EAR

[In4thewin]

I know that I can't change anyone, but nonetheless I'm remaining hopeful that with educating myself and making some personal changes, it will have a positive impact on my 19yo  daughter. I started to work 1 on 1 with a DBT practitioner and continue to search other informed resources on BPD. In doing that I came upon a skill called "EAR" statements on a site called highconflicttraining.com It's not "DBT" but a very similar skill/technique using validation to deescalate an upset/high conflict person. It seems straight forward enough but I'm confused about when this should be attempted based on my specific circumstance. I'm definitely the "target", and my daughter can turn on a dime. When she does, it's rarely because of something I'm saying/doing in the moment, but something I did/said in the past... sometimes it's ancient history. A common theme is her bringing up my parenting during middle school, using my mistakes (real or perceived) as an excuse avoid personal accountability in current day. This has continued for years. It's like "you made me dress like a middle aged woman.... you PURPOSELY wanted me to not be like other kids!". Then it continues with "All I ever wanted was to fit in, and you made SURE I wouldn't !" You DID THIS TO ME!. It could literally be about anything. No matter what happens, what she does, it always rolls back to me being responsible in some way and the "cause" of her choices/actions.... because I screwed up during middle school.

I had gotten to the point of feeling confident with just calmly hanging up the phone or not engaging in texts etc. when she goes on one of these rants. I had already laid forth the expectation that this is what I'll do if communications become abusive. But now I'm confused. Should I listen for a while and then try to EAR before disconnecting when she goes off? I can see how EAR could be helpful when someone is upset about something, but when I'm the constant target of the angst, I just don't know.

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