Our saga continues... just need to vent

[Parents! Get help here!]

Hi- Was just reading over my past posts from 2022 on and can't believe I"m still in this situation. Quick readers digest update: my daughter is now 29; living at home; lost her job a year ago, still has not gotten another, lives here rent free and does the bare minimum to help out. A few months ago we sat down and discussed her moving out and getting her life started. She picked Aug. 1st as a move out date. (I'm also trying to get the house ready to sell as I'm downsizing and have made it clear to her that she is not moving in with me).

Aug 1st was extended by me to Aug. 15th with a very strong boundary telling her it's time to create a life she loves.

She has periodically been on meds; therapists galore and did a 3 week stint in a recovery center that did not go well at all. She also has an eating disorder; anxiety and depression.

Found her today on the back porch crying her eyes out because she called her ex by mistake... who she claims was the only person she could count on...then went on to how miserable her life is; she can't believe she's in this position; will not be seeing me once she leaves, and feels I'm evicting here. I'm exhausted from navigating these waters... any advice?

[Tesstess]

Hi- Was just reading over my past posts from 2022 on and can't believe I"m still in this situation. Quick readers digest update: my daughter is now 29; living at home; lost her job a year ago, still has not gotten another, lives here rent free and does the bare minimum to help out. A few months ago we sat down and discussed her moving out and getting her life started. She picked Aug. 1st as a move out date. (I'm also trying to get the house ready to sell as I'm downsizing and have made it clear to her that she is not moving in with me).

Aug 1st was extended by me to Aug. 15th with a very strong boundary telling her it's time to create a life she loves.

She has periodically been on meds; therapists galore and did a 3 week stint in a recovery center that did not go well at all. She also has an eating disorder; anxiety and depression.

Found her today on the back porch crying her eyes out because she called her ex by mistake... who she claims was the only person she could count on...then went on to how miserable her life is; she can't believe she's in this position; will not be seeing me once she leaves, and feels I'm evicting here. I'm exhausted from navigating these waters... any advice?

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

[CC43]

Hi there,

Getting to 29 and not really getting started on a path towards independence must have you both feeling exhausted and frustrated.  I'm writing from a similar standpoint, with a key difference being that my adult BPD stepdaughter got intensive therapy for BPD and dug herself out of her pit of despair.  Nevertheless, living in a pit of despair, blaming her family for all her problems, attempting suicide multiple times and making it worse by self-medicating with marijuana set her back a few years.  Just the other day, I thought to myself, her maturity today is often similar to that of a 16-year-old girl.  And yet she's making big-girl decisions without really thinking them through.

Like your situation, my BPD stepdaughter has lived with me and her dad on and off for several years now.  But NEVER has she lived with us while actually holding down a job or going to school full-time.  When with us, she's basically on vacation, but not in the traditional sense.  She's vacating her real life, retreating in avoidance and hating herself and the world.  She's been stuck on the sidelines for a long time now.  I fear that we have enabled her to stay on the sidelines of her life, in the name of keeping her alive and reducing stress/anxiety.  But now is the time for her to get going, because she's too old to live like a child any longer.  She HAS to figure out an adult's life for herself.

Though she has taken some steps in the right direction, in my opinion they are very, very tentative ones, and she's not really committed yet--it seems like she's doing the minimum, only to keep her dad and me off her back.  It's one thing to have a safety net (us), but it's another to have a safety hammock.  And I feel like the hammock is preventing her from spreading her wings right now.  I could envisage a hypothetical scenario where she moves in with us full-time, and she contributes by helping around the house, while working part-time and generally being a happy person.  But as you know, BPD doesn't work that way.  What we tend to see is anger and passive-aggressiveness, blaming and desperation, entitlement and messiness.  I really, really don't want to go down that road again.  But if she moves in with us, she's bound to go down that path.  Because moving in with us would mean she failed to make a life for herself once again.  Has your daughter dropped out of school multiple times, and maybe found work, but quit or got fired after a short time?  Yup, we've been there, multiple times.  I tend to think, they are really slow learners, and they have to learn the hard way, by repeating mistakes.  Even so, failing a class or getting fired isn't the end of the world in my opinion--it happens all the time.  The key is not to give up!  But with BPD, they give up so easily, as well as take things too personally, seeing every setback as a personal condemnation, and instead of growing up, they regress, while placing blame on someone else.

To me, the worst part of BPD is the victim attitude.  Is your daughter blaming all her problems on you and her terrible childhood?  I think she's stuck in the past because she's SCARED.  She doesn't really know who she is, and she's so afraid of planning for the future that she regresses and lives in the past, even if she's miserable while doing it.  These days, when my BPD stepdaughter tries to dredge up ancient grievances, we call her out on that.  (We're done validating her distorted version of past events, because it only seems to make her dwell on them excessively, while she spins out of control.)  We say something like, You can't change the past.  Besides, you are miserable thinking about these things over and over again, correct?  And you're not being "abused" NOW, are you?  You need to focus on YOU, and on your goals for TODAY.  You don't have to map out your entire future:  nobody can do that anyway.  You need to focus on the next few weeks.  And what you need to do for the next few weeks is to look for a job.  Now, it might not be the job you really want for the long term.  But it should be a job that gets you on the PATH to the job you really want for the long term.  Something in an area that interests you.  It's OK to start at the bottom--everyone starts at the bottom!  The key is to START.  And if you don't find a job right away, what you CAN do right away is to volunteer, in an area that interests you.  If you volunteer, you can put the experience on your resume, plus build your portfolio, as well as some contacts in your field of interest.  That's all good, right? 

I guess my advice is to think in terms of baby steps, one positive change at a time, starting with healthy daily habits that underpin a healthy life.  For my BPD stepdaughter, the first baby step was to attend therapy sessions and stabilize.  Then the next baby step was a healthy daily routine (e.g. getting up in the morning, eating proper meals, showering daily, keeping her room clean).  Then she started to build some momentum.  In my opinion, the direction of movement is more important than speed . . . ultimately, she's likely to lag years behind her peers in terms of emotional maturity and experiences, and that surely is a hit to her confidence level.  But she still has most of her life ahead of her, she doesn't have to let BPD derail her forever!

All my best to you.
Most of all, my advice to you is to take care of yourself first.  You're no help to your daughter if you're reeling and a basket case.  You are not responsible for her feelings, she is.  In fact, I think you should model for her what a healthy adult's life looks like, and that includes seeing friends and pursuing hobbies.

All my best to you.

[Tesstess]

Thank you so much for your response. So many similarities! And yes, the victimization is astonishing! she blames me for everything, literally everything. I have tried the reasoning of just moving forward with taking any job at this point and it's all beneath her. I really feel like the only thing I can do at this point is stick to my boundary and have her move out.

I love your words on not validating the old grievances- going to practice that one. It does seem it just makes it worse when I try to listen.

I agree with the baby steps/momentum and have tried that over the past year, but it only lasts for a short time, so  I think we're past that. She fires every therapist; was going to try a CODA meeting but then informed me the person who ran it is an idiot and told her not to come... the lying is also an issue for me- its always the other person who is the problem..

And yes to taking care of myself. I realize I've just been barely holding here and need to model what healthy people do. Thank God for pickleball... where I find myself more often than not- ;). Thanks again CC43- it helps to know I'm not the only one on this journey!

[CC43]

Well, I think the second worst part of BPD, after the victim attitude, is the pervasively negative attitude.

The victim attitude means there's learned helplessness, as she refuses to take responsibility for her own choices.

The negative attitude basically means she hates everything, especially herself.  She doesn't want to do such-and-such a job because she thinks she won't like it, or because she thinks it sucks.  Plus, she doesn't like the boss or the co-workers.  If she makes friends, the friendships won't last for long, as your daughter will accuse the former friends of lying, bullying and generally being evil.  Or she doesn't make friends in the first place, because she thinks other people are boring, stupid or ugly.  Besides, she's cooped up in her room doing little of anything, while her peers are living their lives.  I can't help but surmise that all these ill feelings are projections of how horribly she feels about herself.  As she's not doing much of anything, she starts to feel like nothing, and her identity and self-confidence are in shambles.  She doesn't know how to get out of her rut, so she lashes out at you, thinking you're responsible.  Sound familiar?

Anyway, I'm trying to be a helpful coach to my BPD stepdaughter on her job hunt, though she's not exactly receptive to my help, mainly because she doesn't want to get started, because she thinks that jobs are too stressful.  But given the little bits of conversation about her search, I can see that she has a terribly negative attitude, as well as all sorts of limiting beliefs.  She has myriad reasons why she thinks she wouldn't like various jobs, while her expectations are wildly unrealistic, in terms of pay vs. responsibilities and locations.  I understand that she doesn't want to start at the bottom, but given her lack of real work experience, where else would she realistically start?  I sense that she thinks some jobs are beneath her, but aren't unemployment and continued childlike dependence much worse?  I think she's got to start somewhere, almost anywhere, and build up her work experience.  To be fair, she has had a couple of initial screening interviews, but she hasn't progressed beyond that.  She said she didn't do so great on the interviews, and I tried to tell her, that's NORMAL!  Nobody is an expert interviewer the first time around.  I said, all she needs is preparation and practice, and before long, she'll be a master interviewee.  I think she simply hadn't prepared enough, as she seemed pretty clueless about the companies she was interviewing with.  Even her questions were negative.  One example she gave me was, What sort of person wouldn't do well in this position?  What?!?!?  Did she expect the interviewer to explain the reasons why they wouldn't hire someone like her?  It was almost like she was committing self-sabotage, and projecting her concerns that she wasn't a good fit.  I've told her, her thinking ought to be more positive, that her anxiety should be framed as excitement, and yet she thought I was rude to say that.  I offered to help her prepare and to practice.  But she doesn't want my help.  I guess I understand where she's coming from, and yet, she's struggled to get anywhere on her search, why not get some help from someone like me who has interviewed hundreds of people and coached dozens on their careers?  I think it's because she's embarrassed, and she really doesn't want to get a job in the first place, because it's just too scary.  But there will come a time where she's out of options, and that time is fast approaching, basically August 31st, when her current lease runs out.  If she doesn't have a job by then, she'll have to move in with me and her dad, and then it will become apparent how ineffectual or not her job search is.  I suggested that, for the time being, she get a job at the nearby Market Basket, which has a reputation for good employee benefits, but my husband threw a fit, saying that was beneath her.  But I think what is beneath her is continuing to live like a child.  A job, any job, is better in my book, and it doesn't have to be forever.  Everyone has to start somewhere, even if that somewhere entails getting into the routine of showing up for work five days a week.

Anyway, after my Market Basket suggestion flopped, I suggested that my stepdaughter try volunteering at a nonprofit which operates in a field she's interested in.  I showed her wikicharities.org, which highlighted dozens of nonprofits in her town.  I suggested a couple I thought she might like, as they operated in her areas of interest.  There was one that was looking for volunteers which read almost exactly like the job descriptions she was pursuing.  I nudged her, See, you could volunteer here part-time for a few weeks this summer.  You could get some real-life experience in your area of interest, build your resume and get some contacts in your desired field!  Then when you interview in this field, you can showcase your volunteer experience.  What's the worst that could happen?  I'm crossing my fingers that she pursues some volunteer opportunities which would bolster her resume.

Good luck.