New mom learning about bpd

[Misreadmomma]

Thankful to find this opportunity to learn more about bpd in hopes of gaining communication skills and understanding. My daughter has bpd traits. The whole family is hurting. Just like substance use disorder, it seems to be a family disease. A disease in which each family member can play a role.  It seems as though things we try to communicate to calm our daughter during a situation can exacerbate bpd during conflict. Trying to learn about empathetic listening, but sometimes feeling like I need some acting classes. Cannot channel my most empathetic self while having accusations and angry comments hurled either directly at me or my other family members. As I mentioned earlier, this is suspected bpd and if it is actually bpd, our daughter isn’t aware as far as we know, although she has been in therapy for years. I’ve also been in therapy to cope and son has substance use disorder for all the years of attention being on his sister as he was growing up. It has always been about keeping her calm especially during holidays and special occasions. Now because of the stay at home order, she is living with us again after a year and a half of her being out of the house. It has put an enormous amount of stress on us and our son with suds. He has used again because of stress. He is just now back to being clean. Any more episodes of her pushing him and calling him a little b**** and I’m not sure if his sobriety will last. He’s younger and she sees his substance use as only his problem and wants us to throw him out. We have never told her to go. We have told her we get along better living apart. I learned this can make her feel worse because of possible abandonment fears. My husband and I communicate calmly to her. We have learned that much! And we have stepped it up on active listening. Although no amount of listening ever brings conflict resolution. It seems if we do not agree with what she’s trying to get across, we are not hearing her. If you apologize, the matter still comes up years later. Nothing resolves and she thinks we don’t forgive, but she never lets anyone forget anything. Vacations, birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, weddings, are all stress provoking opportunities for conflict and  meltdowns. I love my daughter and want to see her have a fulfilling life. She wants to marry and have kids, but she had a major meltdown a couple of nights ago and said she was suicidal. We are trying to balance our younger son’s social needs (who has substance use disorder) and her need for health and safety, during heightened anxiety levels due to Covid19. Starting family counseling Monday. Chose someone with bpd experience. Thanks for listening. That feels good to say in a forum where others can understand and give feedback.

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

[mcat1]

Hi new Mom-
We are in a very similar situation. My daughter has struggled since she was a young girl. She will be 20 next month and got a diagnosis about a year ago. Holidays are so difficult and any curve balls thrown in her life are the end of the world. She was at college when our state went into lockdown for Covid and she has been at home since then. She has run the gambit on medications. She just switched to Vyraylar but has hardly slept for a week on it. It is a true roller coaster. Her older sister is in graduate school In another state and generally stays away. Have you had any luck with medications? I am beginning to think we will not find one that will give her ant peace.

[livednlearned]

The whole family is hurting

There's a wonderful chapter in Lobel's When Your Daughter Has BPD about how the disorder impacts the family. I tend to read when I don't understand something, and that book stands out because it takes into account how BPD impacts the family.

For example, he writes:

Individuals with BPD are competitive in most situations. Their fiercely competitive demeanor encourages other family members to become more focused on protecting their personal interests and less focused on sharing with other family members. This is one of the most significant challenges to the family structure as it disintegrates the sense of "we" -- the sense that the family is a collaborative, supportive collective-- and replaces it with "me" -- the sense that each member of the family is alone, unable to depend on the other family members in any significant way, and that everyone is better off that way.

Part of what we do here is figure out ways to reset the family to be more collaborative. It bodes well that you're reaching out and looking for solutions, thinking about the whole family and how to aim for healthy when one member is competing so hard.

Trying to learn about empathetic listening, but sometimes feeling like I need some acting classes. Cannot channel my most empathetic self while having accusations and angry comments hurled either directly at me or my other family members

Validation or empathetic listening does not mean you must endure abuse. What many of us are going for is the creation of a validating environment, or generous listening. Your daughter is in tremendous emotional pain and is trying to get her needs met ineffectively. Validating the emotional pain is good, but allowing the abuse is not. It's tricky to walk that fine line between accepting pain and changing behavior. For the most part, she is going to change in response to the adjustments you make for yourself.

If it is a repeating allegation that has been discussed ad nauseum, it's ok to say, "where do we go from here?"

In an emotional dysregulation her ability to solve problems will be impaired but at least the suggestion that she must do this, and be accountable for her accusations, is a start.

she had a major meltdown a couple of nights ago and said she was suicidal

Anything in particular seem to trigger the meltdown?

How did the family respond?

Be kind to yourself as you go through this skilling up phase, learning how to create win-win situations (which is how Lobel describes them). I am embarrassed how much thought I've put into setting limits and developing win-wins with my stepdaughter (23). You would think I was launching rockets. Self-care is the backbone of all this, making sure you have a full cup of self-compassion so you can bring the full weight of changed behaviors to these challenging relationships.

 

[Misreadmomma]

Hi Mcat1, thanks for your reply. My daughter hasn’t been officially diagnosed with bpd so far as we are aware. She does display traits. The Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde video on bpd family really hit home with me.  
She isn’t on meds. One time long ago a psychiatrist wrote her a prescription for anxiety and she hated not feeling like herself so she went off of the medicine.


I’m sorry to hear your daughter is also struggling during Covid. My daughter sometimes struggles with sleep too.


Sounds like your older child may be enjoying a bit of a break from the family stress. My oldest son just got married mid March. I’m doing my best to give him a break. I want him and his new wife to enjoy getting to know each other without family drama. There was a major blow up due to Covid at their dress rehearsal. My daughter was upset that he didn’t clear that the caterer hadn’t been to Italy recently. She asked him at the alter during dress rehearsal  if he had called the caterer and then pitched a crying fit when he answered he had not had time to call. At that point my son, the groom, calmly asked her to either stop crying or leave. I mean there were 20 people having rehearsal with the wedding director present. She ended up missing the rehearsal. She drove off threatening to not be in the wedding. I asked my son smooth things over with his sister so she would come to the rehearsal dinner after the rehearsal. He had to leave the rehearsal dinner to apologize and retrieve her from the restaurant parking lot.  She was in the wedding the next day.


So Covid anxiety got a major kick off mid March at the wedding, the next day, she proceeded to move out of her home she was renting along with two other girls. She washed and took the silverware right after one of the girls took a fork from her mouth and put it in the sink. She was angry that one of her housemates was putting her at risk by visiting her boyfriend whose roommate was clinically diagnosed with Covid. Not that we don’t understand the anxiety of the situation because we do and we validated her. It’s the fact that she packed all of her things in a huff while wearing earbuds and ignoring her roommates trying to talk things through. Mind you their texts to her had already indicated they didn’t want to change their behavior. Still the inability to have a civil in person (distanced) conversation and leave on good terms or on temporary terms, seems odd to me. There were actually two girls in the house. She had called one of them friend. The other she decided early on was flawed and she couldn’t be friends with. She had left her security system in the house and overheard the roommates for days discussing how awful she was. One asked the other of she could bring a lawsuit against them. She did actually call the police. She was planning to take them to court to get rent money back. As I’ve said, I understand my daughter’s upset at her housemates, but it was handled very abruptly. If she doesn’t agree with you, she cuts you out of her life. There’s no middle ground.

Livednlearned: I wrote this several days ago. I’ll add to this that since writing our daughter has suddenly decided following several counseling sessions to let go of her restrictions on our coming and going in the house. Also following her one on one with our new family counselor, she’s decided to “fire” her in favor of finding someone who listens to her better and validates her more.

In a conversation last night she slipped that she is afraid of being abandoned by her ex boyfriend with whom she’s also recently receiving counseling. I asked about her feelings of abandonment and she said, “due to you not validating my feelings as a child, I have abandonment issues.” She further explained how she had been to my parents house yesterday and brought up a unpleasant childhood memory of mine and she could see how her issues come from me not being validated as a child. Her father and I have gone down lots of her conflict paths with her always siding with her, even paying court fees for her to take out a restraining order on someone before. I’m not sure how that’s not validating her. Also what she doesn’t realize is that at the time it happened, my parents did validate the bad childhood memory of mine she is referencing. They are just 83 years old now and don’t remember the incident! Unbelievable how she’s trying to drive a wedge between me and my elderly parents over a memory I shared with her.

Up until age 10 my daughter was emotionally stable. The only abnormality she had was having headaches and stomach aches starting in first grade. We had to encourage her to not be so hard on herself. By mid school year age 10, 4th grade, we pulled her out to homeschool while trying to figure out the physical and  emotional changes that had taken place in her. She had Lyme (prolonged recovery) at age 10 and didn’t emotionally behave the same afterwards. My therapist believes that the large amount of attention she received as a sick child resulted in throwing our family balance off. She often got her way and has continued throughout the years to use her physical and more recent years emotional state as an excuse to get what she wants or to gain attention. Her brothers suffered the consequence of their big sister’s needs being paramount to anyone else’s. She pitched fits (in the floor) starting at age 10 when we knew after diagnosis that Lyme was ravaging her central nervous system. She’s very physically fit at age 25 now, although she still complains of fibromyalgia type symptoms and migraines. She’s not had an easy road, but unfortunately due to the abundance of attention she received she continues to demand. The new family therapist I mentioned her firing has asked us if anyone has diagnosed her with NPD. During a one on one session, my daughter chewed up and spit out the new therapist. The therapist was visibly rattled and had to take a break between sessions to gather herself. My husband and I had to apologize for all of the hurtful verbal abuse we are sure she took from our daughter in their session. Our daughter is an intellectual personality type. She reads quite a bit and loves to lord her knowledge over others. It was obvious she had been down a convoluted road with the poor therapist.

Now my daughter is insisting on finding a new family therapist. The following journey is how she arrived there.  She had asked to go to my therapist who was once our family therapist. She originally didn’t feel comfortable with her because she claimed she knew me too well, yet suddenly the old therapist was better than the new family therapist. As we were trying to sync schedules to meet with our old therapist,, she’s said she won’t go to her now and she would rather continue with the new therapist. The next day, she exclaimed over text that she is only going to the new therapist due to our need for ease. She is saying it’s so we don’t have to find  another therapist and do  paperwork. Even so, as of last night, she made the announcement she wants a different family therapist, because she says “the new therapist inserted  her own opinions into her therapy session and she shouldn’t have to hold the new therapist during therapy.”

I truly am feeling exasperated. I will say the newly fired family therapist got under her skin enough to show her she needs to move back out. She strongly advocated to our daughter that she needs her own space. My husband and I actually liked the new therapist before finding out how effective she is, but that really amazed us. Now, if our daughter will actually  move out. We truly do all get along better when she’s not here. She contends that conflict is necessary to find your way as a family to close relationship. If conflicts were ever settled that may be true!

Thanks to both of you for your responses! I am open to criticism as to how to post. I don’t have lots of experience with message boards! Trying to lay a background for you to see what we are experiencing. I know my daughter doesn’t have a professional diagnosis of bpd, but the traits do seem prominently present to me.

[livednlearned]

One of the things that's so tough for us is recognizing -- really recognizing -- that you can only change your own behavior.

I did an NEA-BPD workshop and the facilitators talked at length about this. The best way to get your BPD loved one to change is to focus on what you can change, which is you.

It's the biggest bummer ever to realize that you can't actually control anyone else! Otherwise most of us here would be pros at control  

A theme that runs through your examples is triangulation. You are doing and saying things on behalf of your husband, doing and saying things to your son on behalf of your daughter, doing and saying things to daughter on behalf of dad. Daughter wants to do and say things on behalf of her brother...

Triangulation is the root of a lot of conflict. The Karpmann drama triangle was designed to show how it works. The goal for us is to step out of the drama and into healthier roles where people are responsible for their own words and actions.

Thoughts?

[Thebigyellow]

Wow! Thank you, livednlearned. I really needed to see this post today. ❤️