Learning to live with BPD

[Anitra]

We believe my daughter has BPD.  She has smashed the family with her accusations, her lies, her distortions and her manipulations and cunning controls.  Our once marvellous family is ruined, with members refusing to talk to each other.  I am finding it terribly difficult to learn how to stop thinking about it all.  My health has bombed and  made me very aware of the importance of escaping from this ongoing catastrophe.  I have got into mindfulness and meditation, which have been fabulous tools, but I wish that I could turn off my mind more strongly.  Every time we have any form of dealing with my daughter I go downhill for a period.

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

[livednlearned]

Hi Anitra,

Mindfulness and meditation really are helpful, I don't know what I'd do without these skills.

How old is your daughter? Does she live with you?

What is the nature of her false allegations?

Glad you found the site.

You're not alone.

LnL

[Anitra]

Thanks for your reply.  Our daughter is in her forties and she lives nowhere near us, mercifully.  Dont think I dont love her, because I do;  I just hate the evil that she has done and continues to do.  It has helped us greatly to realise that the evil she has done comes from her illness.
She has made many false accusations.  Where she is so clever and manipulative is in taking an innocent event and saying the people involved are terribly hurt, so much so that we must not mention it to them.  Over time we have defied her privately and  gently questioned these people, and found there never was any real hurt but they are too frightened to come out and say so.  We have adult members of the family saying 'I will do whatever she tells me,' and others who might not be brave enough to say so but are in thrall to her nevertheless.

[livednlearned]

I wonder if she does this because drama and high emotionality help ease the feeling she is empty inside. If there is no drama, she will create it, to offset the dead feelings she is desperately trying to avoid.

Sometimes, people with BPD need more expressive responses to events. I notice with my SO's D19 that if she is retelling a story and I listen impassively, she tends to get more upset. If I have more expressive facial expressions, turn to listen while she's talking, validate her feelings, then she tends to become more regulated, enough so that she will even go up to her room by herself, which is something she tends to do only rarely.

It's pretty common for people with BPD to have a distorted version of reality, too. She may be projecting her own feelings onto a situation as a way to process feelings she is not adept at doing for herself.

Have you read Loving Someone with BPD by Shari Manning? That helped point me toward a few new skills that seem to work when SO's D19 is not too dysregulated. Though I do understand the need to repair and recover after spending time with someone who suffers from BPD. I treat my self-care as essential and critical, otherwise I lose any hint of compassion, and it's hard to do any of this without some degree of compassion.