WELL SHE IS IN JAIL

[Kind of Alone]

My daughter went over to her ex’s house and tried to give him a birthday present. He didn’t want to talk to her, so he rejected her and she doesn’t like rejection. He told her to leave she wouldn’t leave. He called me asked me to tell her to leave. I told her to leave, several times!!! I told her she should not be there. Well then he told her he would call the cops.  She was not deteured but when he actully did call she started breaking everything and throwing things through his window so vandalize his house.  Then of course she drove away.  I tracked her to see where she was going.  She went to her house then headed back to his house.  I alerted him that she was on her way back. We she saw the cops were there she drove away of course didn’t want to get caught.  To be honest I was watching where she was going because to be truthful I didn't want her coming to my house to deal with it again as I have forever.  I’m tired of her getting out of things, so I called the cops and told them when she was they went and picked her up. I went to meet the police to get her keys and so i had to see her, that was SOOOO hard.  She begged me to bell her out, and I told her I would not that she needed to learn responsibility for her actions. I held her head in my hands through the police window and told her I loved her but this time I can't help her. 

*back story, she just got home from rehab on June 1 and I'm pretty sure that she did this for me so she could stay in my good graces and continue to minuplate me and she did. 

The crazy thing is I'm numb about it.  It seams everytime another episode happens I get more numb and less reactive. 

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]

Wow, I'm so sorry...that's brutally hard.  I was in that position a few times where I had to call the police and it was never easy.

You are 100% right though, she has to learn right from wrong.  The guy she was dating can't be a complete jerk if he called you to mediate.  It's a heartbreaking situation for everyone and I hope she figures some things out while she's in jail.  Depending on the state, it could be quite a long time or they could send her home due to overcrowding.

The numbness you feel is a blessing and a curse.  On one hand, you cope better because you're not completely stressed out.  But on the other hand, you're repressing emotions that will eventually resurface.  You have to deal with it, sooner or later, in order to actually move forward in a healthy way. 

And hopefully you can see that I'm saying that lovingly...no judgement here because I went through the exact same stuff.  Years later, it finally hit me like a ton of bricks and I had to process everything all over again.

[CC43]

Hi Alone,

I hope you see that if you come here, you're not entirely alone.  My guess is that you're numb, mainly because your daughter has been making poor decisions for years now, and yet she still expects you to rescue her.  While you feel empathy for your daughter's pain and interpersonal difficulties related to BPD, that is no excuse for her to act badly in my opinion.  You've already spent years dreading those late-night calls for urgent help from your daughter, correct?  You've rescued her countless times, and yet she still doesn't seem to learn from her mistakes?  She expects you to fix things, and pay her expenses, all the while she treats you like dirt?  She can't seem to finish school, or keep a job, or manage a stable living situation, or get along with other people, no matter how much you help her--with tuition, coaching, encouragement, emotional support, transportation, spending money, administrative support, co-signing--correct?  Meanwhile, she self-sabotages at every turn, abusing substances, acting out, ruining anything good in her life.  Basically she quits everything and has given up on herself, while she expects YOU to work on her life, double-time.  She RESENTS you for needing you so much, and she's simultaneously extremely entitled, demanding, ungrateful and unaccountable.  All her interpersonal relationships are a mess.  Does that sound about right?  If it does, it's because I've lived it.

And now, she's in jail.  Surely she'll blame her ex for calling the cops, and probably you too.  She'll probably try to flip the script and say her ex was violent, using her typical blame-shifting tactics.  Her thinking can be so delusional that she might actually believe her own lies, as she rewrites history and embellishes the story over time.

I think you absolutely did the right thing, refusing to bail out your daughter and aiding the cops in reprimanding her.  If your daughter hasn't learned how to be a civil member of society from her family, in part because of a lifetime of emotional baggage, then she needs remedial help, through some combination of professional intervention from police, doctors,  therapists and/or social workers.  She probably won't learn anything else from you, because she doesn't want to!  Besides, you're probably at the end of your rope.  You've tried everything, and yet nothing seems to work.  Many parents on this site can relate.  Nothing is going to work until your daughter decides to make some changes for the better.  You are not the solution to her problems.  She is.

Maybe now's a good time to try something different.  How about this?  You take care of yourself first.  You've spent a lifetime taking care of your daughter, and now she's an adult (I presume).  You deserve to refocus on yourself, and that starts now.  You focus on your wellness and managing your stress.  You take care of your home, your partner, your job if you have one.  You cultivate your friendships and have time for sound sleep, exercise, hobbies and vacations.  You need to take care of your finances and the other relationships in your life.  In short, you need to model for your daughter what a healthy adult's life looks like.  That does NOT mean your whole life revolves around managing your daughter's toxic BPD behaviors.  It sounds to me like you need a break from that.  My advice?  Take a break!  Take a walk, or an art class, or a swim in the ocean, anything that gets you in a good headspace again.  If you feel good for a few minutes, then you know what works for you, and you repeat it!  How does that sound?  (For me, I found that swimming in my gym's pool was therapeutic.  There was something about the cool water, the sensation of floating, rhythmic strokes and controlled breathing that would help me re-center and reset.  If swimming sounds too challenging, water aerobics is a popular option for all fitness levels, especially if you don't want to get your head wet.)

If you flinch at the sound of a text alert or phone call from your daughter, you take a break and let the calls go to voicemail.  You don't have to be "on call" all the time to bail her out.  Try turning off your phone alerts at night, to protect your rest.

Oftentimes on this site, I recommend trying to slow walk.  That means being less reactive to your daughter, if not emotionally, then by slowing down all your responses to her.  One example might be, if she asks for a money or a favor, your default response is, Let me think about it, I'll let you know next week.  And you buy yourself some time to really think about it, when it's convenient for you--definitely not during your workday or during meals.  In addition, you give her some time and space to try to sort out her own problem first.  Most of all, you don't have to say Yes.  You can say No.  If you don't want to give her money or do the favor, then absolutely say No.  In short, you stop adjusting your schedule on demand to rescue your daughter.

I can tell you that I've skipped vacations, returned early from important events, provided money, free housing and all sorts of physical/logistical/administrative/emotional support to my adult BPD stepdaughter to rescue her, over and over again.  What do I get in return?  More dysfunction, zero gratitude, zero reciprocation, lots of blaming and misplaced anger.  I vowed to myself that I wouldn't let her completely disrupt my life anymore.  I vowed to myself that I wouldn't continue to enable a bizarro world of mixed-up incentives, where her decisions have consequences for my life, while she is shielded from the natural consequences of her own behavior.  There were many times I felt I was trying harder to make a life for her than she was.  Not anymore.

As parents, I think we help more by getting out of her way.  She needs to learn she's responsible for her own life, not her parents.  Maybe we'll  be amenable to support her from time to time, but when she's being respectful, and when helping her fits in our schedule and budget.  We're not dropping/sacrificing everything in our life to bail her out anymore, only to see her give up on herself again AND blame it on us afterwards.  I think resentment and despair are sure signs that we're enabling dysfunctional behavior more than supporting.  Does that make sense?