Adult daughter with BPD

[Charmingbilly]

I have an adult daughter with BPD.  She has just called me and told me what an awful person I am.  She blames me for the poor  relationship we have but she will not even talk to me, answer my calls or emails.  Contact with her leaves me so upset I become physically ill.  Help

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

[Harri]

Hi charmingbilly and welcome to the board.  I am sorry for what brings you here but glad you found us. 

It is so hard when they blame us but won't even talk with us about it. 

Is most of  your contact through phone call and text?  How old is she?  Is she diagnosed?

I hope you share more of your story.  In the meantime, please feel free to check out the lessons tacked at the top of the board and jump in and post to others.

Again,

[Charmingbilly]

Thank you so very much for replying. I just feel soo alone.  She is 51, married {at least for the moment} has two children, one girl 16 and one boy 13.  I am old and tired having raised 5 children by myself as my husband , their father, died of cancer while they were still in school.  I am a retired professional and am financially stable.  Contact with my daughter is mostly by phone or email.  I did go to a family christmas party at her home last week and it went fairly well. It gave me some hope that we might be able to have a decent relationship.  I called hoping to make some progress but she did not return my call until late at night and then said she had said everything to me that she had to say and talking to me was causing her stress so she was hanging up the phone.  I am beyond frustration.  I have no one to counsel me. HELP

[Only Human]

Hi Charmingbilly 

I join Harri in welcoming you to BPD Family. You are not alone here, there are many parents here in similar situations as you are.

We can support you and help you learn ways to cope, to take care of yourself.

I can relate to feeling physically ill after interacting with my 25-year-old daughter with BPD (DD25). It's taken me a long time and a lot of work to begin to feel better and I thank my therapist (T) and especially BPD Family for holding me up in my darkest times.

Raising 5 children alone must have been exhausting; you deserve to have a peaceful retirement. There is hope for a decent relationship with your DD.

Has she been diagnosed? If so, when? If not, besides the obvious blaming you for your poor relationship, are there other behaviors that lead you to believe she has BPD traits?

Again, welcome to the family 

~ OH

[Feeling Better]

Hello Charmingbilly,

I would like to join Harri and Only Human in welcoming you here.

I am sorry to hear that you feel so alone 

Do you have any support from your other four children, are they aware of your daughter’s behaviour?

Here is a link that you might find useful:

If your current approach isn’t working, change it

I look forward to hearing more from you x 

[Harri]

Hi CharmingBilly.  Let me joining Feeling Better and Only Human in saying that we can support you here.  You most definitely are not alone in this.

One thing that I found to be very helpful was to learn about the behaviors associated with the disorder.  Understanding what was driving the behaviors, things like emotional dysregulation, projection, splitting, feeling invalidated, etc all helped me to take things less personally with my pwBPD (person with BPD).  Depersonalizing the behaviors and seeing them as stemming from the pwBPD rather than as a result of who I m, made a huge difference and allowed me to focus on better ways to respond rather than reacting.  It is hurtful when they lash our and accuse and blame, but just because they do so does not mean it is true and it does not mean we have to accept it.  

What we can do is learn better ways to interact and communicate with them.  Feeling Better gave you a great link that has several articles that can help.  Changing things will take time and work but it can be done and things can often improve.  We have to put the focus on us and changing how we interact as we are the only ones we can change.  It took time for things to get the way they are and it is going to take time to see significant change but it can be done.

Make sense?