Adult daughter has NPD
looking for local support group in the so bay area of los angeles
south of LAX
thank you in advance

Absolutely.

#1 goal is to actually get her out of the house and staying elsewhere.  After that, I can catch my breath and make myself unavailable.  That's why I said "bite my tongue".  I don't want to do anything to jeopardize "step 1".

100% agree with PeteWitsend. If you aren't careful and stick to very firm boundaries then little is going to change - the only difference is that she would be living with someone else. She will still heavily involve you in her chaotic life, especially if her G/F has been temporarily painted black.. what if she then wanted to come back to live with you? Would you be able to stand firm and say 'No'?

I so appreciate the sound advice here. For context, I was LC with my mom for several years, which worked really well during that time. Last year when my Grandpa died, she exploded over a group text (which included my siblings) over some boundaries I'd put up. I am close with the majority of my siblings, and they were all very supportive when I went NC after this. Not often do they act as flying monkeys like they did when we were younger. I have some guilt over going NC, as I just did it without explicitly laying out my reasons to her. As I'm sure you all know, she is incapable of taking responsibility or of changing her behavior, and it did not feel worth it at the time. Sadly, I am the only child of my siblings who has a child, so therefore I am keeping her only grandchild from her, which also produces some guilt. There's so much to say, but over this past year I realized that I'd far prefer to experience a little guilt about the situation then the anxiety and stress of having even a LC relationship with her. The peace I have now is worth it all.

I think going to the event is in the cards. I have family/siblings who would be buffers between myself and my mom; I would definitely stay elsewhere with family in the area. She is sort of reclusive these days, as she and my dad have split up within the last two years, so I don't think she would want to hang around the group for long. She also usually behaves in front of others. I think that giving a quick hug and hello would make sense while ensuring I am not trapped in any alone time with her. I will really consider the impact on my mental health before fully deciding. The whole reason I went NC was for the peace that I have finally felt this past year. The thought of being in her presence, even with all of these checks and balances, still fills me with dread.

Right, but that's just the deposit.  Who is going to pay rent every month, and expenses for everything else she decides she needs?  You must know by now that with a pwBPD, the need to fill the void is constant, and if someone isn't there "entertaining" her, she's going to come back to you and start demanding more.  New couch.  Better furniture for the new place.  Someone to paint the walls.  TV doesn't work.  etc. etc.


I don't think there's any reason to consider what your W told you here.  Unless you're able to observe it for yourself, nothing she says is trustworthy.  She'll say whatever she wants about the relationship to get what she wants from you.

In all likelihood, their relationship is (or was...) just a fun novelty for the GF, and was only going to last as long as W was not burdening the GF with her needs, i.e. with all the BPD emotional neediness, or her actual cost of living.  Seems like it's already more or less over.  The GF knows her boundaries and will keep them.  You don't. 

Yeah, but you're not just an impartial observer here.  The ugliness is going to be your problem real soon.  In addition to the regular BPD stuff she was burdening you and your kids with, now she has an apartment lease someone is going to have to pay.

I don't think you did.  If he was throwing around threats of suicide that often, and behaving as you described, it's understandable you'd get frustrated and throw the threats back in his face.  sure, telling someone to kill themselves sounds awful, but given the history here, it's not the same as if you had told a non-disordered person that.  When you're dealing with a pwBPD, normal rules of human communication go out the window. 

Did he know about your friend who committed suicide?  The thought occurred to me that he might have been using your history to take advantage of you, thinking you'd cave on everything he demanded out of the fear that another person close to you could kill themselves.  But regardless, you have to understand: pwBPD use all sorts of manipulative tactics to get their way; you can't focus on what they're saying, just their behavior generally.  If you he hadn't successfully used threats of suicide to get what he wanted from you, he would've moved on and either tried something else.  He doesn't want to kill himself; he wants other things... he wants his way, he wants to be taken care of & not work, he wants attention, he wants sympathy.  He doesn't want to be accountable for his behavior or his own life.  Threats of suicide are just a means he uses to get his way.


pwBPD establish patterns with people who tolerate and enable them, and they return to that well as often as those people allow them to. 

And yes, using the word "progressing" was intentional.

A lot of developments lately. 

First, my goal has been to be kind and consistent with BPDw and let her live her life however she wants.  Of course, that has left me "painted black" at times and resulted in me spending a (very pleasant) night at a hotel so I could physically disengage in whatever was affecting her (more on that later).

W had been spending considerable time out of the house with the new GF lately.  That has changed the past few days.  More on that later. 

W has also had a "right now" urgency to finding her own place.  I stayed out of that drama.  She found a new place and signed a lease yesterday.  I'm quietly celebrating, not just for me being one step away from avoiding the chaos, but for the kids, and for her having her own life.  I have no expectations here, but I see myself biting my tongue until she actually spends time in her new place.  Most people figure out how they are going to pay for a place first.  BPDw does the opposite (as she does with everything) - runs her life based upon panic and deals with the means later.

To get the new place, I had to borrow money from my dad for a deposit.  Enabling?  Not sure, but there was no other way she would be able to leave otherwise, and it was to the point where I could not tolerate much more of her cold unkind attitude.  For my dad, he was happy to lend money knowing I and his grandkids would be better off.  He pretty much implied he had been waiting for years for me to ask him.  A few thousand for him is nothing compared to being able to see his grandkids more in the last years of his life. 

But once she is out, I see it as "over" in the sense I see no reason we would live together again.  That bridge is crossed.  My prediction is that I will be slowly doing more and more of the parenting responsibilities as she struggles to function on a basic level, and that is fine with me.   

Regarding the GF - today is GF's birthday.  W is now telling me GF does not want to see her and hasn't for the past few days.  I don't know the details as to why, but I don't need to know because I have already lived it.  99.9999% likely BPD entered the R/S and GF has distanced herself.  The only thing W has told me is that GF doesn't want to be around her unless they have positive experiences.  I'm guessing W was being overly negative and GF said - "I don't need this", and W has since been "love bombing" and that has made the situation worse.  I'm sure we have all experienced this.  W asked me this morning "maybe I should send her a meal for her birthday."   Uh oh.  I reminded her that unless she specifically asked for that, a meal is something you send a sick person or someone whose kitchen is being remodeled.  I suggested she send a simple cupcake instead that says "happy birthday" and nothing more.  I see this getting real ugly....

FYI - I am going to move onto the "detaching" board, as that is where I feel I am right now.

Good discussion.

Being toxic is not a one-time action...especially when being verbally attacked with suicidal threats and insults. 

He was mentally abusing you for extended periods of time, you said yourself that this happened daily.  And you did what all humans do, on one occasion of these endless attacks, you said what you actually felt in the moment.  Meanwhile, your ex said everything he felt in every moment and unfairly blamed you for it.  Hopefully you can see a clear difference between the two things.

Should you have said it?  No.  But should you have been placed in that situation to begin with.  No, no, no, and no!

You're trying to take responsibility, and that's great.  That's how people learn and grow.  But I also feel like you're so close to this and it's still so fresh, that you're not seeing the big picture clearly.

You made one mistake.  He made hundreds of mistakes weekly while completely betraying your trust.  In no world does that make you the "bad guy" or him the "good guy".

And don't get me wrong, he's not trying to be the bad guy.  He's simply mentally ill and terrible at coping with his own reality.

What I'm saying here is that you must let this go.  I know that feels impossible right now, but the problem here all along has been mental illness.  You couldn't fix it, you couldn't change it, and you literally had zero control over avoiding the moment in time you finally reached.  The only way to avoid what happened would have been leaving the relationship earlier.

Because let's be honest- pretend you didn't say what you said.  Then what?  You still know the thing he did to betray you, he's still going on and on about suicide, and that tension would only continue to build and build each day until something broke. 

In other words, that path wasn't sustainable- you were already well past the point of no return due to his actions.  So don't blame yourself for being human, anyone would have responded that way eventually under those circumstances.

Exactly- you have not done anything to her by deciding. You stayed this far, so did she. To marry or not is a choice.