5th day NC

[In4thewin]

The ride continues and I reached the point last Sunday, once again, where it became painfully obvious that I can't continue to have face to face contact with my daughter and need to greatly limit other communications in order to protect myself from abusive explosions that come out of nowhere, and so hopefully she'll start taking treatment seriously. This time I'm sticking to the boundaries. No matter what I do, say, or provide---nothing changes for the better in our relationship and the cycle of abuse and lack of accountability continues. It's painful. She no longer lives with me, and isn't even really "living" in the apartment I got for her when she finally had to be removed from the house. She found yet another guy to latch onto and is full-on living with him even though she has an apartment "of her own" that I've been paying for since February after finally making the decision that she could no longer live with me. Recently she brought up conversation wanting my permission for her to move in with the young man. I told her clearly that I was neither condoning it or attempting to stop it. She's 19 and my lease obligation for her apartment is up next February, which I'll continue to pay until then whether she's actually there or not.

I've told her that I'll remain open to our weekly online therapy sessions should that interest her, but once communication turns toxic and/or otherwise completely unproductive (as it always does), that the session will end we can try again the following week. But basically, that's the extent of the personal relationship with her that I'm open to right now and into the foreseeable future. I need to focus on the support I need to break a codependent cycle.

At this point she's about a month into a year long cosmetology program that I'm paying for entirely. I bought her a solid car and titled it to her. I've paid for a year of auto coverage. Theres the apartment and utilities....plus she gets a weekly allowance that's large enough to cover gas and food. She has all those tools in addition to a myriad of mental care resources, so there's absolutely nothing more I or anyone else can do to help her if she doesn't start helping herself, and remaining a punching bag doesn't help either of us. I figure if I'm not really "available" to engage with her that she can't blame me if her life moving forward blows up and maybe she'll finally get serious about managing her own problems. 5 days into my this and she hasn't attempted to contact me. I think to her it might be a game of chicken to her but I'm trying not to think about what might be going on in her head. It's pointless.

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

[Pook075]

I went down the same road with my BPD daughter and for years, I paid for everything because she couldn't hold a job, finish a training, whatever.  But once I cut her off, she magically found a way to pay for her own things within 24 hours.  I realized that I was enabling her by providing so much financial help and I wish I would have pulled back much, much sooner.

Like you, I bought multiple cars, got her places to stay, paid her phone bill, insurance, etc.

For moving forward, remember that boundaries are for you.  There's nothing you can do to force your kid to do anything, and likewise she shouldn't force you into these situations either.  If she wants to be a part of your life, then great...but you should have some rules yourself about how that relationship works (no yelling, blaming, arguing, manipulation, etc).