BPD child of BPD ex - help

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

I've been having trouble narrowing down documentation on this for educational purposes.

fBPDex with 50/50 custody so d12BPD is at his house every other week for a full week

d12BPD developing along the same lines as fBPDex.

I can find documentation regarding interacting with a fBPDex and I can find documentation regarding interacting with d12BPD. What I can't find is this: what is the dynamic of the relationship between the d12BPD and the fBPDex? Since I'm not there to witness the interaction, what is LIKELY going on over there?

Can anyone point me to a book or a resource to help me understand that dynamic?

Thanks

[Donalith]

I've been having trouble narrowing down documentation on this for educational purposes.

fBPDex with 50/50 custody so d12BPD is at his house every other week for a full week

d12BPD developing along the same lines as fBPDex.

I can find documentation regarding interacting with a fBPDex and I can find documentation regarding interacting with d12BPD. What I can't find is this: what is the dynamic of the relationship between the d12BPD and the fBPDex? Since I'm not there to witness the interaction, what is LIKELY going on over there?

Can anyone point me to a book or a resource to help me understand that dynamic?

Thanks

[livednlearned]

I have wondered this, too.

SO has a BPDx and a BPD D20. The enmeshment is pretty intense and D20 has to put her mom's needs first, always.

Have you read any of Bon Dobb's work? He has a BPD wife and daughter with BPD traits. I'm not sure if he describes their interactions in his books, though.

www.anythingtostopthepain.com/about/

[Skip]

How is this progressing?

[Donalith]

I've looked at the site that was provided and it was interesting and confirms what I'm seeing with my BPD step-daughter and her BPD father.

The problem may be my own: either of them is fairly predictable in their reactions to me and I can deal with that. What I was concerned with was the dynamic between them and what the consequences of them interaction would be on my step-daughter.

I was hoping to find some serious studies and the conclusion to which they came.

[Skip]

Can you rephrase that - I can't follow who "them" refers to. Daughter and bio father? Daughter and biomom? Biofather and biomom?

[Donalith]

Sorry, yes, I should have been more specific.

I was hoping to find a study that would help me determine the long term effects for my BPD step-daughter due to interaction with her BPD father. When dealing with them individually the normal emotional tools employed work just fine. I'm more concerned with how (if it's possible) can I counter-act some of the negative role-modelling my step-daughter picks up from her father.

I understand being a good role model is a priority on my side of things but was hoping for more specifics for understanding specific things I can "counter-model" to help her overcome that unstable exposure during her time with him.

Does that make sense?

[Skip]

So the biodad has BPD traits and your feel he is a bad influence on your step-daughter have.  I take it biomom / your wife does not have BPD.

Its a good question. I'm not sure there is a universal answer.

Can you post an example to work through? How does you SD relate to you - are you close? Do you have your own children?

[Donalith]

Since  I'm step-father [married to her biomom] I get a fair bit of the "you're not my dad" attitudes but I generally talk through with SD on those cases. She's 13 so she's already going through the trauma of being a teen and all the brain rewiring that includes.

Our relationship often reflects the "useful tool" and "entertainment" scenarios with little serious discussion; partly due to her reticence to self-examine and partly due to my failure to communicate my questions in a manner that she feels is safe and nonjudgmental. When I ask her questions about her behavior she instantly feels she's being shamed because that's what she is used to hearing from her biofather (even if I specifically tell her I'm not judging her).

For example, SD has a younger sister (7) and was physically hitting and bullying her and the following conversation went south very quickly:

Me: What would YOU call a person who was behaving just as you did, with their much younger sister.
SD: I don't know.
Me: Sure you do. There are lots of words you could use; pick one.
SD: A bully.
Me: That's one word, sure. Would we like having a bully in our house?
SD: (sobs and runs to her room yelling at me because I'm always so "mean" to her)

That's one aspect of our relationship but not all of it is negative. I just have trouble getting passed this perception of being mean when I hold up a mirror. I get the feeling, however, that NOT helping her explore her behavior and the possible reasons behind it (we sometimes get to that level) would be worse. Raising an adult without attempting to help them become self-analyzing and self-aware may not result in them having the best, happiest life we wish they could have.

SD is with her biofather for a week at a time every other week and when she comes home on alternate weeks her BPD seems so much worse. It feels like a losing battle: work with her to help her react as a "normal" person by the end of the week and off she goes to her biofathers where it seems he undoes all the work we (and she) has put in.

That's why I'm wondering if there is something specific I can do that would be more effective so that we don't break even each week but make a little progress.

Sorry for the long post.

[Skip]

I don't want to monopolize this conversation, hopefully some others will step in.

So she is 12/13 and diagnosed with BPD? Wow.

Being the step-dad is a very different role than being a dad and that is complicated in an of itself. Its really important not to get over your skis. I know for me, having standing with the children came, in part, from earning the respect of the biofather. That took a little some doing, but it really helps.

As for a bullying discussion, the self-awareness might be better directed at "what wrong, why are you hitting your sister" - compassion for her (the hitter).  Let her work through her feelings about it and walk her through how to make better choices.  That is positive reinforcement.

There is also the angle of "how do your think our sister feels right now. You love her, give her a hug and say your sorry."

Be really careful with negative reinforcement. We all lived through that as kids, but the norms are different today in the schools, churches, and other parents (other families) homes. Comparatively, its easy to look mean.

Just some ideas to get the discussion started... .

[livednlearned]

Have you had interactions where you saw something you did was working?

Aside from the discipline, do you two have times when things go well?

There may be some things you can do more, first, that you're already doing.

There are lots of skills that work with a BPD teen, that can be applied to step parenting a BPD teen.

You have to be a bit more ninja as the step, in my experience 

Are you and mom on the same page about disciplining SD13?

[Donalith]

I appreciate your responses. I'm sorry, I didn't give you the whole conversation, just the part that went downhill. We had already had conversations regarding your other suggestions. This was the final portion and probably the last straw for her. It's a lot of work for her to speak about her emotions and I didn't seem to be getting anywhere so that was my attempt at an emotional "bucket of cold water in the face" to get her attention. Needless to say, it didn't go well and I'll avoid that approach in the future.

You may have noticed with my posts to others that I run out of patience quickly when dealing with people that don't seem to want to make the effort to change, grow, or learn and are simply there to draw energy from the drama they create. I'm working on that.

She's too young for a formal diagnosis as most therapists where we are discourage diagnosing a child and suggest waiting until the child is 18. The biofather is diagnosed as BPD/NPD and her behaviors mirror his so exactly that SD might as well be handled as a BPD while her mother and I model non-BPD behaviors and give her coping mechanisms (that she chooses not to use, much to our frustration).

As for BPD/NPD biofather... .well let's just say he's full of hate at the moment and doesn't seem to respect himself, let alone me or SD's mom.

When SD (who seems to thrive on drama and chaos and be extremely negative) comes back from her biofather's and says "He such a drama queen and so negative that I'm always tired from dealing with him" I just run out of ideas of what else I can do to offset that aside from what I'm already doing.

The other difficulty that we face is this: it's difficult to talk to her when she continually rewrites her history and only tells us what she thinks we want to hear.

She's had a therapist for a couple years now and her typical conversation consists of telling the therapist that everything is great and she's really happy with her life.

[Donalith]

Have you had interactions where you saw something you did was working?

Aside from the discipline, do you two have times when things go well?

There may be some things you can do more, first, that you're already doing.

There are lots of skills that work with a BPD teen, that can be applied to step parenting a BPD teen.

You have to be a bit more ninja as the step, in my experience 

Are you and mom on the same page about disciplining SD13?

There are lots of things that work and I don't mean to give the impression that this is just a horror-show. There are times we get along great and there are times when we don't talk to each other until we have the words to say. I would just like to find a way to be more effective and I know I'm going to make mistakes and we talk about those too.

I just find it disheartening to see how much her interactions with her biofather cause her to walk on eggshells around everyone. When she acts in our house the same way that acts in her biofathers house it just makes me sad. I'd love it if she could remember that we're not all like her dad and that she can relax in this house (which she usually remembers a day or two before she goes back to her biofathers). The downtime/recovery time is so long.

[livednlearned]

it's difficult to talk to her when she continually rewrites her history and only tells us what she thinks we want to hear.

We have that with SD21 too.

I'm struggling with that one the most. SD21 reflects back what she thinks people want. I think SO wants to see her being healthy, so that's what she tries to give him.

Maybe because I'm less emotionally tangled up, I see the chameleon bits.

One time we were in the kitchen cooking, and I mentioned her brother's high school graduation, which was to be followed by a dinner with the whole family, including SD21's BPD mom, her BF, SD21's dad (my SO), me, grandparents, siblings. I asked her if she was looking forward to it and she said yes. And I said, "Are you? I'm feeling nervous. I might need to give myself some attagirls before dinner" I don't know how to describe her response -- so many emotions. She seemed surprised, relieved, uncomfortable, amused, worried.

I don't always know how far to tread into those spaces so I just muddle ahead. I think everyone in the family is worried about triggering her emotions. But when I acknowledge how I feel, and how I'm managing them, or planning to manage them, she doesn't seem to dysregulate. She seems to bond.

I think I would feel less uncomfortable with her if we could have real conversations about real emotions. But I tend to pace myself because the more bonded she becomes with me, the messier our relationship might get. I've seen glimpses of this and I think it those skills might be beyond me.

I have my own fatigue with BPD having had some variation of it in my family of origin, then married and divorced someone with BPD. With SD21, I tend to take more chances when I know she's leaving 

[Donalith]

Thanks, livedlearned! It's great to hear from another person with this difficulty. Things have been a lot better lately since I've stopped trying to force-feed her MY thoughts on things and started simply paying attention and asking her what HER thoughts are on things.

I had originally started doing this and somewhere along the path I lost my way. Glad to be doing it again. I may not be able to correct her assumptions and misconceptions with the immediacy I would like but I AM able to be someone with whom she can talk when she wants.

[kells76]

Hi Donalith, nice to "meet" you 

My husband has two girls, and he has had to learn some totally different skills over the years -- as it sounds like you're trying to do. He's super analytical and problem-solving-focused, and that used to make for a volatile mix with kids who wanted their feelings to be noticed. He's a lot better now  but it took time, working with the kids' counselor, and practice for those conversations to smooth out.

Really glad to hear how things are going for you:

Things have been a lot better lately since I've stopped trying to force-feed her MY thoughts on things and started simply paying attention and asking her what HER thoughts are on things.

Great turnaround.

I can relate to you on wanting to "make" SD12 & SD10 "see it my way", because "I know I'm right" (even though I AM right about a lot of stuff  ). What I have to do is remember how that feels to me when someone close to me interacts with me that way (I'm fairly sensitive) -- it feels like all they care about is themselves, not how I'm doing. That can feel "so mean". You can also probably imagine what it's like when you just want to vent about something, but the person you're venting to can't stop telling you how to fix your issue. They don't "get it"!

You know your SD better than me, so you'll know how this would go, but I wonder what it'd be like for you to model vulnerability and "mistake-making" to her. She probably doesn't see that modeled at Dad's house, so it might be really hard for her to do. Maybe if she sees/hears you practicing true apologies, reflection on "how you'd do it differently", or "what you want to try instead next time", she could build some of those skills too, or at least feel like your house is a safe place to do that.

It might look like this: "SD, remember that time when you and Sister were having the conflict, and I tried to get you to [see it my way, admit I was right, fess up to being a bully, etc]? I thought about that some more, and I was wrong."

You could pause there and see if she wants to chime in, or you could keep going:

"I really didn't pay attention to how you were feeling, and I'm sorry. The way you feel is so important to me. Next time, what I think I'll try to do differently is ask you what's going on first."

You could see if adding "How do you think that would go for you?" here is good, or something.

These aren't really intuitive skills. I think with "normal" family situations, parents might have a little more leeway to bring down the hammer right away ("No, you may not treat your sister that way. Go to your room and I'll be in later to talk" and have that trust where the kid does it and then the talk happens later and goes OK. In our situations, because the kids/stepkids are so low on validation from the u/BPD parent, that can feel devastating. We have to circle in slowly, starting not with the punitive stuff or the "admit you're wrong" stuff, but with the "I noticed you guys are having a conflict. What do you think is going on" stuff.

Let me know if you want to talk some more about what's going on! I'd love to hear about how things are going.

kells76

[Donalith]

Hi, kells76!

I think those are some really great ideas and I will really give them a try. I'll have to work on a balancing act, I think, between sharing feelings about making mistakes and how I feel about them and what I would do differently... .and "apologies".

"Apologies" are formal declarations that her biological BPDFather uses as a magical "get out of jail free" card whereby he can escape any blame or shame for things that he does simply by making a formal apology. Once he has apologized your feelings on the matter are no longer valid.

SD recognizes this behavior and still unconsciously models it so while dealing with her at an emotional level I'm going to want to avoid that pitfall.

While I realize that this approach is currently less bumpy and less volatile AND I recognize that it's build a better foundation for our communication, I still have trouble being patient about helping her make good life decisions... ... I'm sure one day, I'll get the hang of it.