Adult Step-child with BPD

[jaxon64]

My wife and I have struggled through for years. I married my wife when the BPD step daughter was 10 years old. She was under counseling and meds already and I had no idea what a "personality disorder" was at the time... .

Years of turbulent times. Drug addiction period... .wild extremes of mood, everything is the greatest, the worst, a tragedy, ruined  etc etc... you know what I live with so I don't need to go into the finer details. At 18 we decided we could not allow her to live with us, be disrespectful and abusing drugs--she moved into the home of her boyfriend of the time. Within 2 months of living with her, his family ( and him) kicked her out and she went to a halfway house/shelter situation.

Then the crux kicked in--she was pregnant! I would not allow the mother of my future granddaughter to live in a shelter/home so we allowed her to move back into our home again. We have the most amazing granddaughter--she is now 4 years old, she sings, is full of joy and love, makes artwork for us, loves to cuddle and never leaves the house without a goodbye hug and kiss--a gloriously angelic child.

Unfortunately her mother's sickness is ever present. My wife and I must often act as moderator and protector of the granddaughter in the face of the unstable daughter's illness. Everything is extreme-always. Spilled applesauce is an "OH MY G#%D" moment with "You have ruined your clothes, you ruined the table and the floor" followed by an incessant 3 to 4 min diatribe of the small child--I place myself in the way of the evil verbalizations so that I can talk quietly and reassuringly to my granddaughter and assure her she is not "bad" or a "brat" and that she did nothing wrong--accidents happen.

The stepdaughter will be 24 this year... .the baby's father(sire) is 24 and lives with his mommy, does not work and does not even have a driver's license yet---so there is no help for this grandchild from her paternal side either.

My wife and I are heartbroken listening to this unstable woman/daughter show no patience with normal children issues of our granddaughter( dawdling, not wanting to go to bed, not wanting to take a bath and then not wanting to get out of the bath). The granddaughter is sweet and obedient, helpful and willing to do as asked ( not ordered or bossed).

Of course, any suggestions or assistance offered to the BPD daughter is interpreted within her mind as " so what are you saying, that I'm a bad mother !

I could go on and on, but I'm sure you all who are also at these discussion sites are aware of the behaviors. If it weren't for the welfare of my granddaughter--the BPD child would be asked to leave my home again ( would never have been allowed to return). She is no longer on drugs and apparently no longer promiscuous. She is verbally abusive towards her mother and I with F-bombs being dropped, absolute disregard for any normal co-habitation requests like keeping her living area clean etc.

What is best for my granddaughter? She needs my wife and I as her only stability in the world. I am grateful that God has allowed us the meager financial means to afford our home, care of daughter and granddaughter and to pay $800 a month in childcare. My BPD daughter dropped out of community college after 4 semesters and being on the Dean's list ( although it was best that she never became a nurse anyhow). She works at a retail store for minimum wage but my wife and I feel it is worth it to have my granddaughter in a healthy environment for 8 to 10 hours a day---so we don't mind paying more in childcare than the BPD daughter makes at her job ( it gives them both a break.)She has never paid rent and I fear that she may be with my wife and I forever.

Now I've reached the crux of my situation--I'm not sure I can take this for another 14 years until my granddaughter is an adult. I love my wife and I also love my granddaughter more than life itself, but I and my wife are miserable in our own home. I work all day, and also an hour drive each way to work and back--to come home to the BPD daughter sitting (laying most often) on my living room sofa with her cell phone in hand ( it may as well be surgically implanted). I have the choice of entertaining the energetic 4 year old until bedtime or having some time for relaxation. Unfortunately, the relaxation choice never works as inevitably the BPD daughter will find reasons to pick at and micro manage the granddaughter. To save the child from her BPD mother I must take over parenting duties until the inevitable bedtime horror show starts.

Anyone?  Just some encouraging words to keep up the good fight... .to press on for the love of my wife and granddaughter please. Because God help me, I'm nearing my limit and the thought of 14 more years of this foul-mouthed, angry, ungrateful, unmotivated bully in my home and life is too daunting.

This life is not a trial run, it is my(our) one and only life and far too short to spend it miserable and walking on eggs in the home where I should retire to each evening with peace... .

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[Kwamina]

Hi jaxon64

Thanks for introducing yourself to our community. I want to give you a warm welcome here

You say your stepdaughter was under counseling and meds from a very young age. Has she been officially diagnosed with BPD or any other disorders?

BPD is a challenging disorder and I like many of us here understand how much of a toll this can take on you. To help you interact with your stepdaughter and get a better understanding of  what's going on with her, I suggest you take  look at the tools and lessons to the right of this message board. There you can read about boundaries and the various communication techniques you could use with your stepdaughter such as validation and S.E.T. The acronym S.E.T. stands for support, empathy and truth. It's a technique specifically developed for communication with someone who has BPD. S.E.T. can help you minimize the likelihood of (further) conflict while maximizing the likelihood of getting through to your stepdaughter. It can also help you stay calm yourself. I've also included some links here to some communication techniques:

Validation

Ending the Cycle of Conflict

S.E.T.: Support Empathy Truth

Then the crux kicked in--she was pregnant!

How did your granddaughter's father and his family react when they found out your stepdaughter was pregnant? You say there isn't any help from that side of her family now but have they in the past at any point been involved?

Now I've reached the crux of my situation--I'm not sure I can take this for another 14 years until my granddaughter is an adult.

... .

This life is not a trial run, it is my(our) one and only life and far too short to spend it miserable and walking on eggs in the home where I should retire to each evening with peace... .

I understand how the thought of another 14 years of this might overwhelm you. Perhaps it will help you to not think too far ahead like this and just focus on the here and now and how best to handle what you're facing today.

Take care and I hope to read more of your story later.

[lbjnltx]

Hello jaxon64!



Oh my goodness... .my heart is so heavy for you and your precious granddaughter.  The sacrifices you are making to give her love, consistency, and safety are taking a toll and I know you wouldn't change that for a second.  You and your wife are doing the best you can with what you have to work with.

My daughter is only 18 and doesn't live with me anymore... .no grandchildren or grandchildren on the way (to my knowledge) so I haven't had to deal with what you are going through... .still I do understand your dilemma!

The good news... .there are positive steps that can be taken to improve your situation and they are within your power to implement.

It is essential that you and your wife take extremely good care of yourselves... .just like you do your granddaughter!  If we don't take care of self we cannot take care of others... .we experience burnout... illness... .distress... .all of which inhibit our ability to care for others.  There are coping skills that you can learn to ease your distress, there are communication skills you can learn to bring down the emotional temperature in the home environment and easing the internal and external distress can free up some time and head space to make decisions about your choices for the future.

Fourteen years is a very long time... .I remember when my daughter was 12 years old and I felt like 6 years (until she would turn 18) was an eternity.  I know your fears are very real and you have every right to be fearful.  I also recognize that a lot can change in 14 years.

The odds are that your stepd will, at some point, want to leave your home and if you have been the primary care giver to your gdaughter you might have some legal rights to continue to be her primary caregiver.  I also recognize that a child is a huge responsibility for a person struggling with BPD... .so the odds are at some point that your stepd will want to leave your home and also leave her daughter in your care.  Should this become the case your legal rights to become your granddaughter's primary care giver can multiple exponentially.

Be mindful of the decisions that you make along the way... .it is important to try to avoid power struggles over your granddaughter... .which it seems you are doing a great job at!

The links Kwamina gave you are a great place to begin learning the skills I mentioned above. 


God Bless you and your family.

lbj

[Thursday]

Hi Jaxon-

Thanks for joining us here at the Parenting Board. I am a step parent as well to BPDSD23. The way you describe your earlier years reminds me of what we had going here. I came into her life at 14. I had five years of escalating poor behavior. Seems like there was something new and negative happening every single day.

My SD is on her own now and doing well- although she still has her troubles- mostly centered around interpersonal relationships. She is sober and goes to AA several times a week.

Until something changes it seems like your living situation will continue with your SD, your grandchild, you and your wife under one roof. So, within that dynamic- what/who is going to give?

The tools to the right can help with this. Everyone who tells you to take care of yourself is right. Everyone knows this and it is so hard! Why should it be so hard to be nice to ourselves, to give ourselves an "attaboy" and take half a day (or more!) to rejuvenate yourself.

You and your wife are modeling decent behavior for your grand-daughter and she sounds delightful. Is it naïve of me to think that your GD will be ok as long as she can see you and your wife keeping the balance, protecting her and doing your best?

If you haven't given some thought to your values and boundaries I hope you will take some time to share this discussion with your wife. Using the tools, finding your medium chill so that you can communicate the necessities to your SD without starting a war.

I don't see your situation as hopeless- as your GD gets older you will have changing dynamics, your daughter's disorder might also create dynamic changes in how things are set up now... .no telling what is to come. Best to situate yourselves to be in the best possible condition for what lies ahead. You will get there! It is a lot of work but there are benefits to leaning, for example, to validate your DD- it will help her to be more amenable to keeping her cool. Which will benefit all.

I had to really come to grasp with the idea that my SD was not going to suddenly become someone that she simply IS NOT. I had to lower my expectations. This was much harder for her Dad than me since I didn't raise her from a babe with wishes and dreams for her.

SD doesn't think the way I do - her thoughts are not logical and they don't follow a progression. She is very, very emotional but she has learned how to cope with this heightened emotion in some very negative ways. Understanding that she is wired differently than me has helped me to find a way to "be" with her.  She has such different motivations for things but the bottom line is that we (her Dad and I) had to have boundaries, we had to hold to those boundaries and take a leap of faith at some point . Stakes are so much higher for you (considering your GD) I'm not sure if this is even valid advice for you.

You are allowed to make changes in your life if things aren't working- can you approach your SD with what you would like to do to help YOUR life work better and go from there? I don't know what works for you- but starting small is always a good idea. Maybe you and your wife can tag team with each other to give each other a break every few days. Does your SD allow you to take the GD out with you? Can you create a space for yourself in your home where the SD's presence is not such a hindrance for you to find a moment to unwind, say when your wife is busy with the GD or visa versa?

Hang in there. I am impressed that you are such a loving grandfather and I can hear the joy you have with your GD.

The tools to the right CAN help to diffuse heightened emotions and you CAN improve things.

Telling your story can help too, just to get things off your chest and commiserate. Venting is helpful.

And then there is the work... .sorry to be adding some work to your heavy load but it can help. 

Thursday

[jaxon64]

Thanks everyone for:

1) Letting me vent--it helped.

2) For the sincere care in your replies

3) For the "tools at right"... .I'm going through them and have been discussing them with my wife.

A few clarifications---yes, my daughter has been diagnosed as BPD for years and I also suspect some of the other underlying/accompanying disorders also ( especially anxiety disorder).

My wife and I had stronger positioning for setting guidelines before. In the past she was instructed to leave if she could not make an effort to control her tongue and behaviours. However with the granddaughter, my SD knows that we will not ask her to leave the house at 9PM.

I have removed my rec room area in the basement, carpeted with thicker carpet, private wall and am installing a bathroom so that she has her own apartment downstairs--however she willfully comes upstairs and lays around on the living room sofa ( 10,000 times at least-"please do not lay on the sofa, if you're tired go to bed" she must come upstairs to cook and shower as well... so even though I have gone above and beyond and given her half my home rent free, she still is always upstairs creating drama... .

Anyhow, I will keep you all updated as to how the implementation of the "tools" works--today is a mild day after having to ask her to stay at a friend's house last night ( the granddaughter had just had her bath so she stayed at home with the wife and I overnight while SD left.

[jaxon64]

update------adult stepdaughter 24 y/o finally came unglued again---turns out she has been lying for months and months. Has gone back to drinking and drugging--in and out of sexual relationships ( guys and girls) and of course each relationship is magical love after the first week and she starts posting facebook craziness about marriage and/or moving into a home together with the granddaughter like a twisted little family... .before it was a blue haired and multi-piercing lesbian emo twin of hers and now it is a new guy who wears Insane Clown Posse makeup during the weekday to run mundane errands. He lives in a house with his homies boozing and getting stoned most of his awake moments--this is also where she has been for the majority of the past month... .

You see, about a month ago she got especially crazed and checked herself into the lockdown mental ward at our local hospital. My wife and I kept the granddaughter safe and stable while altering our schedules to take her to daycare and see to all of her homelife ( my granddaughter has always lived with us and we raise her as our own child mostly while protecting her from the verbal and emotional onslaughts from her BPD mom.) Well after 4 days in the psych ward the BPD daughter left the hospital only to return in just a few hours because she was having a severe anxiety attack  ( from who knows what?  as you well know, there needs not be any cause for sudden despair or anxiety with someone with BPD-- a cell phone not being charged or having no cheese in the fridge may cause Nuclear Reactor #4 to begin to melt down.)

So 3 days after that, she again left the hospital with scripts and orders for follow up with therapy, counseling and outpatient treatment. Instead of coming home, being with her daughter, going back to work ( part time at a different retail store for min wage this time)-- she lies ( duhh) and says she is enrolling in outpatient therapy appx 40 miles away and will need to stay in her new boyfriends house for the weeks it takes to complete the treatment/classes. She and her boyfriend have been posting facebook pics of them drinking and getting high and she admitted to us that she didn't go to outpatient "because they can't do anything to help me."

The wife and I let her know we did not agree with this decision and left it at that--our concern has shifted to the well-being of our precious granddaughter ( who seems to be adapting and taking this extraordinarily well-the separation/desertion by her mother.)

She has called 4 times in 3 weeks to even talk to her daughter and now our granddaughter appears indifferent and even disinterested in speaking to her. Then out of the blue, the daughter calls Saturday to inform us that she "will be home" Sunday --as if  her behavior has been perfectly normal and unremarkable--psych ward twice, abandoning her daughter ( we told our granddaughter that her "mommy is very sick and has been in the hospital" but intentionally leave it vague), lies about follow-up care, escalating insanity with a new "love of her life" who of course is a counter-culture, drugging/drinking, directionless mid 20's male who is happy for his little temporary sex kitten---

Well the wife and I have had enough and together we have decided--NO--she cannot come back into our home. Fortunately she has been too self-involved and drunk on fantasies of her Clown make-up boyfriend to come after her daughter. This brief respite was enough for us to get a lawyer and have papers drawn up--tomorrow she will receive notice at 10:00 AM that temporary custody has been granted to my wife and I of our amazing granddaughter---I expect a "Katie go kaboom" response from the daughter when she learns of this.

Please say a prayer for us  if you are so inclined ( and especially for the welfare and stability of our granddaughter)-- the temporary custody, if granted, will just be a precursor to our filing for full parental guardianship/custody. Our lawyer believes that with the mounds of evidence, erratic behavior, medical and psychiatric diagnosis'... .etc etc... .that we should win custody of our granddaughter

--unfortunately, we may have just been forced to make a choice that could send the daughter off the edge, however there is no way that we could let this beautiful and innocent 4 year child live under the tyrannical emotional and verbal assault of her BPD mother and possibly be stripped of her stable life and thrust into her mother's madness and psychotic choices---I shudder to even entertain the thoughts of what might befall my precious granddaughter in the drug-using house with 3 male roommates and constant parties of drugs and alcohol--this will never happen no matter what... .but I am still heartbroken for my wife who cries in memory of her little girl ( my stepdaughter), for my granddaughter who is too young to understand her mother's illness, and for the life that my stepdaughter will surely turn towards now that she is unfettered from the responsibility of parenthood... .

I have rambled enough---but enough was enough.

[lbjnltx]

 

The children must come first and be protected from adult problems.  You and your wife are doing the best thing you can for everyone involved.  So sad for your wife, a Mom never wants to have to choose anyone over their own child and sometimes we must.

God Bless and prayers for comfort, grace, and healing for you all.

lbj

[madmom]

Your grandchild is very lucky to have you and your wife to look out for and protect her.  My husband and I too had to make some difficult choices for dealing with our daughter and her poor choices.  Letting her live in her own mess and not rescuing her was really hard, but the best thing that we could of done.  I hope your daughtereventually finds a way to health and happiness with you as a family.  Ours did.  Best wishes, I will be waiting to see how this all turns out.

[Kwamina]

Hi again jaxon64

Thanks for this update. It is very unfortunate that your stepdaughter is having problems again. I think you've made the right decision to try and protect your grandchild.

How are things now? How did your stepdaughter react to the news that you've been granted temporary custody?

[Smugly]

Hi Jaxon64,

So happy to hear you are filing for custody of your GD, while also being very sorry you and your wife are in this situation. So many children have nobody to look out for them when their parents are mentally ill. 

You and your wife are amazing people to stay so strong in such difficult circumstances, but of course having your GD to protect will help you find the strength.  Although your situation has great ongoing difficulties, it gives me great hope to see you being so strong and proactive in the protection and nurturing of your GD.  The sacrifices you make today will bear great fruit for your GD's future.  I will certainly pray for your family.