I'm so sorry to hear that.  I almost replied to this thread last month, but when I read about the baby being weened in a day...well, I couldn't post objectively right then.  Just know that I feel your pain, anger, and frustration.

I was wondering- summer has come and gone.  Has anything changed with your daughter's lifestyle?  Is she in another relationship yet?

I've learned the hard way that with BPD kids (mine is 27), you have to choose which is more important- being right or having a relationship.  If it's about right or wrong, then you'll always be fighting and there will never be much peace.  But if you care more about the relationship, then you can come at this problem from a different angle and meet her where she's at.

Why?  How?  The stuff you argue about is not actually the problem.  That's just stuff she says because she's mentally ill and can't talk about how she truly feels inside.  So she lashes out, gets easily offended, seeks wrath over the smallest things.  I've been there too and again, I figured all this out the hard way.

Mental illness is the actual problem.  And with BPD, it's all about feelings.  Things feel great or they feel horrible; there's rarely a middle ground.  So when your daughter starts a rant, apologize for hurting her feelings.  That's really the core of this and what's going on.

Now, you never apologize for whatever she's ranting about and you don't ever counter any of her ridiculous points.  You simply say, "I'm sorry if what I said hurt you, that was never my intention."  Because that's a true statement, right?  You're not trying to hurt her, you just want her to be a decent human and a decent mom.  So we apologize for "feelings" and we ignore their "facts". 

Does that make sense at all?

I am returning to post that this current splitting episode has turned into an estrangement. My adopted daughter has left and come back many times. This one is hurting in a different way because she took my grandchild away with her this time. It’s the baby’s first birthday this week and I am excluded from her birthday party. That means not so much to me as the loss of daily contact I had with my granddaughter while she was living under my roof.

 I had this daily ritual of dancing with my granddaughter to one particular song. The whole world would melt away with her in my arms. This is the most painful part of it all. I’m working very hard on self care although there are moments when I break down. I’ve decided that when my daughter comes back that I am going to redirect her to pursue her mental health treatment and limit her access to me. This also means that I won’t see the baby but I cannot withstand her using the baby as a means to punish me for things I didn’t do.

I am sorry for your loss of this family member.

My BPD mother's behaviors were extreme- but in context of my family of origin, and minimized, normalized. Also, she was enabled and my father did a lot of emotional caretaking and we kids did later as adults. She also was able to "hold it together" in social context.

My parents were in their elder years when father got ill and eventually passed away. BPD mother's behavior escalated and like your sister's it was the opposite of what we would have expected, what we think as "normal". While what we experienced in our FOO growing up may not have been "normal" behavior, we didn't know another example. As adults, we have seen the "normal" as people responding to such a situation by being empathetic and supportive.

Why is this apparent now?

As CC43 posted, the pwBPD is so overwhelmed by their own feelings, they don't see the situation from other people's perspective.

Karpman triange dynamics helped me to explain this better. This doesn't make the behavior acceptable, but it helped to understand why it is happening. https://www.bpdfamily.com/content/karpman-drama-triangle.

My mother (and I think most people with BPD) see relationships from victim perspective. Other people are either rescuers or persecutors. A person can take on any role in the triangle.

The usual family dynamics had BPD mother in Victim position. Dad mostly in rescuer. Us kids as his co-enablers. When Dad got ill,the focus shifted to him, he was the one who needed help and caretaking.

BPD mother, also stressed by the situation (understandable) perceived this response as "taking away" the usual caretaking and attention from her. Her own emotional distress increased with the situation and less caretaking. PwBPD project their own emotional discomfort as coming from someone or something else. It isn't factual but in the moment, to a pwBPD feelings appear as facts. Dad - and also us kids- to her, were in persecutor position now, hurting her on purpose.

So, she lashed out. Instead of being supportive and empathetic, she lashed out. It was destructive.

For other people, having seen "normal" and expecting "normal", this behavior is shocking, confusing. It would be understandable that people pull away from the pwBPD for their own emotional protection. The pwBPD may see this as abandoning them. For you, it's seeing your family dynamics from an adult perspective.

This doesn't excuse the behavior. At these times, other people are quite emotionally distraught, and may need to have boundaries with it. You may need to do this too. However, I think if you can see this as a behavioral pattern, rather than personal, it may help you and your feelings.

Sadly, this is a hard situation for affected family members to reconcile, and it's too soon to know if that is even possible. At the moment, the affected family has more going on than anyone can manage. They are the ones dealing with a huge loss. Your sister isn't capable of being empathetic to them. This is going to go the way it possibly can and that may take some time.

Disclaimer: a bit of tongue in cheek here.
The police will have nothing for you if you don't ask.

Years ago my niece had a problem I could have helped her with.  But I found out too late.  I asked her why she didn't ask me an she replied that I might have said No.  I kindly informed her I might have said Yes!

There are times when it is good to stand up and ask.  It might be Yes - while the worst that can happen is the answer is No.

It is typical the majority of the pwBPD's poor behaviors are in private scenarios such as behind closed doors, with close family, where they can let their hair down and let it all out to vent.

This is where Boundaries are invaluable.  Unfortunately, effective boundaries are not intuitive.  We naturally think, "You shouldn't do or say that" yet the pwBPD are known to resist normal boundaries.  So, instead, boundaries are for us.  For example, we focus on ourselves and our own reactions.  A very simplistic phrase is, "If you do or don't do ___ then I will do or not do ___."  In practice, that may be "If you rant or rage at me, I will hang up or leave."

Another skill to develop is to avoid logical approaches (JADE = Justify, Argue, Defend, Explain) when the other is being illogical, moody or dissociated.  Some logic may be effective later when the other is calmer and more rational.

These concepts and many others can be found on our Tools & Skills Workshops board.

Hi there,

Thanks for the additional insights.  I am less familiar with later-stage "onset" of BPD behaviors.  However, I can attest that major events such as a death in the family can trigger outbursts.  If you read these boards on the topic, it becomes apparent that it is a theme.

Of course, everyone is different.  Some may internalize the reality of death and start to harbor negative thoughts about their own demise.  PwBPD tend to be emotionally intense, and thinking about death can trigger big feelings.  If your pwBPD was close to the deceased, then she might think she was abandoned, literally.  Yet in my family, the recent passing of a close family member triggered some BPD-like behaviors, but I think it was for a completely different reason.  In my family, I think it happened because attention was temporarily diverted away from the pwBPD traits.  There was some acting out, in a misguided attempt to reclaim attention, which was the opposite of what should have happened (i.e. show calm and loving support in a time of loss and struggle).  I think it was a poorly executed message of, "My needs aren't being met!  Attention needs to be on me!  You're not servicing me like I'm accustomed to!  How dare you profess to love someone else, I'm the one who deserves all your love!"  A death triggers in them their own feelings of abandonment, not necessarily by the deceased, but by the family mourning the deceased.

Anyway, I'm sorry you're dealing with this.

CC43 - She is early 40s. She had some stumbling blocks and mild failure to launch earlier on, but at this point she is basically a functioning adult with a stable professional job.

The trauma was real and involved the sudden death of a family member.  It was an in-law who had a spouse and kids, so she was not the "center" of the impact, but she was heavily involved with this person, and it definitely traumatized her. Her behavior has been ever more confusing, egregious and hurtful because it is directed at the spouse and other family who were most affected by the loss, and who clearly need to prioritize the deceased's children and their own mental health. No regard for this, rather more rage that she is being "ostracized," when in fact her behavior has extended and amplified the pain, broken up the family, and stolen attention from the children who need it (who of course, she claims to love and is also enraged at being cut off from them due to her behavior).

I am not aware of any substance abuse issues.   

Also, when I drove my daughter back to her mom's place, we traced the route, and while my daughter wasn't exactly sure where the accident took place, there wasn't any sign of it that I could see (i.e. no knocked over mailbox or track marks off the road), but then again it was a couple weeks prior.  I'm wondering if the homeowner filed a police report that I could maybe match it up with, knowing the date and approximate time the accident occurred. 

In a bit of an update, my D mentioned to me that her mom seemed to be in the process of "re-writing history" and was awkwardly joking about the accident while completely glossing over the fact that she was drunk while it happened. 

But my summer possession month is over now, so I won't see D much in the next couple weeks, until school resumes, and just have to hope for the best

Had a bit of a tiff with her mom, because the last two weeks prior to my summer possession, BPDxw was ignoring my texts to say goodnight to my D (we each usually call the other to talk to her every couple days when she's with the other parent)... and I could see that because she was sending read receipts!  When I told her I wasn't going to let her talk because of this, and if she allowed me to talk to her when summer was over, I'd reconsider, she called me "petty" and made a bunch of BS excuses why she didn't respond to me (I have the time stamps and read receipts though!). 

I later learned from my D that during this week and a half, her step-dad had run over their new puppy (possibly while drunk) killing it, and there was constant fighting and screaming about it in the house, because he replaced it with a new puppy and neither "adult" there wanted to manage the chore of house-breaking a puppy and training it. 

I wanted to bring this up in response but bit my tongue, because I know she would just take it out on my D for telling me... 

Hi there,

Your post generates a couple of questions for me.  May I ask, how old is your sister?  Many people here see "full blown" BPD behaviors emerge in early adulthood.  I have some theories about why that might happen, but the main one is, in early adulthood, people start to face adult-level pressures and relationships, but if they don't have the emotional maturity to handle it, they struggle mightily with the transition.  My theory is that when pwBPD start to feel like they are "failing" at adulting, they really lash out.  Worse, if their outbursts are "rewarded," such as with attention, help, free housing, money, etc. from well-meaning family members or significant others, then basically the family system is set up to perpetuate this sort of dysfunctional behavior.  She learns that if she makes a huge fuss, she gets what she wants, and so she continues.  This actually becomes part of her "identity" as an emerging adult:  that she's the victim of endless slights and "traumas," and she lashes out with furious anger to remind you.  Further, it's like she never got the memo that adulthood is about being responsible for oneself.  She's convinced that everyone else is responsible for ruining her life.  Even if she's doing OK on paper, she's furious and extremely jealous of others, while at the same time being extremely demanding and needy.  Does that sound about right?

The other elements of your post that sound like BPD are (i) a history of moodiness and anger issues, (ii) intense preoccupation with feelings of "abandonment," and (iii) apparent lack of empathy for how others are hurt by the things she has said or done.

My other question is, what was the trauma that was supposedly the trigger?  I'm asking because the pwBPD in my life would describe all sorts of ordinary life events as "trauma."  By the way, I'm not the only one who put "trauma" in quotation marks--her therapist did the same exact thing!  That's because she would experience some ordinary things much more intensely than others:  the stress of moving, going away to college, having a fight with a family member or roommates, etc.  She characterized normal disagreements as "bullying."  Someone taking half a day to respond to her text was "abandonment."  And I think her telling of events was highly suspect.  At first, I gave her the benefit of the doubt, but over time, I'd usually learn some details and discover that the fact patterns didn't line up.  Anyway, after reading these boards for a few months, I noticed that it's very common for pwBPD to describe several past relationships as "abusive," and yet many posters here wonder if that is really true, because the "abusive" person is typically the pwBPD herself.  Now, I'm not saying that I don't sympathize, because the pwBPD experience life as a seemingly unending series of traumas, even real-life traumas, which would be devastating.  And it would be self-protective to develop a fight-or-flight response as a result.  I guess I'm saying that if your sister feels traumatized, that's unfortunate, and she's probably having a fight-or-flight response right now.  "Flight" might be cutting you out or blocking you.  Fight is lashing out and accusing you of things, sometimes things that never even happened.

One other possibility came to mind here.  If your sibling did experience a significant trauma a while back, she might be self-medicating with illicit substances.  The pwBPD in my life did that, to get some respite from the pressure of early adulthood.  However, in her case, I think the substance use disorder made her BPD behaviors much, much worse.  If she had trouble with motivation and tolerating discomfort in the past, when using, that became a whole lot more difficult.  If she had trouble focusing because of intrusive thoughts in the past, with substance use disorder, her ability to focus was flushed down the toilet.  Accordingly, her young adult "functioning" became severely compromised, feeding her sense of inferiority and incompetence.  It became a pernicious, negative spiral.  I'm wondering if your sister might be experiencing something similar.

In sum, in the case of the pwBPD in my life, the BPD was "hiding" within her and started to emerge as she struggled to make the transition to adulthood.  A couple of negative experiences at college--not getting along with roommates, struggling academically, not really fitting in, trouble figuring out a major, not finding a boyfriend--drove her to use marijuana daily.  With that, she went down a very negative spiral.