Have your loved ones realized how their actions and the things they say impact others? Are they able to take perspective at some point? Did it take medication and therapy? I felt in the past that sometimes she does know how she sounds and it either causes shame or it causes her to be distant. I just know that she fails to take into account how others are experiencing their lives regularly. My father had just died and she said, “I’m sorry to hear that but can I park my car in your mom’s driveway while I figure out my living situation?” I couldn’t comprehend the inability to see beyond her immediate needs or wants.
Hi again,
What you describe above corresponds exactly with how my adult stepdaughter with BPD behaves. I think she realizes how her impulsive actions are mean-spirited, and she feels deep shame after the fact. In practice, she avoids contact with the people she has mistreated, presumably because she's embarrassed about her actions. You wrote that her behavior either causes shame or causes her to be distant, but I think it's both. Nevertheless, over time, she'll twist fact patterns and concoct a convoluted story whereby she becomes the victim, in order to lessen her guilt! This reflects the disordered thinking of BPD--not understanding strong emotions and assuming they are caused by someone else. In my opinion, the victim attitude and constant blaming are the worst part of BPD, as she's never responsible for her own decisions, and she is rendered powerless. At the end of the day, she feels she lacks agency in her life. Would you say your niece has had a very difficult time carving out an adult's life for herself? That has been a central problem for my stepdaughter. I think it's mostly due to her not feeling responsible for her own life.
Anyway, the typical playbook for my BPD stepdaughter is that after a period of estrangement, she'll resume contact when she needs something, and she'll pretend like her negative behavior/attitude never even happened. As you stated, she'll never apologize, because apologizing would mean she takes responsibility, which she can't fathom, because she clings to the victim narrative like her life depends on it. In a perverse way, her life does depend on it, because if she's not the poor little abused girl, who is she anyway? Feeling abused and mistreated is central to her identity! Besides, if she did take someone else's feelings into account, the victim narrative would start to unravel, and she'd probably feel terrible about herself, which is unbearable to her.
Another way of thinking about this is to understand that your pwBPD probably RESENTS you for making her feel dependent. In her twisted thinking, you are the "abuser," and so she has no problem using you, because she thinks you OWE her! Like you said, she just wants your money and free babysitting, and she couldn't care less about what's going on in your life, because the only person she thinks about is herself. She has no mental bandwidth to think about anyone else, which would make her too upset anyway.
To illustrate my point, I lived with my adult BPD stepdaughter, on and off, for much of her adult life. I bet she couldn't tell you what my occupation was, the name of the company where I worked, my siblings' names, my nieces'/nephews' names or my birthday. I sincerely doubt she knows what countries I lived in or what languages I speak. She asked me how my day went perhaps twice in an entire decade. She has lived with me for years, but never, ever helped with chores, not even taking out the trash, replacing a roll of toilet paper, unloading the dishwasher or watering a plant, despite the fact that she was unemployed and not in school the overwhelming majority of the time. Part of her lack of curiosity and helpfulness is upbringing, but most of it is BPD. Some of her common phrases are, "I don't care / I don't know / I don't want to." Does that sound familiar?
Look, my BPD stepdaughter has gotton intensive therapy, and she has improved her daily functioning immensely. She has been able to make and keep some friendships. She is more stable now, and less prone to rages. She has started working (finally), but I wonder if she's able to handle a full-time schedule, which would be a first in her lifetime. Despite these improvements, she still hasn't repaired most of the close relationships with her family. The exception is that she'll talk to her dad when she needs something, and she's forced to talk to me sometimes when she's living in my home. Nevertheless, the relationship feels transactional, and I feel mostly like a servant with her. It's all take and no give. I can't even say it's 99% take and 1% give--it feels like 100% take. No thank yous, no I'm sorries, no help whatsoever, not even a Good Morning. Maybe there's just too much emotional baggage to deal with. Maybe it's partly me--I just don't care for her very much right now, she's too negative and entitled. I would like to help her (mostly to help my husband), but she doesn't really want the kind of help I can offer (such as advice and encouragement). All she wants is money, logistical support and a transitional living situation/storage facility. I feel like I've tried over and over again to be supportive, give her compliments, tell her I'm proud of her, help her in various ways, ignore her meltdowns, but I've felt a lot of resentment bubbling up too. It's not that I'm upset about her being ungrateful (I know it's not in her to be grateful)--it's more that her aura is negative and I don't like being around her. I guess what bugs me is that I feel guilty that I don't want to be around her, and I'm sick of feeling used.
I guess I'll close with this little tidbit. I recently learned I'm not alone with this assessment of my BPD stepdaughter. Since she had undergone significant therapy and made some progress in her day-to-day functioning, I thought I'd ask her sister if she had had any contact with her lately. Hopeful as always, I thought that taking steps to repair relationships with siblings would be a sure sign of therapeutic progress. Well, her sibling stated that she hadn't had any contact whatsoever in the last year. She was waiting for an apology from her BPD sister first. She said something along the lines that she wasn't going to pretend anymore that her BPD sister's mean treatment of various family members (e.g. raging texts followed by blocking) was acceptable. Basically, she had had enough, and she was waiting for an apology before resuming contact. Her dad said something similar recently as well: He was done living in the midst of dysfunction. He's sick of it. He mentioned considering not paying for his daughter's therapist anymore, but he was afraid to do that as she'd have another meltdown. Now, I know he'll ultimately cave and do whatever his daughter requests. But he's starting to resent the situation. I think that's a relatively new feeling and reflective of a transition, from feeling responsible for his child to realizing that he's powerless to change another adult.
My intention isn't to be too negative, but I'm trying to be realistic and validate what you're feeling. I know how hard it is because we want to love everyone in our family, and we want them to love us back, especially considering all the sacrifices we've made in trying to help. With BPD that's really complicated in practice.