Am I the reason my daughter has bpd?

[mamalynn]

I may have used this forum before several years ago, I'm not sure, but feel in the need of encouragement. My 30 y.o. adult daughter is currently receiving therapy for bpd. We (her parents) are paying her copays for therapy and medical needs as she is not currently working. She is being supported by her boyfriend for most living costs (we pay car insurance and for her phone). She lives in another state. When she is splitting, particularly if I have said something to upset her, she verbally attacks me (usually by text) saying I am the reason she is the way she is and why she has bpd. She also cusses me out, and says other cruel things about me. I usually do not respond, and if it gets too bad, will block her for a few days. I have a hard time accepting that I am the cause of her bpd. We adopted her as a baby, and she does have attachment issues, but we had a fairly normal, loving family life, stable marriage, no alcohol or drug abuse, no physical, sexual or emotional abuse. She has 2 brothers, 3 and 5 years older than she is, who basically got along with typical sibling squabbles. As far as we are aware, there were no major traumas. I was by no means perfect, but read a lot of parenting books, sought therapy for her and myself as issues developed, and honestly do not believe my husband or I mistreated her in any way. Yet it seems I am the root of all her problems.
My husband is 81 and has kidney cancer, and is awaiting surgery. Before he was diagnosed, my daughter announced her engagement and wants to come home for the wedding. We have offered to pay for the wedding with a small budget, and I have tried very hard to help by sending information on venues and caterers she expressed interest in, giving her several options from which to pick, and putting deposits down. Now she is saying that I am doing everything my way (I truly am not!) She and her boyfriend would break up every two or three weeks, and she would call and tell me the wedding was off (so he could hear her telling me), and he would tell her he was leaving, and then a few days later everything would be okay. I set a boundary saying they could call and vent if they were arguing, but I did not want to keep hearing about the wedding being called off if they wanted me to put money down for deposits. They did pretty well for awhile, but recently did it again. I ignored it, and let things settle, then reminded her that I didn't want to hear it which is why she is currently angry with me accusing me of threatening her (I just don't want to keep spending money on a wedding that may or may not take place.) Now she's saying I'm the one who wanted the wedding and I'm making all the choices - ??? what? I don't even like her choice of caterer, but never even expressed an opinion on it, just kept saying it was up to her, and the one she chose was fine! Now I don't know if the wedding is on or off, if she wants it or not, or if I just need to bow out of it altogether. So far, if I cut my losses it will only be about $3000. Do I just wait until she is over her current hatred of me, and wait until she starts reaching out again acting as if none of the past week and the horrible things she has said happened? I am not inclined to just give her the rest of the money I had budgeted because if the wedding does go on, the vendors will need to be paid the balance of what is owed, and there are still major details and things that need to be paid for. And she has no idea what things cost, and we are not rich people. I truly have not been the one making the choices, and I don't know why she says I have. At this point, I'm just sick to death of the whole thing, and with needing to take care of my husband, don't have the energy to deal with her bpd.
Any suggestions?

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

[CC43]

Hi Mama,

I'm glad you found us and have returned.  That your daughter is 30 and hasn't made much progress with therapy probably means you've dealt with her dysfunction for a decade or more.  You're probably distraught, exhausted, financially drained, disappointed, fed up and fearful, too.

You ask, did you cause BPD?  The simple answer is that you did not.  Since your dear daughter is adopted, there's not even a chance of a genetic proclivity inherited from you that could predispose her to super-sensitivity.  Now, I bet that your daughter's standard response to any push-back from you is to blame you.  Rest assured, you are not to blame.  Shifting blame and avoiding responsibility are classic BPD behaviors.

I've written here several times that I think the victim attitude is the worst part of BPD, because it renders your daughter helpless and feeling not responsible for her own life.  She's so busy blaming others for her cruddy life that she barely spends any time working on herself.  Does your daughter have trouble finishing school, keeping a job, keeping her environment tidy, looking after herself?  Do her relationships look chaotic?  Does she spend more time hating other people than trying to be nice?  That's all classic BPD.  And rest assured, you have NOTHING to do with her not studying, not working, not picking up after herself, eating poorly, lashing out at her friends, etc.  Those are all her choices, correct?  My guess is that you've worked harder on creating a nice life for your daugher than your own daugher has, out of a sense of love, fear, obligation and guilt.  But here's the thing:  your daugher is an adult now, you can't control her decisions, let alone fix her life.  Only your daughter can do that.  So stop blaming yourself, and stop listening your daughter's attempts to blame you, OK?

If you want to know what's bugging your daughter, I think you listen to the feelings behind her accusations.  For example, if she's saying that the wedding's off, and it's your fault, my guess is that she feels extremely insecure in her relationship with her fiance, probably because she's been acting badly, but won't apologize.   If she's accusing you of being too controlling, I think that's code for your daughter feeling like she doesn't have any control over her own life.  Do you see what I mean here?  Typically her accusations will be projections of her own ill feelings.

And now a few words about money.  My guess is that your daughter has been asking you for financial help, especially to make large "investments" based on future promises.  Examples might be tuition, money for a job training program, money to help her move to another state, and yes, money for a wedding.  Of course, your daughter is extremely impatient, and she demands the money right away, without showing any ability to save up for things herself or pay any meaningful percentage herself.  When your daughter's life looks disordered, I think there's a huge risk that your money will be flushed down the toilet.  Basically, any grand "investment" in her "future" is setting herself up to fail.  Why?  Because her life is too disordered right now, and she has no skin in her own game of life.  Let me guess:  your daughter has a long track record of quitting.  She might move far away, with money/co-signing/your logistical help with moving, to a place where she doesn't have a support system.  In a few weeks, she'll need you to "rescue" her.

Look, your daughter is 30 now.  If she wants to move somewhere, she needs to make it happen herself.  Ditto if she wants to enroll in school, buy an apartment, buy a new car, get a new job, etc.  I'd say, if you don't want to flush your hard-earned money down the toilet, then she should be paying for some of her own wedding.  Maybe what you do is establish a total wedding budget, and you let her spend it however she wants.  She could elope and keep the wedding budget if she wanted.  She could pay for a venue and then cancel the reservation if she wanted.  Just make sure that SHE bears the consequences of misspending, not you.

Sometimes I think that adults with BPD never got the memo that adulthood means taking responsibility for oneself.  Or maybe, your daughter got the memo but decided to crumple it up and throw it back in your face.  My opinion is at age 30, your daughter needs to start being responsible for herself, and that your role as a parent needs to evolve.  You don't exist to ease your daughter's distress and fix your daughter's problems, because if you don't get out of her way, she'll never learn.  I think it's time you re-focus on yourself, your husband and your home.  Goodness, you and your husband are dealing with sickness.  You need to focus on your health, your financial wellness, and enjoying retirement.  You need time for friends and hobbies too.  Your whole life shouldn't revolve around worrying about and rescuing your adult BPD daughter.  Basically I think you should model for your daughter what a healthy adult's life looks like.  And instead of playing the role of punching bag/ATM/fixer, you become a cheerleader from the sidelines.  You give advice only when asked.  You stay out of squabbles between your daugher and her fiance.  And you set a wedding budget, based on what you can afford to see get flushed down the toilet, and you stick to it.  If your daughter throws a hissy fit about the budget, then you just shrug and know that her reaction is called an extintion burst, an amping up of BPD behaviors designed to get you to cave.  But you're not going to cave, because you are putting yourself first, and your role of rescuer Mom has finished, and your daugher needs to learn some responsibility.  That starts today, OK?

[CC43]

P.S.

I see that you're paying for your daughter's phone.  That indirectly tells me that she has zero responsibilities for her own spending.  I'd say, the first thing you do is make your daughter pay for her own phone.  Surely she could do some sort of easy work--dog walking, babysitting, running errands for a neighbor, whatever--to earn money for a phone.  By the same token, she could decide not to work at all and go without a phone, that's her choice.  If she really needed to do something online, she could use her local library's computers for free.  Now, you might worry about your daughter going without food, shelter or therapy, but my strong opinion is that you should NOT be paying for any of her luxuries--phone, streaming services, manicures, marijuana.  Even if a "family" phone plan is cheaper, that doesn't matter!  Your daughter needs to pay for her own phone and start being responsible for some expenses.  She's 30.  Please, take her off your plan.  You might think, you need to know where she is.  Well, you don't.  She's 30.  If there's an emergency, she can ask her fiance (or a neighbor) to dial 911 for her.

[ForeverDad]

As already mentioned, Blaming and Blame Shifting are typical behaviors of these acting-out disorders.  Don't let her guilting get to you.  Remember the acronym for BPD "FOG" ... Fear, Obligation, Guilt.

While I don't keep track of published statistics, I believe there are three general categories of what causes the Borderline traits to become so abnormal:

• Environment (family, etc)
• Genetic inclination
• Unknown

Think of all the millions of children who grew up in dysfunctional families and devastating circumstances.  Many seem to do just fine or nearly so.  What causes one child to crack and yet another child faces and overcomes the hurdles?  Sometimes it's just a mystery.

Likely if she would have responded positively, she would have improved and recovered long ago.  But BPD is a particularly sticky disorder and so very difficult to overcome.  You can't fix her but you can point the way, well, if she will let you.  The rest has to be up to her.

PwBPD typically can't truly listen to those emotionally closest to them due to the amount of emotional baggage (for them) of the close relationship.  That's why someone trained and not part of the family FOO can sometimes make progress where you couldn't.  That's why we encourage therapy as sometimes getting results.

She is an adult and needs to put on her Big Girl pants.  That said, you can't make her become mature and make her transform her life into a productive one.  You can nudge her in that direction but you'll need to set boundaries for protecting yourself and not enabling her.

[CC43]

I believe there are three general categories of what causes the Borderline traits to become so abnormal:

• Environment (family, etc)
• Genetic inclination
• Unknown

Hi again,

In my humble opinion, there's a fourth category indirectly causing Borderline traits to become "abnormal" and over-the-top, which is indulgence.  I think the indulgence rests both with the pwBPD, as well as with enabling, well-meaning family members and loved ones.

By indulgence, I mean systematically protecting the pwBPD from experiencing the natural consequences of her own decisions, and getting in the way of her learning about real life.  Part of this involves "indulging" in a woe-is-me, everyone-is-against-me, life-is-unfair, I'm-a-victim-of-neverending-traumas narrative.  I've seen the pwBPD in my life appear to curl up in a ball and wrap herself in a blanket of negative thinking, rotting in bed and avoiding the "real world."  Though she was miserable, she was content enough with the status quo--of lying in bed, months on end, thinking she was mistreated and that the world conspired against her.  Since she had her phone for entertainment, as well as spending money to buy marijuana and treats, she stayed in her room for 23.5 hours a day.  I think that's indulgence because if a "normal" person tried that, they couldn't afford a phone and an internet connection, let alone a roof over their head and take-out.  Even in a homeless shelter, people aren't allowed to lie in bed all day.

I know this might sound harsh, but loving parents are typically enablers of this dysfunctional behavior.  For as long as you pay for rent, car insurance, health insurance, groceries, phone service and probably a long list of other incidentals, your adult child isn't going to change.  In fact, she is likely to get worse in my opinion.  Why?  Because her budget only increases, and she's become accustomed to the status quo, of not taking responsibility for her life and letting others take care of her.  She thinks that you OWE her, and because you're willing to pay for everything, then it's proof that you are to BLAME.  The longer you over-function for your adult child with BPD, the more "behind" and inferior she will feel relative to her peers--siblings, cousins, other people her age.  The further "behind" she gets, the more shame she'll feel when she finally attempts adulting.  Since fear of failue (and rejection) is overwhelming, what does she do?  She quits before she even starts trying.  Avoidance is her go-to coping strategy.  It's way easier to demand payment from you, while resenting you for making her feel so dependent on you!  In a sad way, her life is really "working" for her, mainly because YOU are doing all the work.  And none of this is going to change until you stop enabling, and you let your adult child experience "real life."  She will probably have to hit bottom before she realizes that she has to take therapy seriously and make some positive changes in her life.  It can be done, and my opinion is, the sooner the better, before bad habits become too ingrained.  She has a chance at 30, especially if she doesn't have any kids yet.

I know, there's a fine line between enabling and supporting your kid.  I think many parents come here wondering where to draw that line.  But I think if your kid isn't working on herself and isn't treating you right, and you're giving her money for luxuries anyway, then you are teaching her that it's OK to give up on her life and abuse you too.  Is that the lesson you want her to learn?  Now maybe you're wealthy, and you have the money to spare, and you can't live with yourself if you let your daughter "live on the streets."  In that scenario, you'd be spending money to assuage your own feelings of guilt and responsibility.  Or maybe you're paying your daughter's rent so that she has a roof over her head, but doesn't have live with you, because living with her makes you miserable.  I understand those feelings, I do.  I'll just say that with the pwBPD in my life, kicking her out my home after a period of freeloading and not being respectful was perhaps one of the better moves in her life, because she was finally forced to start living an adult's life.  She was forced to get a job, find her own living situation, make some mistakes, but also to figure out how to move forward on her own.  Though it was surely difficult at first, she's in a better place today than she has ever been.  I wish the situation hadn't become so toxic as to require an "eviction," but with BPD, life tends to be experienced in extremes, and it probably had to happen.

[Pook075]

I know, there's a fine line between enabling and supporting your kid.  I think many parents come here wondering where to draw that line. 

For me, that line was so very clear- yes means yes, no means no.  I ALWAYS SAID YES but with strings attached to normal everyday life.  You want to go spend time with friends?  No problem.  Just clean up your room before you go.  Now, it's not on me anymore...it's on the kid to be responsible and helpful, or stay home.  I was fine either way.

However, my BPD wife enabled my BPD daughter by playing referee.  I'm so sorry dad is so strict, he doesn't understand what it's like to be a teenager.  But I absolutely did understand, I had a great time as a teen, but my room was clean before I left the house because my mom never would have let me go otherwise.

What I didn't realize was that my wife also had BPD, although looking back it was crystal clear.  Still, I did the best I could as a parent to be loving and prepare my kids for the world.  It is a tough balance but every therapist said not to walk on eggshells.

Do I think my BPD kid would be different today if her BPD mom didn't always give in and reward her for bad behavior?  Probably.  But I don't blame myself and I don't blame my ex-wife either.  We did the best we could in a really difficult circumstance and our BPD kid was going to always try to take every possible inch she could.  I really don't know that it would have made much of a difference because the kid was iron-willed and refused to ever back down from anything- she'd rather die then give into an ultimatum, regardless of hot trivial it was (like, clean the trash out your car or you're not driving it anymore).

If i had to do it all over again, I honeslty would be more strict.  I would never pay for car insurance, cell phone, etc...my BPD kid would have had a job the day she turned 16 and she would have handled her finances however she wanted.  That sounds mean, but that would have actually helped her a lot today at 27...she's just now starting to figure out a budget.

[CC43]

If i had to do it all over again, I honeslty would be more strict.  I would never pay for car insurance, cell phone, etc...my BPD kid would have had a job the day she turned 16 and she would have handled her finances however she wanted.  That sounds mean, but that would have actually helped her a lot today at 27...she's just now starting to figure out a budget.

I totally agree with you here Pook.  I grew up with tons of chores, probably more than the average kid.  I had to work to earn money for luxuries.  I had summer jobs from the time I was old enough to get one.  I feel like I worked hard for what I wanted, but I also valued what I worked for all the more.  And you know what?  By doing so many chores throughout childhood, and by having summer jobs, I mastered them.  I knew from a young age what home ownership entailed, from daily cleaning to mowing to fixing toilets to sanding floors to spackling and painting to staining the deck to shoveling snow to sealcoating the driveway.  I folded laundry for as long as I can remember; I ironed from age 10.  I did tons of babysitting--bathing my younger siblings, making their beds, dressing them, diapering, potty training them in the summer, breaking up their squabbles, reading to them, picking up their toys, the works.  I clipped coupons, helped with the weekly supermarket shopping, knew exactly how much food cost and helped prepare meals, learning cooking with repeated practice.  I worked to earn spending money, including money for books, transportation, a phone in my dorm room, etc.--I knew how to budget.  I filled out my own 1040s from age 16 onwards, on paper (before the age of TurboTax), because my dad insisted that I learn how to file my taxes.  If I didn't have enough money for something I wanted, I'd have to wait and save up for it, sometimes for a year or more.  My parents did pay for college tuition, and that was a huge gift, to be able to go to college and focus on studying during the school year, instead of holding a full-time job year-round.  Like you, I had fun as a teen, but I absolutely had to complete my chores first, otherwise my dad wouldn't agree to drive me anywhere.  The unspoken rule was, everyone has to help out, and help each other, to make the household run.  In the process, kids learn responsibility and basic life skills.  The bonus is that college seemed like a cakewalk to me, given a vast reduction in my household duties, since I lived on campus.  All of the sudden, I had oodles of time for actual study.  I loved it!

The contrast with the young adult pwBPD in my life is striking.  She had ZERO chores growing up.  She was allowed to have her room "however she wanted," which was invariably a mess, including taking the drawers completely out of her dresser and leaving them in the middle of the floor amidst a pile of clothes and trash(?!?).  Even though there were hooks and towel bars in her bathroom, she always left her wet towels on the floor; and even though there was a bathroom trash basket, the trash ended up on the floor, too.  There was only a 50% chance that she'd flush the toilet after using it.  Honestly, she grossed me out.  Maybe some of this behavior was passive-aggressive, I don't know.  But she was a slob wherever she lived in her early adulthood--it wasn't just limited to when she lived with me and her dad.

Alas, she didn't really have summer jobs, because she wanted her summers off, as a reward for studying during the school year.  This persisted into her college years, even when she withdrew from college multiple times--she still wanted to go on Spring Break and have her summer "off."  And you know what?  I think she lost many opportunities in her teens and early adulthood to learn basic life skills, like being responsible for completing household tasks (even when she didn't want to), taking care of her environment and saving and budgeting.  She had trouble with entry-level jobs in her mid-20s, I think because she was so passive and unaccustomed to working.  She didn't know how to figure out what needed to be done, or how to lend a hand to her workmates, by the sound of things.  She didn't really know the value of money, either, because she hadn't earned much of anything.  One time she blew my mind, asking for a $5,000 designer handbag for Christmas, in an impractical white and feather design, and I was thinking, does she have any idea how long it would take to save up that amount of money, for such a frivolous item?  Meanwhile, she wouldn't go with her parents to the grocery store, or help unpack the groceries, let alone lend a hand with dinner, or set the table, or clear the dishes, or wipe down the counters or stovetop.  So when it came time for her to undertake some of these responsibilities in her mid-20s, in her dorm or apartment, she was clueless.  When she lived with roommates, she discovered that other people wouldn't tolerate her messiness/unhelpfulness/apparent laziness and bad temper, and she would be kicked out.  She didn't know how to budget, either.  She couldn't tolerate waiting for something she wanted, let alone work consistently to save up over time.  Ditto going to the grocery, meal planning and preparation, and so she ordered DoorDash and UberEats, and wondered why she would run out of spending money so quickly . . .

That's a long-winded way of saying that by skipping chores and part-time jobs growing up, in the name of reducing familial stress, tension and outbursts from her, has some long-term impacts.  There are some obvious effects like reduced comptence with "adulting," but I think that's just a small part of the issue.  After all, it doesn't take that long to learn how to cook or clean or do laundry or waitress in my opinion--I worked as a waitress too, I'm not disparaging honest work!  I think the bigger issue is a negative mindset--one of feeling entitled instead of empowered, feeling overwhelmed instead of competent, feeling aggrieved instead of dealing with life's nuissances, feeling resentful instead of responsible, feeling confused instead of confident, conflating wants with needs, prioritizing what is easy and fun instead of what's healthy but hard, prioritizing leisure over work.

Anyway, I think that age-appropriate chores and jobs are basically training for adulthood.  By not having chores or age-appropriate paid work as a kid, she missed out on years of basic training in my opinion, and with that, she lacks the scaffolding of healthy habits and the positive mindset that would help her accomplish her goals.  She lacks experience.  She lacks grit.  She lacks patience.  She lacks conflict-resolution skills.  She lacks planning and time-management skills.  She lacks the confidence that comes with years of overcoming minor challenges, snags, failures and discomforts in low-stakes environments, like in the home and teenage jobs.  She doesn't know that she can handle most problems thrown her way, because she lacks practice.  The result?  She feels "behind."  She feels inferior.  She feels upset.  She resists taking responsibility.  Add to the mix her BPD challenges of emotional immaturiity and instability, and adult life seems impossibly overwhelming to her.  It's no wonder she completely fell apart in her early 20s.  It was just too much, because she was unprepared.

[Pook075]

I totally agree with you here Pook.

Me too, I started a job on my 15th birthday, which was the first possible day to work in my state.  But even before then, I cut lawns in the neighborhood, took care of animals, helped neightbors with manual labor, etc.  I wanted that money so I could spend it on whatever I wanted.

This generation is built different and i think the internet/social media/technology has a lot to do with that.  It's crushed work ethics in general so it's not strictly a BPD thing.  But since I raised two kids close in age, I could clearly see the differences.  One had a healthy fear of respecting mom/dad, being corrected, and doing the right thing.  The other wasn't going to be told what to do no matter what.  If you punished her, then her life's mission became punishing you harder.  And this started at like 6.

How could we have fixed that?  Honestly, I have no idea.  I tried being compassionate, I tried screaming, I tried every possible thing I could think of.  Nothing changed my kid's iron will; she was like a super-villian in that way.  If I really wanted her to do something, all I had to do was ask her once or twice, then follow up with, "That's okay, I knew you couldn't do it anyway."  Then she'd move Heaven and Earth to prove me wrong.

Her whole life's mission from maybe 8 to 18 was, "Prove dad wrong."

Looking back, I see that I had to be the bad guy.  That's the only thing that kept her off the streets or in jail.  I was the one constant in her life that never backed down, never gave into her antics.  She hated me deeply, but that's the role I had to play for her to learn some semblance of responsibility.  I don't regret it at all.