Hi Mom/Grandma,

I think your post will resonate with many grandparents on this site--the sudden and seemingly inexplicable switch from loving to hating, isolating you from grandkids, the unreasonable demands about what you're allowed to talk about, twisting the narrative to make you sound like a monster, accusing you of things that never even happened.  The saddest part is that a defenseless child is used as a pawn.  You're worried not only about your daughter, but how her emotional and often angry outbursts can affect your grandchild's well-being.

I suspect that the estrangement is only temporary.  But I also suspect that the push/pull and alternating periods of estrangement will continue for as long as your daughter isn't getting therapy.  The way I see things, any outbursts from her are a sure sign that she's under a lot of stress, and she's taking it out on you.  Being a new mom is certainly stressful.

On these boards I've seen several posts about a BPD mom finding issue with accepting baby gifts from family members.  This might be a form of jealousy--she feels "shortchanged" in some way, or "upstaged."  She might not like to be reminded of you, because she knows she's acting badly, and she feels a mix of shame and guilt.  The idea that she'd have to thank you or "owe" you for the gift is repellent, and so she'd rather not receive any gifts.  Deep down she might feel jealous that her family members give gifts to her baby but not to her.  Or maybe it's a simple as wanting to hurt you, to punish you for purported wrongs, and refusing gifts is a powerful way to do that, because she knows you'll be hurt.  That's my take.  My advice would be not to make any fuss about refusing a gift--you can just put the gift aside and wait, return it or gift it to someone else.  That's what I do.

Sometimes on these boards, a formula that might have a chance of working is to make any visitation with the grandchild about your daughter's needs.  You could frame a visit as giving your daughter a needed break, some time to herself, some time for self-care.  But if you make a visit about you (I haven't seen my grandchild in months!), then your emotional needs come to the fore, as if your feelings are more important than your daughter's.  You could also inadvertently be signaling to your daughter that withholding access to your grandchild gives her power over you, and I think she's likely to continue, to try to punish you and control you.  Does that make sense?

In the meantime, I know you're hurting.  For now, I'd advise to sit tight and wait until your daughter reaches out.  My guess is that she will soon enough.  If she doesn't, maybe you could reach out with short, non-emotionally-charged message like, Thinking of you, hope you are well, to open the door a crack.  But I'd advise against anything that mentions your needs/emotions or puts any obligations on your daughter (I need to see my grandchild, when can I come visit?), because I think it would backfire.  She has all she can handle with BPD and a baby--she can't handle the stress of your emotional needs or feeling that she's letting you down in any way.  She should come to you when she's ready.

Hi and welcome to (no offense!) the club noone wants to be in!  I am VERY sorry to read your post....I have the poor luck to have a daughter with BPD and my granddaughters' mother has BPD....(fast forward 4 grandchildren) it has been 9 years of exactly what you are describing....the back and forth "you can't see the kids....a frantic phone call 2 days later....when are you going to take the kids); my very best advice to you is the (it is SOOO hard!) sit tight....at least, for me, my granddaughters' mother comes around, though, if it was anyone else....I would love to tell her "where" to go feel free to reach out....I know it is maddening!

Hello and welcome to the family.  I'm so sorry you're going through this since it's incredibly hard.  The only advice I can give is that this is for right now, not for forever.  Your daughter will need you soon enough.

Hello bpdUDS and welcome to the family.  I have a 26 year old BPD daughter and so much of what you shared resonated with my journey as well.  Thankfully, my kid tried every possible drug and didn't care for them (except weed).  If it wasn't for that one thing, I'd be in the exact same position you are.

Much of what you shared resonates with a BPD diagnosis, but honestly we're not here for that as much as we are to support you personally and help you through this troubling time. 

You've mentioned that you've brought up the mental health aspect a few times and that seems to backfire, which is this forums experience as a whole as well.  Very few people hear that type of thing with an open-mind.  Instead, they hear, "You think I'm crazy and everything is my fault!"  It's counter-productive to try forcing a conversation like that and it almost never leads to something productive. 

Instead, it's better to let your son realize that he needs help on his own.  When he's ready, he'll seek treatment and/or ask for advice. My kid did that about two years ago and while she still struggles, her life has changed dramatically for the better.

Again though, this is about you and moving past this in a productive way.  Have you talked this out with friends or family?  Or have you considered counseling to help you work through this?  It's A LOT to process and we've all struggled so much.  Hopefully you're making time for you and not becoming fixated on fixing a problem that's not actually yours.

Others will have more wisdom cuz I am a newbie also and mine is a son and the grandkids scenario.  Just making an observation---not assessing the specific traits but just thinking before your post that I think females with BPD could possibly have a little more hormonal stuff to enhance the BPD.  Maybe your daughter had a little break in her hormones when baby was born and now she is back to same old same old.    Not saying it is part of situation but perhaps so and that doesn't give you solution but just making an observation.

I am at a complete bottom with my adult undiagnosed son (26). He seemed pretty normal until he turned 16/17 and he fell into a bad crowd and started abusing drugs for the next 10 years. His spiral as a teen was very sudden, and seemed to be mostly drug related, he also has ADHD. But now I look back and even before that, he didn’t seem attached to people normally. I was a young single mom and things were less stable until he was about 8. He was and is very emotionally immature, and after 14 (started drugs) slowly turned into a really deceptive person who treated people poorly but pretended to be a good guy at home. I was easily manipulated emotionally. He never really had developed his own personality and interests and just clung to everyone and adopted whoever he was with at the time. The drug abuse worsened and he put us through complete hell for a decade with a lot of on and off estrangement, lies, manipulation, blame, theft, and was and is, completely remorseless. He has never apologized for anything - is that a BPD trait?

He held a narrative that we were at fault for the conflict at home, and not his addiction or behaviours. I enabled him for a long time, always forgiving him and not making him address things because I was just happy to see him after weeks, or months missing. I think we were at times less validating than we could have been throughout his life, coming from invalidating homes ourselves, but not terribly. We were a pretty good normal family.

I always blamed the drugs for his behaviour, but once he cleaned up after he hit a big bottom last year. He still had so much instability in his personality and life. He can’t be alone, and goes from relationship to relationship. Then he met a woman who has be diagnosed BPD and seems very very mentally unstable. He didn't even tell her about us for months after dating. They both had a fast romance filled with drama, and that very suddenly became all about religion. I reacted poorly to his very sudden conversion. That reaction is now his and her primary focus for the last several months. She sends really emotionally charged messages to me, signed both of them, cutting off contact, or telling me how awful I am. I’ve only met her a couple times. I respond very neutrally and it infuriates her.

After this religious conflict, he proposed within a couple months and they planned a wedding all while being NC for us - their choice. But then he got very upset that we didn’t try harder to make amends and to contact him. I think I have apologized 5 times. He gets mad if we address things, mad if we don’t. He’s mad that we don’t fix things for him, but he avoids contact when we try to open a dialogue. He actually avoids conflict 99% of the time. We only see him 0-1-2 times a year. He holds resentments and can’t move past perceived slights, no matter what we do.

Her most recent message uninvited us to his wedding and cut contact again. This is because I wanted our son to address things instead of a ‘fresh start’ which he requested. I believe it's because he wants money for the wedding.

I just have reached a point that I can’t do it anymore.

After learning about her diagnosis, I can see now that he fits a lot of the BPD criteria. I can’t believe how similar their behaviour sounds to the entries I read on this site.

With the wedding, we are not attending and not trying to convince him otherwise. I feel like I can’t lose another single day to his chaos and he is our only child so it stings a lot. I’ve done years of therapy and I am handling it a lot better now.

I want to send him a message that calmly shares my concerns about his mental health, is that even worth it. How many people are walking away at this stage? I don't have the energy to walk on eggshells with one let alone two people this unstable. Do people tend to get better over time, his also might have NPD, I don't really know. I do have a lot of personality disorders in my family tree, none diagnosed. 

Hello-- I am new here. 62 Yo GM with 35 yo daughter who might have BPD. At least, she has those behaviors, so I am hoping strategies that help with BPD will also help with her.

We have had a long history of her blowing up and cutting me off then coming back. My personality is more low key introvert nerd, and she goes fast, so things usually progress from me thinking we are having a casual chat to finding out I didn't sound enthusiastic enough about something or was smiling at the wrong time, and now she's furious and yelling while I am just standing there confused, trying to figure out my mistake. It's like my very existence has been fingernails on a chalkboard for her, and I have tried as hard as I can to figure out what she wants.

After she had a baby 10 months ago, everything changed. I was shocked. She called and apologized-- she said now she understands what it feels like to love a baby and that she should never have been so mean to me, knowing I love her that way. She seemed very happy, no post partum depression, is able to stay home with the baby and enjoys that. I have flown there every 2-3 months to visit and it's been amazing! I still feel a bit on eggshells out of habit but she has actually been kind. I think she's doing a fantastic job with the baby.

Now baby is 10 months and I guess the friendliness towards me has suddenly worn off. She has cut me off, she says "for now" after one of those conversations that went unexpectedly south. Idk if the specifics matter, but she was saying she didn't want me to ever talk politics or religion with her daughter (a 10 month old) even as a teen because she sees my opinions as harmful. I've always been on the left, she's gone right, and do I ever bring it up? No, omg, wouldn't dream of it. I only know her current position bc she says things but I just change the subject. It's a minefield.

So I said of course I don't bring that up now! And that it would feel strange to refuse to answer a direct question honestly from a teen, but if that was her rule I would have to agree to it. Well the word "rule" set her off. She said it wasn't a rule, it was a "request" to "find out if it's going to work out for you to be in a close relationship with our family."

I would understand if I had been arguing with her about any of these things or doing monologues at dinner. But I haven't. I stick to safe subjects like weather, recipes, etc. I am ultra cautious not to offend her.

So now she is "taking a break" and uninvited me from the 1 yr birthday party. She emailed me to cancel the developmental toy subscription I had been sending at her request.

I have been in these intermittent estrangements enough to think it's not permanent, but it's still painful. Now I am worried-- what would it be like for my grandchild? She won't remember this one, but eventually she will. If I am in and out of her life, and the trigger for her mom's anger, am I making my grandchild have a harder life? As far as I can tell, I am the main person she takes anger out on. Should I keep a semi distance to minimize this but so my granddaughter knows I exist-- in case she ever needs me? Like, send cards but keep out of her mom's hair?

I am so sad to be missing this time with the baby. She's the sweetest ever. I always wanted to be a grandma. But I have to put her first.

I have a newer Iphone, and there is an "action button" that can be used to make a voice memo.  I've programmed that action button because I'm just too slow and clumsy to unlock my phone, find the voice memo app and start recording.  Maybe this is a potential solution for quick recording.

I'm not going to tell you to do it or not do it (my gosh the constant "I've really turned over a new leaf"-itis is hilariously on-point), but audio-record the whole conversation and honestly invest in a $15 "set it and forget it audio recorder" to just wear around your neck or in a shirt pocket the first couple days - because there's a huge risk of her just complaining you raped her and strangled her and then tried to drown the kids or something...I cannot stress enough the need to have an audio recording of every moment for the next few weeks.

I faced over a dozen criminal charges, all of them finally acquitted two years later with a note that my ex just fabricated things out of thin air (she ended up accusing my lawyer of abusing her, then accusing three separate lawyers of her own of misconduct meriting losing their license if she'd been believed, testified before lunch there was no bruise, took a lunch break and came back to testify about how bad the bruises were, etc...almost comedic, from a very dark standpoint.).

My experience with judges is a mixed bag (female judges could see through her lies more easily than men who fell for her act, but they were also hesitant to act decisively and end this charade), but I'd rank the police involvement (I actually phoned police, not her) a 0/10 - absolute dereliction of duty and race to ruin my family's lives because when they showed up a pretty young woman told a horrifying story to explain why I was divorcing her.

Record. Everything.

I now will gain gaurdianship of my granddaughter in a few weeks. my daughter is mentally ll,  borderline and has made our lives miserable for many years. She has blamed me for everything in her life. She does not work have any income, a car or anything that can help her raise her daughter.She has tested positive for meth 2 times this year which she denies any useage.
We are so concerned now after DHS leaves that we wil
have no support of defense with our daughter that blames me for taking her away.
I am so weary and anxious about all this that some days I cant function well. I feel so sad for her and can't help feel sorry for her. She has absolutley nothing in her life..
I am reaching out for any advice or guidance in our next few weeks and for the future as we will have her until she graduates from high school. She is 15 and is getting tired of her mothers moods and inibility to help herself.