BPDFamily.com

Curious if anyone has run into this one?

I was recently reading about how Angelina Jolie has alienated her children against Brad Pitt and several children have dropped his last name.

It’s interesting timing b/c my ex who displays off the charts BPD traits recently told my 77 year old mother that she’s a bad mother, I’m a bad snd abusive father, and that my daughter is no longer her granddaughter and is no longer a “xxxxxxxxx” (my last name and my daughter’s last name). All b/c we have been enforcing boundaries with my ex and my 14 year old daughter (who also displays the same BPD traits as her mom. A mini me of her at this point). Our boundaries are simple—respect and kindness towards us and my daughter is welcome with open arms to spend time with us.If she is unable to demonstrate these basic things, and take responsibility, then she is not welcome and/or there are consequences to her behavior when she is with us.

My daughter is with her mother as part of the standard possession agreement in place. Which gives me every other weekend, spring break, summer, Thanksgiving, Christmas etc. It’s hard for me to influence any meaningful behaviors of my daughter since she’s not with me full time and is in her mother’s world more of the time. It makes the visitation next to impossible and is exhausting with my daughter’s behaviors. I’ve been an overly attentive father for 14 years but it’s become too much. I’ve tried everything. My mother has tried everything too and is at a point where she’s fine not seeing her. We aren’t theses kind of people who give up—but we have to protect our own sanity and wellbeing and enforce healthy boundaries. Hard to do when an ex partner won’t engage in a healthy way and vilifies me regardless of how much I’m doing for her and my daughter. My mother and girlfriend literally fear for my safety and wellbeing when my daughter is with me. They don’t trust what she is capable of doing.

Thought I'd reply, as others haven't at this point.

You're in a tough situation. My own is rather different, but with a few commonalities. I have an adult stepson with undiagnosed (but clearcut) BPD. BPD runs in my ex's family - you can see it in each generation. I was with my ex for 25 years, and watched my stepson grow up, and I love him. His father has passed away, and I'm the closest thing he now has to a father. He's addicted to meth and homeless. One odd thing is that, despite the addiction, we're probably closer now than we've ever been. It helps that my ex is grateful for my continuing involvement with him (as opposed to trying to alienate us).

I have no idea what's right for you - I'll just mention what kind of worked for me. Two and a half years ago, my stepson was just lashing out at me, making lots of theats, etc. Two things that helped were that I began attending an online CRAFT (Community Reinforcement and Family Training) group (an approach to dealing with a loved one in addiction) and I read the book "When Hope Is Not Enough" (written by someone with a spouse with BPD and a daughter with BPD symptoms - articulating approaches to dealing with a BPD family member). The approaches in CRAFT and in the WHINE book were pretty congruent (WHINE in part discusses approaches based on DBT and Mentalization-Based Therapy). And for me, with my stepson, that really helped. Though I know for dealing with someone with BPD, what works is kind of a crapshoot.

As an aside, I'll mention that DBT, Schema Therapy, and Mentalization-Based Treatment are approaches to treatment of BPD that have been found to help in adolescents.

As far as a BPD spouse working to alienate their child from the other parent - I think that's quite common. My mother had BPD, and was always trashing my father to me, and seeking to alienate me from him. As a very young child, I kind of believed her. Then when I was maybe about eight years old, I had a flash of realization that everything she was saying was distorted B.S., and that my father was actually a very decent, good man.

I hope things work out as well as they can in your situation.

Thx for taking the time to reply. Appreciate the tools you mentioned. I’m familiar with them.