BPDFamily.com

My 30-year old daughter has blamed me for the trauma she says she experienced as a child and adult. She says I am the reason she has problems with relationships. She goes on and on in phone calls, texts, emails about how I've screwed up her life. She goes back and forth telling my ex-husband and I this on a very regular basis. I'm at the point where I don't take her phone calls anymore but I am so hurt and sad and angry...how do I deal with the grief of basically losing my daughter?

Good for you that you don't take her phone calls of abuse any more!  This is an accomplishment, even though it doesn't feel like it.  There is a lot of grief with BPD , but reaching out to this network is a great first step.  You need healing too and we understand here.  This link is some reading about losses from this forum.  The only way out is through , unfortunately. 
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=292033.0
I personally also have my own therapist to do grief work with .  Please write back to us as you are able.

Hi Dredgie
Dealing with BPD is such a complicated, exhausting existence. There is crisis after crisis and all the abuse and blaming - and it goes on and on . . . .

But you draw attention to perhaps the deepest part of this journey - one that often gets submerged with all the other dramas ie that we are also living with deep grief at the loss of the person who was so dear to us - and in the most horrible way possible.

We put all our efforts into loving them, trying to support in every way - and they become someone we can't recognise and who blames us for everything, absolutely everything in their own pain and failure.

I have come to 'let go' now in so many ways so that a lot of the time I am not hurt by the blaming or overcome by the grief. Only sometimes at night it overcomes me again and I am filled with sadness.

I think the process of 'letting go' does help in that you are able to start seeing your own life again as something precious and to be honoured.

I have learnt to focus on the fact that I have the gift of life, and this is so special. I can witness the sunsets and rises, hear the rain on the roof and the birds calling out the new day.

These moments overpower the pain and loss of my dd to BPD.  I hope one day that she will overcome this terrible illness and I will see the warm energy of the beautiful child that she once was.

By letting go I have somehow survived the grief.

I'm right there with you, as are countless others on this site.
While I'm resolute in my stance, my distress tolerance is not 100%. There have been many weepy moments working through the grief and relationship loss. 
Be strong. It's not your fault.
 

i have been grieving for the daughter i lost.
but I'm slowly starting to realise, i still have a daughter, she's just not who i thought she was. maybe never was. maybe my idea of her was something i made up in my head.
with that i am trying to learn acceptance and to accept who she really is, not my idea of who she should be.

but well done on installing boundaries and stopping the calls. bad behaviour is bad behaviour, not necessarily BPD. and even if it is you don't have to accept abuse from anyone no matter the situation.

finding the strength to put in strong rules about what i was going to accept.. and enforcing them, changed my life. and hers, we are both in a much better place now.

   I’m with you. Most days, we manage well and live a joyful marriage and relationships with our other two and grandchildren. In the last few days, his initiated estrangement’s resurgence of pain has revisited. I hurt, not for myself so much, for him. Missing his calls hurts. We went from having good-natured, weekly calls to now being “terrible” parents. Nothing we said - just our faith that somehow makes us repugnant, although it was our faith that always led us to embrace him, take him back, and bear his drama. We loved this child to the moon and back...sacrificed for his mental health.
   Swimmy, thanks for the link.

There is so much good in this - and I'd add this piece.  Part of the difficulty in the letting go is there is so much of us in our children that almost dies as their adult choices lead to places that challenge us so deeply.

Thanks for this clarity.

Rev

Absolutely agree Rev