on in her head? Who really can tell?   You are on the right track with keeping focus on the fact that  your BPD is at least reaching out to family, whatever the reason.   Besides continuing your reading, have you taken a look at at the "Wise mind" tool in the drop down menu  here? https://bpdfamily.com/content/triggering-and-mindfulness-and-wise-mind

This is very hard for me to practice, but whenever I am troubled by thoughts of my BPD son, I try to turn to this - it helps with keeping me centered and grounded.    Please continue to let us know how you are doing / coping.

thank you for that information and for reaching out!  Triggered is THE feeling!  I am beginning to admit, I will never be able to understand how the BPD mind "works" and while I feel sorry BPD is going through this, I need to just wait it out!  I am always just grateful she is "alive", to be blunt; I will look into the website, you offered!  thank you, ALL, for "being" here!  this group has helped me TREMENDOUSLY!

Yup, a few thoughts.

First, you're looking at this logically like your daughter has one defined opinion on everyone in her life.  But the truth is that since she relies so heavily on emotion, how she feels about others is probably always changing...sometimes by the minute.

For example, I have a BPD daughter and a BPD ex wife.  The kid will call each of us and trash the other parent, sometimes within minutes of each other.  She tells me her mom doesn't care about her and they only talk about shallow stuff, then I talk to my wife the next day and learn that they talked for an hour about relationships and health matters.  This happens weekly, the same amusing cycles, and my ex and I now understand that one of us will always be the "bad parent". 

It's okay though, we accept that and we work together to ensure we're both contributing to her life...regardless of who's turn it is to be hated.  We did this yesterday when she lied to all of us about a "medical emergency" that was actually an elective surgery that the kid wanted.

Second, I have discovered in time that I actually enjoy being seen as the "bad parent" because all the drama and disordered thinking goes to my ex instead of me.  When my daughter flips and paints me white, I get phone calls 5-10 times a day about everything that's wrong in my kid's life, how horrible her mom is since she doesn't care, etc.  It's a ton of stress over absolutely nothing and while I love my daughter, I'm definitely happier when the drama goes to someone else.

So if your daughter is reaching out to your mom, that's great news.  Maybe you're next in line, maybe not.  But the important thing is that she's communicating with family and making amends.  That allows you to be indirectly involved and that's much better than nothing, so don't see this as a bad thing.  It's a new start regardless.

I hope that helps!