Hello,
I am not sure whether or not my adult daughter has bpd or not as she has not been formally diagnosed. However, I’ve been in Counceling for the past year (just one of many times) because of the turbulent, conflict ridden relationship I have with my adult daughter, who will be 37 this year in May. My counselor feels that I might benefit from reading others posts and sharing my experience in order to gain a better understanding of what she feels I am probably dealing with in order to cut through the confusion. Currently I am being given the silent treatment as a result of being blamed for an argument between she and her brother, which I had nothing to do with. I’ve been in shock that I’ve landed here yet again for something I didn’t do. It’s been a month. This time last year the silence lasted  3 months. She is the eldest of 3 and my only daughter. Although I
am the one to have always come to her rescue, nothing I do is
ever enough to earn her respect, understanding or empathy.  I am her emotional punching bag. If I try to present a perspective that differs from hers, I’m accused of gaslighting her, and she hates that (her words). I am the one to blame in just about any scenario and she is always the victim. She has been verbally abusive and threatens our relationship whenever we disagree-jumping to conclusions, mind reading, judge, jury and executioner. She ticks most of the boxes for bpd-and I am not the only one she has struggled to maintain a relationship with. She’s been on the “outs” at one time or another with every family member and her friends. However, from what I’ve read, bpd seems to cycle fairly rapidly whereas her anger episodes can last months-she really holds onto a grudge. She rarely, if ever is wrong and apologizes, she simply gets over it. The running “joke” in the family has been “if she isn’t happy, ain’t nobody happy” and she laughs about it. We’ve all grown accustomed to walking on eggshells. She was told by a councilor once that they suspected she has adult adhd and recommended she see a Psychiatrist to get an evaluation, but she doesn’t have insurance (by choice) so she’s determined that she does, in fact, have it and that’s that. I’ve read that both bipolar disorder and bpd frequently co-occur alongside adhd-I’m just confused as to which one I am dealing with and how best to handle my relationship with her moving forward. Since she was a teenager she was very sensitive and reactionary emotionally and had difficulty controlling her anger, but I thought she was just a hormonal teenager. She was always the first to lash out and desire to punish or get even. She will never take hearing from me that I suspect a mental health disorder well.  What can I do to help her or at the very least avoid triggering her? Thanks in advance for “listening “ and sharing your thoughts.

It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do as a mother. We want to believe we can help them or fix them, but the truth is they can only help themselves. I had to finally admit that I was only enabling the behavior and it will continue as long as I allowed it. I pray that by stepping away and letting her truly come to the end of herself she will one day finally be honest with herself and everyone around her and choose to heal and repair.

For now, I will focus on what I can control and work on healing myself. It feels selfish, but the alternative is to participate in my own and her destruction and delusions. I choose to live in truth and peace and hope someday she will choose the same.

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Hello and welcome back!

I've had this happen a few times in the past, maybe not BPD related, but someone from my past would linger just enough to where I couldn't completely let them go.  You have to physically move on though and cut those ties if they're too much to deal with.

If you've struggled with alcohol problems and lost several friends because of it, that's honestly the larger issue at hand.  And if your current friends wouldn't want to hear about this, then they're not exactly friends either.  It might be time to move on from there as well.

To change your life, you need to change people, places, and things.  Don't hang out with people that are doing things that get you in trouble.  Don't go to places where those types of people are.  And don't hang onto things that remind you of those people.  A fresh start moves all of that out of your life 

It is hard I am lonely and I haven't moved on so those sporadic messages seem like all I have combined with the hope she'll want to see me. I'm trying to move on though. I also have been taking care of myself I don't drink anymore and replaced it with exercise. I made some goals I want to accomplish this year, but her presence looms over my head.

That sounds familiar.  I didn't live with my adult BPD stepdaughter until she was college-age, so I didn't experience her upbringing, but her dad tells me she was a very fussy child.  As she grew into young adult, your description rings true:  very sensitive, moody . . . but could never say what was wrong . . . and then she'd seem to make up stories to fit her feelings.  She had seemingly unending needs; sometimes I felt I was living with a newborn!  Geesh, I couldn't even enjoy a weekend away with my husband, without having to cut it short and run back home early because of the pwBPD's crisis du jour.  

Like your daughter, I suspect my stepdaughter might have been bullied at school sometimes, but then again, ever since I started living with her, it became clear to me that SHE was the bully.  My sense was that she felt aggrieved by others when no offense was even intended.  She held grudges and blew things way out of proportion.  Worse, she'd react by lashing out, making HER the bully.  You see, when she spoke about her so-called friends bullying her, she left out important details, such as her role in instigating a conflict, which I'd sometimes learn about much later.  The sad result was that she lost all her friends, even her bestie from middle school.  She was alienated from every last family member, making an exception for her dad and me, only because she needed a place to live.

I understand some of the regret, because bending over backwards for the adult child with BPD usually means making sacrifices in your own life, and attention away from the other kids who are behaving.  It becomes a perverse family dynamic, where bad behavior is rewarded with attention, money and resources, and good behavior gets leftovers.  I too feel some resentment--the holidays marred by meltdowns, cancelled/interrupted vacations, messy living quarters, huge financial strain, marital strife, living as if in a passive-aggressive war zone--which probably could have been completely avoided if she'd just leave (and not be allowed back in the house).  Even when she's not around, my heart stops every time the phone rings at night, bracing myself for some bad news.

It's not easy for a parent to let her go and do whatever she wants, because she is suffering, and parents want to help.  The thing is, I think the parents do all the trying, when the pwBPD, if untreated, has basically given up.  So parental efforts to "fix" and "save" her are doomed to fail.  The irony is, my stepdaughter insists all the time that she's an adult, she can do whatever she wants, and I want to say, FINE, you do that (and don't come to me asking for more money or help).  But in her world, her incentives are all mixed up.  She makes the decisions, but her dad bears any adverse consequences.  That has to stop, or we'll be destroyed, because an untreated pwBPD knows no limits.  We have to be the ones with limits (boundaries).

Hello and welcome back!

I've had this happen a few times in the past, maybe not BPD related, but someone from my past would linger just enough to where I couldn't completely let them go.  You have to physically move on though and cut those ties if they're too much to deal with.

If you've struggled with alcohol problems and lost several friends because of it, that's honestly the larger issue at hand.  And if your current friends wouldn't want to hear about this, then they're not exactly friends either.  It might be time to move on from there as well.

To change your life, you need to change people, places, and things.  Don't hang out with people that are doing things that get you in trouble.  Don't go to places where those types of people are.  And don't hang onto things that remind you of those people.  A fresh start moves all of that out of your life.

A quick anecdote from almost twenty years ago, going through the research at the time; it turned out more than ~90% of pwBPD claimed to have been sexually molested as a child by their parents (and then many complaining that their current/ex sexual partners assaulted them as well) which seemed pretty iron-clad...until it was revealed ~60% with male therapists also then started claiming that their therapist raped them, police raped them, any male (and sometimes female) with authority or intimacy was 'guilty'.  So obviously that threw the previous numbers out of whack a bit.

While it's clear you're emotional right now - and you may or may not have the identical feelings as things sift out over the coming months, you have caused me also to wonder if parents of multiple children, vs parents of an only child, respond to adult BPD differently.

Thank you. To finally find other people who understand and get it is such a relief. Nobody knows, even as well-intentioned and educated as they may be, what it’s truly like to be the mother of someone with this behavior, and even then our stories are unique to us.

To love someone so deeply and pour everything you have into them, and  give them the best life possible, only to be abused in the most cruel ways in the end, is a heartache I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

I now know that the only way to find any true peace is to let her go and live my life. She is an adult and can choose to heal  if and when she’s ready. Until then, I’m walking away and will do my best not to look back.

I meant to also add how much finding this site has helped me. I first found this site when udd was 14yrs old and perhaps at her worse and the members here helped me through some of the toughest times of my life. Imagine if this was paid therapy. I would be bankrupt right now  . Outsiders dont get it, they can believe the stories, but the members here know it is true.

I have taken breaks and have come back through the years and it has been invaluable to my own mental health....so keep posting Choosing Peace. We are here to support you.

Hi Choosing peace,


My udd is now 32yo but it started from a very early age. udd cried a lot as a baby. Always a very sensitive moody child who could literally cry all day but could never say what was actually say what was wrong. Then she began to make  up very fantastical stories and telling lies from a  very early age about people and the things she had supposedly done.

There were lots of problems with friendships groups once she started school. She was either jealous of them or accusing them of hurting her or creating some kind of drama to get them to fall out with each other. I have to add that I do believe that she was also bullied at some point which affected her self esteem quite badly. After the bullying and I changed her school she seemed to reinvent herself. She became a THE BULLY, her schoolwork suffered, became very secretive, began to rebel sneaking out at night, involvement in criminal activity and the obsession with boys leading to a teenage pregnancy. Towards me she has destroyed my personal property, stolen from me, been rude and disrespectful and physically and verbally abusive.

As you can imagine there is a lot more in between that I have left out. It has been a whirlwind for sure.

I dont think that I would have done things differently and know that I did my best. I got her therapy at quite an early age but she convinced the therapist that I was the problem. I continually tried to fix ways to fix the problems..... researching, and trying different techniques and ways to improve our r/s while udd made no effort at all and seemed to despise me the more for it.

I actually remember commenting on someones post some time ago that I never thought that I would find peace again until my own death, but with this estrangement Iam enjoying the feeling of having peace back in my life which I prayed for for years and never though that I would experience ever again.

I don’t have any real advice, but I just wanted to say I’m so sorry you’re having to navigate this. I have a grandbaby in the middle of a mess right now. It’s so hard.

Can you reach out to the other grandma? Something like, “I know my daughter wasn’t feeling well and I just wanted to check in on her.” It could open up the door to a conversation.

If you can establish a relationship with his parents it will benefit all of you in the long run. They’re going to eventually see that she’s not well and you want them to know that you’re on the same page as them, especially if custody becomes an issue.