Adult daughter with BPD

[mom82]

 I am 3 years in from my daughters diagnosis and 30 years in trying to figure out what is wrong with my  once amazing daughter! She seems to be getting worse as she gets older and is now 43 and worse than when she was 18. She managed to function through with her personality, charm, and looks but that does not cut it any more. Her tongue is as sharp as a razor blade during her manic moments and cuts very deep....she ended up living in her car for 2 years and the last 8 months in various hotels which has sucked my bank account dry and not tenable. She had the opportunity handed to her to move to Florida and start over at her Aunts house and helping in their urban farm business.....got her on train last weekend after 3 tries and she made it as far as Penn station and turned around and came back....she is her own worst enemy. I told her the bank is now closed, the new chance off the table and I will always love her and of course she can contact me but she chose to come back to nothing and I just can't anymore. For 3 years she has survived and done NOTHING to help herself...she was handed every phone number and contact and agency to call and help by DTA etc.....too proud....so is once again living in her vehicle.....which I own and pay for. But I wont have her live on the street so that particular aspect I will ensure for her. I am so alone with this....people think she is just stubborn which she is but this behavior is so self destructive!! EVERY decision she makes is the wrong one....every time. I do not want to lose her but I can not continue this emotionally, physically or finacially....

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

[hearts17]

Hello, thank you for sharing your story.  What you are going through is so hard. Know that you are an amazing mother, and your daughter is only going to do what she wants to do (frequently not what we wish for them to do).  I think a great piece of advice I got was: you can not control your young adult child's choices. I wanted to get out in front of everything that I perceived was going to be an issue for my child (or actually was an issue) and help steer her the right way. I was finding that to be extremely exhausting and impossible.

As you said, you are providing something (the car/insurance) to a certain point, and that's it. That is incredibly generous of you. We have given our daughter certain allowances for living (she is in college right now, which is fortunate) but it will become her responsibility soon enough. We will be slowly transitioning over responsibilities to her and hope for the best. Hang in there as you decide what you need for your own peace...you have to protect you own well-being, too.

[Pook075]

Hello and welcome to the family.  I'm so sorry you're going through this, but at least you're starting to see that "the bank must be closed".  Not because you don't want to help, but because BPDs can easily see kindness and compassion as an admission of guilt.  Your help enables reckless behavior and prevents your daughter from seeking the help she needs.

In fact, she may even be convinced that her problem is you.  BPDs will blame everyone and anyone before turning the blame to themselves.

You mentioned handing her phone numbers, resources, places to stay, etc.  But she never did anything.  Why?  Because mom would buy her a hotel room, pay her car bills and try to fix everything that she tears apart.  Why be responsible for anything if mom will swoop in and save the day?  That makes it your problem, not hers, and she prefers it that way.

My point here is simple- you can't fix anyone else in this world.  Sometimes, we can't fix ourselves.  Only your daughter can make the decision to make real change and by keeping her off the streets gives her every excuse to never do that.  It's heartbreaking and I went through this as well.  Our main job as parents is to teach right from wrong though.  If she's wrong, then stop enabling her.

I know that sounds incredibly harsh but that's the advice I was given by an amazing psychiatrist...and it saved my daughter's life.  She was homeless for awhile, made every bad decision, but we stayed distant and let her know that she was making those decisions on her own.  We'd say, "Come home anytime...as long as you'll be kind and helpful."  She refused, so we honored her poor decisions.

But from that broken, dysfunctional cycle, she ran out of excuses and finally started looking within.  At 23, she took therapy seriously and by 24, she was a different person entirely.  She now holds a job, pays her own bills, and is genuinely a much better person BECAUSE we cut her off.  Our relationship is excellent today as well.

[CC43]

Hi mom,

You must be exhausted tolerating dysfunction for so long.  You love your daughter and want what's best for her, but she refuses help while clinging to a victim attitude like her life depends on it.  I bet she blames you and others (ex-romantic partners, ex-roommates, ex-family members, ex-friends, ex-coworkers, etc.) for all her problems, correct?  I bet she tells stories of enduring abuse, bullying, condescension, deceit and unfairness, where details are highly warped and/or questionable, and the common denominator of her grievances is that she's always the victim.  Sound familiar?  If it does, it's because that's typical for BPD.

You don't want to see your daughter suffer so much, and yet she's stubbornly making one bad decision after another which begets more suffering, and in the process, she's making you suffer.  That's because she's making decisions based on extreme emotions and impulse, not logic.  And though technically she's an adult, she's functioning like a child, in that YOU bear the consequences of HER decisions.  In her world, the incentives are all mixed up, as are her priorities.  Because of this, you both are stuck in a pit of despair.  I bet you cycle through emotions of desperation, bargaining, anger, resignation, exhaustion and hopelessness, over and over again.

Look, I'm not a mind reader, but I bet your daughter's internal dialogue is exceedingly negative.  Deep down, I bet she hates herself.  She hates her life, she hates the bad decisions she's made, she hates feeling inferior to everyone around her.  I bet she suffers from intense shame, and that her self-confidence is in the pits.  Moreover, since she doesn't really do anything (but fail), who is she, anyway?  She doesn't know who she is, except for a freeloading mess-up that is an embarrassment to her family.  She's in her 40s, she thinks she's hopeless.  But she suffers too much when she thinks like this, so she starts to look for scapegoats--anyone else to take some of the blame.  I imagine that, since she's alienated everyone else, the only person left to blame for her messed-up life is YOU.  She RESENTS you for making her feel so incompetent and dependent.  Thus she'll bite the hand that feeds her.  She doesn't care if she bankrupts you--because it's YOUR FAULT!  She has become the gold medalist of the grievance Olympics.  If only she could channel her stubbornness towards a more positive, productive pursuit, she'd be a champion . . . But she has exercised her brain with negative thoughts so extensively, for so many years, that she has worn deep ruts in her brain.  In a way, the negative thinking patterns--and the stories of victimhood--become almost automatic, routine to her.  Does that sound about right?

I think there's hope, because BPD is treatable, provided that your daughter wants to make some changes to start to feel better.  Unfortunately, she may have to hit bottom first.  I think that for as long as she's living with you (or off of you), she'll continue to blame you for her situation (even if, deep down, she knows that's not entirely true).  Though she's suffering, she's happy with the status quo, because she thinks it's working for her.  She has "her" car, she eats enough, and she gets to blame you for everything.  But my question is, are you happy with the status quo?  Is keeping your beloved daughter off the street the best situation for both of you?  I'm not asking that to be cruel, I'm asking that as a genuine question.  I understand that as a parent, you can't bear to withdraw assistance, because of the fear that your daughter might end up on the street and wind up dead.  Is that the scenario that you're dealing with right now?

I'm not sure what to advise you here, because these situations are really tricky, and pwBPD can be highly volatile, and act out in predictably impulsive ways.  All I can say is that the pwBPD in my life had to try (and fail) living semi-independently a few times before she hit bottom and was ready to commit to therapy.  In addition, she had to hear some ultimatums from her doctors as well as her dad.  The doctors said something along the lines of:  We've tried everything for you, and you say nothing has worked.  The only option left is for you to participate in a treatment program.  It's your choice whether to do it or not.  But if you end up in the hospital again in the future, we'll have no choice but to commit you against your will.  Her dad said something like this:  I love you and want to support you in getting some help to recover from your traumas.  I will support you if you do exactly what the doctors say, whether it's a program, medications or therapy sessions.  You can choose to go your own way, but then you're on your own.  You're an adult, it's your choice to make.  Fortunately, she decided to do the recommended therapy program(s), and she managed to turn her life around.  Though her progress didn't happen in a straight line, her life got much better in a relatively short time (1-2 years).  And though she still has some work to do, she has a much healthier lifestyle today.  I don't mean to rub this in, but merely to provide a little hope.

Therapy doesn't have to be a condemnation.  I think the pwBPD in my life actually warmed to the notion of working with "professional" therapists.  It validated her thesis that her life was so full of trauma that she needed some professional help to learn to cope with it.  In fact, I think that's a positive way of framing therapy (getting extra/temporary support to help to cope with something), rather than being labelled mentally ill.  Nobody likes that label.  In addition, I think her dad also warmed to the notion of heeding professional advice.  That way, he was alleviated of coming up with new solutions--he felt that everything he had tried to save his daughter had failed, and their relationship was already too strained.  His main job as a parent transitioned (temporarily) to ensuring that his daughter followed doctors' orders, in order for him to continue to provide financial and other support.  That seemed much cleaner and simpler.  Does that make sense?