I'm in the middle on how your daughter may react.  Either of the aspects presented here are possible.  Your daughter has for years lived with the "status quo", namely, stuck in the middle, not good.

On the one hand, your calm and stable influence over the years no doubt has had an influence.  On the other hand, her mother has had years to influence and manipulate her, weakening her loyalty and perspectives.

You know your daughter better than we can as remote peer support.  But still... even if you think you know, what she says and does may surprise you.  As the saying goes, "When the tires hit the road...", referring to the point at which an abstract idea or plan is tested out in practice.

Or possibly not, and if she doesn't want to spend a lot of time with her mother, or stay with her, please allow her to have her feelings about it.

There's shame and guilt for not "loving your mother". I wanted to have a good relationship with her but I also was afraid of her when she was dysregulated and the feelings were confusing.

Part of this was the unpredictability of her moods. Even if nothing happened and she was fine- her moods could change in a second. She might react to something I said, inadvertently, or did or didn't do- even if I had no intentions of upsetting her.

I still wanted a relationship with my mother,  but felt I needed to have my own space as well.

I had a say at 17 and it was to plan for university away from home. With the help of her therapist, your D can voice her choice too.

I had that happen quite often, but there's also a lot of BPD on my ex-wife's side of the family.  In general, I did not become involved unless there was no other option because my young adult kids need to learn to handle things on their own.

I think it really depends on the circumstance though and what's going on.  Could you give us a little more detail with what your grown child is facing?

Hi Resilient Mama,

Your name says a lot.  You've been through a lot.  And you've come to the right place.

I went through a similar situation, dealing with years of disfunctional behavior, multiple suicide attempts, multiple hospital stays, unstable living situations, varying diagnoses.  But finally a reputable psychiatric hospital gave a diagnosis of BPD with avoidant narcissistic traits, plus substance abuse disorder.  There were bouts of anxiety and depression, too, which were treated with medications to help stabilize her, but medications didn't "fix" the underlying issue of BPD.  Only by working hard at therapy could the pwBPD in my life start to feel better.  She's about your daughter's age, and being so young, she really turned things around in a relatively short timeframe, just a couple of years.  Though she still struggles and is alienated from her family right now, her life looks a whole lot better than it did just a few short years ago.  We keep tabs on her through her therapist.

Pook is another parent on these boards who had to see his dear daughter hit bottom before she decided to take therapy seriously and turn her life around, too.  I'm just saying that to underscore that BPD is treatable!  Maybe your daughter's emotional sensitivity and proclivity for negative/disordered thinking will always be inside her, but she can learn better coping mechanisms to improve her day-to-day functioning, and hopefully her relationships, too.  I really like Pook's realization that he's not responsible for his daughter and he can't fix her, even if he'd like to.  Dr. Happy is right, most of the time it feels like we the parents are trying harder than the kids with BPD, and that just doesn't work.

I bet you're feeling overwhelmed and a mix of fear, obligation and guilt--we call that the FOG here.  The FOG can prevent you from thinking clearly, and it can predispose you to overreact to your daughter's crisis du jour.  That's why you need to focus on your own wellbeing, especially when you are stressed out with worry.  Your daughter needs Resilient, Balanced, Healthy Mama, not Distressed, Guilt-ridden, Fearful, Mournful and Exhausted Mama.  You can think of it as being a role model for daughter about what a healthy adult's life looks like.

Anyway, I think the worst part of BPD is the victim mindset.  A pwBPD blames everyone else for her problems, and in the process she abdicates responsibility for her life.  She always seems to give up on herself, way too easily.  I think that's why she probably has to hit bottom before she decides to get some professional help.  You can't "force" her to get therapy; she has to want to get it.  Curiously, the pwBPD in my life actually warmed to the notion of getting professional help, because it validated her view of feeling traumatized by life, and needing extra support to get past it.  Plus, professional doctors and therapists don't come with all the emotional baggage that the family carries.

I guess my advice for you would be to not enable the status quo for your daughter.  Sure, she might threaten to leave or actually leave the program.  But you don't have to make it easy for her to quit by giving her a bed to crash on.  I think it's natural for her to want to quit, because quitting is her usual response to distress, and therapy is WORK, which feels distressing to your daughter.

Now I imagine you've come here worried sick and at the brink of despair, even if you are incredibly resilient.  But I see some good things here.  First, your daughter has a diagnosis--that's something.  It probably explains a lot of her difficulties.  Second, BPD is treatable.  That's the first thing I read when I learned of a diagnosis and Googled BPD, and it gave me some hope.  Third, your daughter is still young; she has most of her adult life ahead of her.  She can turn things around without having BPD derail her entire life.  Fourth, she has YOU, Resilient Mama.  I think you're her best ally on the road to recovery, provided that you're in a calm and healthy place.  And finally, your daughter is in a program now, after having struggled a long time.  She has moments of positivity when she feels she has an opportunity to turn her life around.  I'm really hoping this is an inflection point for her, that she realizes that she's worth fighting for, and that she doesn't give up, even when she wants to.  It can be done.

When I reached that inflection point with my adult BPD stepdaughter, I said to my dear husband, My darling, your job isn't to fix your daughter, because nothing we've tried so far has seemed to work.  Your job right now is to ensure she follows doctors' orders.  By that I mean, don't enable her to do other things, such as hide out in her bedroom all day, go on a fun trip, or otherwise revert to the unhealthy status quo.  In other words, to continue to enjoy parental support (housing, health insurance, etc.), she has to follow doctor's orders, whatever they are.  She absolutely could choose to go her own way, and we'd respect that, but then she wouldn't get any parental financial support.  Fortunately, the choice was clear for her.

All my best to you.

Just wanting a place to fully 'breathe'. Things are much better, keeping my door open again. Doing my thing. Just her presence causes 'anxiety' or whatever it may be. Been looking to transfer to another related federal facility for a while. Was told the facility down the road may be having some Program Manager positions opening up, would be a lateral, but I could truly start over.

Hi Trinket,

Its sounds like it is time to go and live your life and not be treated like a doormat anymore. This isnt the treatment any of us deserve. I know as a GM myself, we often stick around in these toxic r/s with our pwbpd children hold on longer than we should because we are worried about the care of our gc when we are not around our gcs, but the truth is that we are allowing ourselves to continue to be victims of abuse and beaten down while your dd's go from strength to strength.

Please dont feel guilty in trying to save your sanity. You are allowed to at this stage in life to put yourself first and live with the peace that goes along with it.

If you are in fear of being attacked and it would make the move any smoother I would ask  a personal friend or a family member to oversee what happens on the day.

Hopefully you wont need to involve the police but that to is also an option.

I wish you well on your move and peace for the future  

Hello.  Have any of you ever dealt with a situation in which an uBPD from your family of origin is in conflict with one of your grown children?  If so, how have you handled that?  Thank you.

Hi there,

As for your daughter, at 17 she probably has a big say in her living arrangements.  If you maintain residences that are geographically close to each other after separation, it's conceivable that your daughter could go back and forth between residences at will.  I can tell you that in my family, when I married my husband and moved into a new house with him, his three near-adult adult children (in their late teens) immediately moved in with us, practically full-time, even though technically, his ex-wife had joint custody.  The irony was that my husband had to pay "child support" throughout the college years to his ex, even though the kids were living with us whenever they weren't in college (which happened to be a long time, as two of his daughters withdrew from college multiple times).  I'm just saying that kids that age can vote with their feet, pretty much no matter what custody arrangements are made.

I'd also say that probably no matter how disordered your wife is, your daughter most likely still wants to have a close relationship with her mom, and she probably doesn't want to hear anything negative about her from you, either.  I think it's important that exes don't disparage one another, for the benefit of the child.

My guess is that if your wife is really disordered, your daughter will probably want to spend a lot of time with you.  It might be a relief for her, to have a quiter, non-chaotic home without so many arguments and the passive-aggressive, negative vibe.

It would be another issue altogether if your wife moved to another country, making visitation much more complicated for your daughter.

Really appreciate you all. This is a 'diary' of sorts for me. I didn't spiral. I told my bosses I'm not looking to escalate this, talk bad on anyone, revive this situation, simply looking to maintain the original agreement of no-contact. Should be quite easy, my immediate supervisor is the annoying one. The main one is great and on board. Quite simple to keep 2 people apart. Especially given the circumstances which thank God did not grow. Given what both sides said, regardless of her lies or exaggerations, it would make perfect business sense to remain separated entirely.

Hi resilientmama,

Welcome to BPDFamily. I’m really glad you found your way here, and I’m sorry for the long road that’s brought you in.

Reading your post, I can feel how much you’ve been carrying for a very long time. Thirteen years of chaos, fear, trying to help, trying to hold things together… that takes a toll. It makes sense that hearing the diagnosis brought up a mix of relief, grief, and everything in between.

There’s also something really important in what you shared. You’re starting to shift your focus back toward yourself. Wanting to rebuild your foundation, set healthier boundaries, and step out of that “saving” role is a big step. That doesn’t mean you love your daughter any less. If anything, it often means you’re trying to move into a healthier way of loving her and yourself.

What you described with the ups and downs in treatment, the moments of breakthrough followed by resistance, is something many parents here recognize. It can feel like hope and fear are constantly trading places.

You’re not alone in this. There are many parents here who have walked a similar path and are learning how to support their child while also reclaiming their own lives.

Since you mentioned wanting tools and support, one place many people start is learning about boundaries and stepping out of the cycle of over-responsibility. If you’d like, we can share some resources and approaches that have helped others here.

For now, I just want to say I’m really glad you reached out. You’ve been doing this on your own for a long time, and you don’t have to do that here.