BPDFamily.com

Hi all,

I've been NC with my father for three days. I chose not to tell him but it hasn't prevented intense blow back. He has been harassing my boss who is a friend of the family. I can only see the group texts being sent to my boss and they are numerous, and I assume there are personal texts to only my boss as well. I asked him twice to use email. He isn't knowledgeable in the subject we are working on so his texts don't make any sense. It's incrediblely embarrassing.   I gather my father is doing this to force me to respond, so I will keep ignoring him. But I think I need to tell my boss something. My father doesn't come across as abusive only sort of neurotic and I know he doesn't want to be involved. I have no idea what would be appropriate to say to explain my father's actions.

The friend of the family complicates things. What does your boss say? It might be good to tell your father, in a very short note to not contact you until you contact him. When others are roped into the drama is where cold NC may fail. You can't control your father's behaviors, and his neurotic behaviors are due to his BPD abandonment fears are triggered.

Does your boss like and value you? He's an adult, and can handle it, but a little info from you will make him feel like you're not part of the drama. "Hey boss, I'm sorry that my dad is acting like that. At this time, however, I've chosen to distance myself from him for personal reasons." If they're not friends, your boss can block his number. It would probably be best to make it clear that you've said something to your dad, so your boss doesn't feel that you're using him as a shield, even though you're not.

Ah Geez. I'm fired.

Oh, no. What happened?

My boss is overwhelmed. He says we should maybe put the project on hold for few months and I should work things out with my father.

It's hard to feel great right now, but I'm shocked by my father's response. No contact is the right decision if he's going to do this sort of thing for not answering phone calls for three days! How exasperating.

It's not good to be told how to feel and what to do, invalidating. It's sad that it affected your livelihood, maybe almost like punishment. I'd be even angrier at my dad, are you? Do you have other job prospects?

I've been wanting to change job fields slightly and need some higher education to do that, so I think it's a good time. I need an interim position and I'll have to start asking around. I've been a bit blind sided here.

Yeah, I'm pretty angry with father right now, mostly because I view it as public humiliation.

Sometimes we need a push... .even if it's a messed up one.

It does sound like it's public, since family was roped into it. Are you going to say something to your father? Its hard to say if remaining strict NC will keep his drama away.  I've seen a few stories of members whose pwBPD harrassed them at their work places, without the friend of the family dynamic (these were romantic partners on the Leaving Board). How much is the rest of the family enabling?

He harassed my mother mercilessly as work when she left him and he didnt know anyone working there. He's shameless in this regard. I told my father we are no contact now; that it wasn't a punishment, but that he must respect boundaries and stop his abuse. He has a psychiatrist albeit one he brags he manipulates so I recommended he discuss his problems with her. The only people enabling him are my grandmother and one of my aunts. He really has a lot of positive family support actually.

My partner's mother tried to harass my work place.  Fortunately for me it didn't work as I have a very amazing team I work with and my boss has a lot of respect for me and she saw there was obviously some mental issues behind it.  Having that failed MIL then tried to harass my partners boss, telling him my partner was depressed etc.  Again we were fortunate that this man saw the mental issues too and blocked her number from his phone.   My partner's response was to try and talk to his mum about it and say how inappropriate it was but of course she couldn't see anything wrong and denied it all.  So he told her he was leaving his job (he hasn't) and that he wasn't going to tell her where he was working so she couldn't interfere with that job.  Maybe that's something you should do too?

I hope you have managed to find your feet again and wish you well for the future :)