Saying sorry

[Danae]

You've all been so helpful with previous posts I've put up. Thank you so much. I've been greatly encouraged by your sharing experiences and making recommendations.

I've another question. My adult daughter with BPD seems to only be able to cope if I take full responsibility for having caused her unhappiness (ie I spend my entire time apologising for ruining her life, messing up her day etc ). Now I know I sometimes do get it badly wrong and I have no problem apologising for that. But it seems that she just needs me (or someone else, but usually me) to be responsible for her unhappiness because she can't face taking that responsibility herself because of what it may demand of her. She can't accept that the solutions to her problems lie from within, not by manipulating (in the best sense of the word) her external environment. What is your advice about getting the balance right here?

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

[lbjnltx]

Hi Danae,

While it's good to take responsibility for our mistakes and errors through apology it is not for us to apologize for how anyone responds or reacts to our errors.  Their feelings and actions are their own and outside of our control.  There is a fine line between taking responsibility and owning someone else's reactions. 

While we can validate our kids emotions we aren't responsible for them.  We are only responsible for what we can control/manage. 

"I regret saying that to you.  I can see how you would feel hurt."

A good measuring stick is to ask yourself how you would want your daughter to respond/react/behave if she was in your shoes and then model that behavior for her.

Does your daughter accept that she is disordered?  Is she projecting her illness onto you?

lbj

[Danae]

Yes, she does accept she's ill, but she wants desperately for it not to be her fault. I always tell her it's no-one's fault, that that is not the point, but she doesn't feel OK unless some one else has taken the blame for her unhappiness. So she doesn't so much project the illness onto me as wants me to be the cause because the alternatives are too painful.  Her attitude is "other people got me into this mess, they've got to get me out of it." Any attempt to persuade her to take responsibility for it herself seems to fail spectacularly. So I guess what I need are some gentle ways to persuade her accept the responsibility and not be afraid of what that means (carrots seem to work better than sticks here).

[lbjnltx]

Taking responsibility for our:

Thoughts

Belief systems

Attitude

Actions

Emotions/feelings

No one is responsible for the illness itself, each of us are responsible for the list above.

If we had the responsibility of creating the illness then we would be able to make it go away.


Has your daughter ever been exposed to DBT?  Creating the space emotionally and mentally (through the use of DBT skills) for different thoughts=feelings=actions to take root is where change can take place.

[madmom]

Hello Denae,  I don't know if this would work for you, but it did for me, so I will pass it on and do with it what you will.  My husband and I had come to the end of our rope with our daughter now aged 27 about a year ago.  The tole of years of worry, stress and drama had taken their effect and we decided we had to try something different.  We got on this site and began to read.  We had long conversations about what we were doing and not doing when it came to boundaries and enabling and being lost in the FOG.  So I spent time reading and working with the tools and lessons you find on the right hand side of this page.  I finally realized that my husband and I had to make changes if our child was going to have the chance to change.  We together set up boundaries we both agreed on and would not budge from.  I practiced using SET and validation.  I then had a talk with my daughter that went something like this. Honey, I love you so very much and realize I have made many mistakes in the past.  I should have been a different kind of parent for you and I am sorry for the times I have hurt you.  I now know that I need to work on myself.  If you see or hear me acting a little differently, it is because I am trying to find a way to communicate and do things better.  I am sure I will continue to make mistakes, but hopefully things will get better between you and I.  I want to work on our relationship and I know that the pain of the past is hard to forgive, but I hope we can move forward and work on our future. As part of that, I will not continue to spend lots of time talking about the past. I will have to stop the conversation and take a break, or change the topic to something else. I have to try and work on the present and the future.  I love you and I hope that you can help and support me as I do this for all of us.    My daughter responded with I know mom, I have made a lot of mistakes too and I want our relationship to be better also. So I continued to work on myself and as I got better and felt better, so did my daughter.  Not at first of course, she had to try it out and see if the boundaries really were boundaries etc.  When I consistently started responding differently, she was forced to make changes in how she communicated with me. Now a year later, she isn't the same girl she was last year at this time.  She has made tremendous gains in how she is doing (she probably wouldn't even meet most of the criteria for BPD any longer)  Her relationships with the whole family, your friends and her work are so much better.  She decided on her own that she needed to make changes, but I think seeing me trying to make changes may have been a model for her---it wasn't all her fault, I had to take some of the responsibility also for her BPD symptoms and treatment.  Like I said I don't know if it will help, but I want you to know I feel your pain and you are not alone.

[satahal]

D,

This seems an incredible burden for you, and as you've said not terribly productive for your daughter.

Maybe she needs more validation? If she keeps wanting an apology it's possible she feels invalidated - because I suppose saying it's no one's fault or it doesn't matter whose fault it is or even saying you're sorry invalidates her anger and frustration.

I'm new as heck here so take me with a huge grain of salt but I'm wondering if validating her consistently rather than apologizing might move her out of the rumination - like, "It must be very frustrating to have to work this hard to get better from something that you didn't cause." or "I'd be angry too if I felt my parents triggered my mental illness. Anyone would feel like that was unfair," etc.

I guess I'm hearing her say it's just an intolerable injustice that this happened to her. Maybe in some way an apology is invalidating because then what, she forgives you and she's left still feeling like she's been dealt an unfair hand.

[AVR1962]

Danae, I will share what my counselor told me on the very same topic. My daughter also expects apologies. She blames me for the things she cannot face, everything is my fault. Her weight is my fault and she posted something like this on FB one time. She had an affair and had her husband truly believing this man was just a friend but she was telling me otherwise. When her husband caught on she then claimed I told her husband that she was having an affair and told people I was a liar. I never had that conversation with her husband. She constantly is playing one person against the other... .me against her bio father, me against her step brother, me against my mother and other family members. She gets the support from the other members to validate that she has reason to not like me and be angry with me but what she doesn't see is that she is lying to both parties. Your situation might not be the same.

My counselor told me to not apologize for anything that she has to face herself. She is responsible for her weight, she is responsible for her own emotions, she is responsible for her actions... .not me. If I tell her I am sorry for contributing to her weight gain my counselor says it takes the responsibility off her and that responsibility is then pout on me and I cannot help her with her weight, she has to figure that out for herself.