Hi first time on the site. I found it after searching for help because my 21DD with BPD ADHD ASD and severe depression has threatened to kill me. This is a new low in our relationship and I’m scared for what this could mean for both of us.

I am told by family and professionals to set more boundaries and consequences. She has a psychiatrist, is on loads of meds, has attended DBT training twice, has started counselling again:

She lives with me and my boyfriend of 10 years who is the most dad she has, in a safe and stable alcohol and drug free home where she has a semi private apartment just for her. We are alcohol and drug free, home bodies. She has other local family supports. We try to prioritize meeting her needs while still living our lives.

Things have been getting steadily worse lately. I’m losing hope and I don’t know what to do. Reading the posts here I can see I have it easier than some but that there is no model for how BPD impacts your loved one or yourself.

This threat to me is shocking. I caught her in a lie, calmly noted it, and it has brought this crisis point on with this new threat to my safety. I am scared to leave her alone, I’m also scared to be alone with her.

I have sacrificed so much, cared for and loved her so much, I don’t know how we got here. I don’t know how to move forward. I feel like an utter failure as a parent, nothing I do helps, nothing I do for her will ever be enough. I am exhausted from the years of fighting with her and then fighting for her. I defend her to others, try to help them understand she’s not well, support her and forgive her but now I want to give up, run away, stop existing. I need this not to be my whole life. It comes between me and everyone, my job, my relationship.

I didn’t intend to make this a venting session or dump I’m just all out of hope and I have no idea what to do next. I feel so alone.

I think BPD kids are the biggest challenge because they're the hardest to walk away from.  If it's a spouse, they can become a former spouse and we can move on.  If it's a sibling or another relative, we can limit contact or cut it out completely.  But with kids at any age, we still feel obligated as mom and dad to step in and save the day.

Sometimes I literally cringe when I'm writing to a new member here with a BPD kid, because I remember how I first reacted when I got the right advice from a fantastic psychiatrist.  He made it so clear that there's my problems and my kid's problems...and those two things are rarely the same thing. 

The biggest problem was me trying to save the kid instead of letting her learn the lessons her actions caused.  Deep down, I was the one at fault for so much of the toxic behavior that came my way because that's what I taught...dad can fix anything no matter how impossible it might seem.

My father's favorite saying was, "If you mess with the bull, you get the horns."  Yet somehow, my kid would mess with the bull and I'd end up getting the horns instead.  I had to learn to stop that, to step back and let her deal with the situations she created on her own.  I don't "get the horns" anymore and it makes a very big difference in my life.

Notwendy,
We are continually challenged to not spend too much time attempting to understand the behaviors of disordered people and not allow them to make us feel like we are the crazy ones. We are healing when we focus mostly on our own personal  growth and wellness.

Yes, it still hurts to be abused by your own family, yet the intensity and length of the hurt is much less as I move on more quickly.

Yeah, I'm 100% certain I can't ever go back or have contact. I have a weird rule that once someone hooks up with or has sex with someone after me...I'm disgusted and wouldn't want to even shake their hand again haha I'm weird in that respect. I have no evidence she has, but if I had to bet my life on it I would say with several people...especially since we started having sex like the same week she left her fiancé. How stupid was I.

I will always advocate for peace at work until I can find a promotion at the other location down the street.

Or if she gets fired, I'm unsure how she is able to come into work at 10am-11am every day and not get told anything.

And I dread the day her very sick dad passes away. That could spark an in person attempt from her. No other exes of mine have hovered like this and it's very annoying.

That's a fact. As you're adamant you definitely want no further contact with her then you ironically have to use the BPD 'split her totally black' attitude and keep100% zero contact.

In normal relationships we may be able to still carry on as friends with our ex to some extent, but mental illness is involved here; we may have moved on but they won't, to them it will be 'business as usual' if they think you still want some connection, however tiny.

Keep putting yourself first and enjoy your happy, healthy and non-chaotic life, long may it continue.

I remember a creepy tv show episode - might have been The Twilight Zone - where a guy wants a night of passion with a girl he used to know back in the day but he knows the demon granting his wish is very devious so he takes great care to phrase his wish so he won't be caught out.

Holding up a photo of the girl, he says 'I want her exactly like she is here, same age, same looks'.  He thinks he's covered every angle and the demon grants his wish.

The girl is beautiful, young.. and only 6 inches high.. exactly as she was in the photo

Often, my BPD daughter will call me in crisis.  I ask what's wrong, what happened.  She rattles on about how this friend did something to that friend, and now both friends hate her because they feel like she's playing both sides.  Or whatever it is.

I listen and for the most part, I stay silent.

Finally the question comes- "I don't know what they want from me or how I can fix this because I didn't do anything to either of them and they're both mad at me when I wasn't even involved."

And it's so tempting to give an answer to that- she did this herself by telling each of them exactly what they wanted to hear at the other person's expense.  That she's a lousy, superficial friend who's only in it for herself and she plays off others emotions to feel good about herself.  But that's not what she wants to hear and that's not what actually helps her.

Despite the rant, despite the situation, all my kid wants is for me to listen and help her calm down.  She knows she was wrong and doesn't need me to tell her that she's gone through these exact same patterns her entire life.

So what do I say?  "Calm down, it's going to be okay.  Real friends would not talk to you like that or treat you that way.  Just relax and give this time, it will all work out on its own one way or the other.  Do you want to come over and watch the new Disney movie tonight?"

And I get it, I'm dancing around the problem.  I'm not being heard or validated myself.  But you can't expect that when someone is in a disordered state.  Once my kid calms down and resets mentally, then I can talk to her about anything.  I can't go there until she's in the right mindset though because her "fight or flight" response will kick in.  So I wait, I calm her down, and I let the storm pass.  Then we can have the actual talk.

Anytime you're trying to fix a BPDs problems with logical advice when they're disordered, you've already failed.  They're 100% emotional at that time and need emotional balance.

That is similar to my first experience in a 12 step group to work on my own co-dependent tendencies. I had a sponsor who turned the mirror on me and it was hard to hear but then, I could see that it led to more functional behavior.

Like this group, it's a lay group- and so if someone sees this tendency in you, it's likely because we did it too- so it's not to be critical but to help you make positive changes. In my FOO, enabling BPD mother was considered a positive behavior- and so I had to learn about it too.

It's hard to see because helping people is considered being a good person and we want to be good people. It's easier to see a behavior that isn't- like if we went around stealing and hurting people- that's easy to see as "wrong". However, as you know now, helping too much can be hurting in disguise and now you are learning to see the difference- when helping helps, and when it doesn't. It's not an all or never help decision. In some situations, we still can be helpful but not in others and we need to see the difference. That takes some learning.

That's completely fine. It's your business and I'd want to keep that out of the workplace as much as possible. You aren't obligated to explain. The other statement could be used if you felt cornered. This is your job, keeping this personal business out of discussions is your boundary.

For the coworkers too. Work relationships have their own boundaries. Although over time, we do know about each other- who their partners are- or families,  if someone is out of work with an illness or a good event, like a wedding- still- we don't pry into someone's personal business. Saying you don't want to see her is enough of a response.

You don't have to make an attempt to see her. Some relationships are completely over, and that's it- and that is what this is. For some people, it can't have this separation- such as if they are coparents, or related. In your case- it's entirely possible, and acceptable, to have no reason to see her.

Why this is becoming a topic at work- it's hard to really know, but if I were to guess, people may have asked her- and she took victim perspective. Victim perspective avoids accountability, and shame. If asked, she may have said something like "I don't know why he doesn't come talk to me, I didn't do anything to deserve this". This also enlists kind people as rescuers- fixers- who then come to you to ask, wanting to help smooth things over.

If you respond with the truth, you become part of this triangulation as persecutor, "saying bad things about her" and it reflects poorly on you. You don't want to be part of this Karmpan triangle drama and have it affect your work. To stay off this "drama triangle" you need to see it for what it is and keep your boundary of not discussing this at all.

Will others "see" it?- maybe, maybe not. That's between them and her- and it will go however it goes. My situation was different from yours, it's a parent- but even so, there were similarities with only a few people outside the family ever "seeing" her issues. Most didn't. If I had said anything, I'd have been seen as the disrespectful person saying "bad things about her" and let them have their own experiences with her.

It's even happened with a friendship. I know a person who is disordered and some people have mentioned they think she has BPD. A mutual friend of ours thinks she's just wonderful but he hasn't gotten as close to her as some other people who have seen her disturbing behavior. BPD affects all relationships but it affects the closest ones the most, so the behaviors can vary in different circumstances.

Your focus is on your well being and that is exactly where it should be. Your co-workers will have their own experiences with her- and you don't have to explain anything to them.

One way to picture someone's certainty of something you know is patently false, swap it out for pink elephants.  Or flying monkeys.  Rather than you suffering pain and angst, it makes you realize the utter ridiculousness of such statements.

I can't resist... My sister's favorite jokes since we were kids were her elephant jokes.  She even had a paperback book filled with elephant jokes.  A frequent one goes something like this, "How do you know an elephant has been in the refrigerator?  When you see footprints in the butter!"