Hi LazyAtoms,
I'm sorry you're back here after a long hiatus. You must be tired of the constant strife. That your husband's ex committed suicide is a stressful event for your family, even if she wasn't actively present in your family's life lately. Like you wrote, it's horrible and a whole other topic, but it's a relevant backdrop.
Let's focus on your daughter for the moment. There's not a ton of information for me to go on in your post, but if she's smart, functioning at college and working part-time, she has a whole lot going for her. If she's avoiding major troubles--evictions, failing classes, dropping out of school, making threats to family and friends, cutting, attempting suicide, landing in the hospital, DUIs, self-medicating with illicit substances, seeming delusional, neglecting her personal hygiene, acting completely unhinged--that's positive in my opinion. Indeed, your daughter might be hyper-sensitive, emotionally clingy and insecure, but some people are like that. I think you might ask yourself, is your daughter's emotional instability disrupting her day-to-day life, across the board? I mean, maybe she has a fight with you from time to time, but is she able to keep her friends, stay in touch with other family members, complete her studies, keep her job, and continue to live her life, even if it looks like she's muddling through it? I think that many teens and emerging adults try to separate from their parents in college, even if, in many respects, they are still dependent on them. In fact, I happen to think that struggling is good for your daughter, because as she learns to problem-solve and muddle through things, she builds resilience, confidence and some mental toughness. You might remind her of that from time to time.
On the other hand, I think that emerging adulthood is an especially difficult time for pwBPD. I'll repeat here what I wrote a while back concerning my theories about why that is; apologies to the regular readers for the repeat.
When your daughter is accusing you of not being accountable for "ruining" her life, she is blame-shifting. She's not really mad at you for what she's accusing you of, even if that is what she THINKS she's mad about. I bet what's really bugging her is fear about the future. She knows she's an adult in age, but she still feels like a dependent adolescent, and it's killing her. She doesn't really know who she is (she lacks a stable identity), and she doesn't have stable relationships (friends, co-workers, family, romantic partner). Without the high school routine that was forced upon her, she feels rudderless. Is she having trouble in college, and does she have a hard time finding or keeping a job? Has she lost all her friends? She is discovering that she's not functioning well as an adult, and that makes her feel SCARED as well as inferior. "Everyone else" seems to have an easy time making friends, finishing college and/or working, whereas she completely falls apart. This induces in her a deep SHAME. Rather than take setbacks in stride (failing a class isn't the end of the world; fights with friends can happen, but apologizing goes a long way; everyone has to start at the bottom in the work world; getting fired isn't such a big deal, there are a million other jobs out there), and rather than take some responsibility (I'll never make any money or friends if I lie in my childhood bed all day), she regresses in AVOIDANCE. What does she do? She dredges up ancient history from childhood and blames her dysfunction on that--terrible/unsupportive/abusive family members, they are the ones who make her dysfunctional. This thought pattern makes her MAD, because she doesn't have what she wants today. When she sees you, she sees an opportunity to lash out and unleash all this anger and frustration onto you. If you're up for listening to her, you become her punching bag. This is all just to avoid acting like an adult and taking responsibility for her life and her decisions. That is simply too scary. She RESENTS you because she still NEEDS you desperately, and it's killing her inside. She's showing the classic, trauma-based response of fight or flight. She's fighting with you, and then taking flight, to avoid the stresses of adult life. Does that sound about right?
On top of that, generally speaking, her expectations are totally unreasonable and unrealistic. I think this is rooted in adolescent or childish thinking patters. She's impatient. She's demanding. She expects adults to over-function for her. She still expects to be the center of attention at all times. She expects too much devotion from friends. She pines for long summer vacations and hours of daily idle time. She wants to make decisions, but if something goes wrong, she expects you to face the consequences and "rescue" her, because you "owe" her. Now, when she was a kid, this was normal. But now that she's an adult, she's having trouble adjusting her expectations, and at the same time, her childish expectations simply aren't being met. She still probably expects that you continue to pay most or all of her living expenses. She refuses to be confined to a budget. She's resistant to doing adult administrative tasks, and she's frightened because she doesn't necessarily have the know-how, either (since others have over-functioned for her for years). She's afraid to ask for help, say from a friend or an employer, because she'd be "exposed" for her lack of knowledge, for the fraud she feels she is. She wasn't really prepared to do autonomous, self-guided study in college, or to be responsible for her own meals and daily routine, or to figure out how to apply for jobs, or even how to accept coaching from a supervisor. Any "criticism" would be taken personally, and she'd completely fall apart. I bet she hasn't really embraced the notion that she's responsible for herself now, because she's probably blaming you, full-time. Let me guess, your daughter says she suffers from anxiety? She feels "overwhelmed" by normal, emerging adulthood tasks? My bet is that's because she feels incompetent, inferior and scared. She's so afraid of a failing and a little stress that she gives up before she even tries, and to cope, she's lashing out at you. Does this sound familiar? If it does, it's because it's classic BPD in my opinion. This is why I think that age 22-25 is probably the "worst" age for BPD: because the young adult is bumping up against adulthood with the emotional skills of a tween or teen at best.
Now for the validation question. I know we're supposed to validate feelings (shame, anger, distress, disappointment, etc.). But I've observed a few things when trying to validate someone with BPD. First is, I think that what they profess to complain about isn't necessarily the underlying problem. I think the BPD brain will dredge up an unrelated incident in order to deflect from the real issue (a disappointment, feeling inferior, feeling incompetent, feeling rudderless, feeling lonely, etc.). So if you try to validate their narrative, it doesn't work, because you're validating the wrong thing! Second, I think that by validating an ancient grievance, it can serve to distort it and blow it out of proportion. It's almost as if by reenacting the same argument over and over again, it's etching a rut in her brain. In fact, I might see it as a maladjusted coping mechanism. She's dredging up an incident from childhood because it's bizarrely comforting to her, in rehashing the same old argument. She's replayed it in her mind so many times that she wants the opportunity to showcase her perfected rage with you. She's making you out to be a bigger and bigger villain at each successive telling of the story. Anything to avoid dealing with her real issues of today, and to avoid taking responsibility for HER life and HER decisions.
So I guess my advice is, if you're tired of being her punching bag, exit the conversation as silently and neutrally as possible. Give her a time out, and don't interrupt it if you can. (Don't tell her you're giving her a time out; just make up a short excuse, "Gotta run now," or maybe "I need some air, talk to you later.") Your daughter likely needs time and space to cool down. Try to engage only when she's calm. If she dredges up the past again, you might try to say something like, "I can't change the past; let's talk about something else," or "Let's stay focussed on today." Sometimes with my BPD stepdaughter, I might say something stronger like, "There's nothing I can say to make it better," or "We never get anywhere with this conversation, maybe you need to discuss it with your therapist." You see, she has ZERO INTEREST in learning your perspective, getting an apology from you, finding resolution, looking forward or repairing the relationship. Why? Her entire narrative is designed to blame-shift and avoid what's really bothering her. So I think you need to exit the conversation and wait until she has calmed down.
Hope that perspective helps a little. Welcome back.
Thank you so much CC for your thoughtful response. Yes, my daughter does have a lot of things going for her. She is responsible and manages school and work well, although she is hyper perfectionist and takes any feedback from professors in a very oversensitive way. She received some constructive feedback from a work supervisor that was also paired with positive feedback and she was crushed for days. She has had many friend group blowups that were devastasting to her. Mostly because she has this sense of “justice” and “fairness” and if she feels that person violated that, then she becomes extremely angry, vindictive and punitive. It is honestly scary to be around her sometimes.
She is already diagnosed with ADHD, anxiety and OCD. She told me herself she thinks she might have BPD, and husband (her stepdad) and I agree. Her issues really manifest in personal relationships mostly. She is hyper critical of everyone. No one can meet her standards. She does not perceive how irritable and rude she can be, and makes assumptions about everyone’s intent that is uniformly negative. She claims she is working that in therapy and is building resilience; she claims I am weak and not resilient because I cannot handle her anger at me and won’t admit I am wrong.
I do believe she has deep shame on a lot of levels. She has told me before that she has intrusive thoughts that she is a bad person. I know this is awful for her, and I wish I could take that pain away. I am sure it is because of her unstable sense of self… many times she has told me stories about personas she puts on in new groups of people etc. I have always tried to be kind and understanding about this, but now what has happened is that I am the cause of all of us to her, I am the villain, so now I can no longer be there for her.
She has now started referring to anything kind, loving or positive I ever did as the “bare minimum”. Which serves the purpose of painting me all black I guess. At the moment she cannot seem to hold two things at once to be true “Mom did not understand my emotional needs and that invalidated me”AND “Mom tried her best to help me and she is not a bad person”.
She also does struggle with overwhelm at adulting tasks. I have been there helping her with things the entire time, but recently she got mad that I missed her call (before she cut me off) and claimed she had to deal with herself, like always. WHAT?!
“She's making you out to be a bigger and bigger villain at each successive telling of the story. Anything to avoid dealing with her real issues of today, and to avoid taking responsibility for HER life and HER decisions.”
YES! This is exactly what seems to be happening! And you are right- I have apologized in a 100 different ways and she says they are all insufficient or don’t take real accountability. I don’t think she wants to stop being angry at me, because feeling sorry for herself about her terrible parents serves her needs much better right now.
My therapist, my husband and anyone else who knows her just think I need to step back and work on the radical acceptance part. I guess I will just keep doing that.
