11 yo daughter always misinterpret things to be an attack on her

[Parents! Get help here!]

Background:

My daughter has always reacted with fury or anger when I or anyone else say anything that she may interpret as criticism or non-approval of her.

This started when she was a baby before she could walk. If she heard in my voice, or saw in my face, that I did not approve of whatever she was doing, she would clinch her fists, tense up, and scream loudly.
As she got older, she would react to the same situation, with intense anger that "overpowered her".

After 5 years of age things started gradually getting better. She is now 11 and most of the time just walks off and spends some time being alone dealing with her anger in another room.

She is aware of that her incontrollable anger is an issue. When I try to talk about it, she doesn't open up, and if she says something it's something along the lines of "that's just what I'm like".

The sad thing is not that she has these strong reactions to criticism, but rather that she tends to interpret so many things as criticism that are not criticism of her. I.e. she tends to misinterpret all kinds of interactions to mean that she is bad or inferior in some way. This is not only with me, but also with other family members, teachers and friends.

Undoubtedly she has some issues with self esteem. But otherwise she is living a healthy life with fairly ok functioning school, friends and relationships.

Her mum is a highly manipulative narcissist who also has a similar issue of misinterpreting what people say to the worse  (I have the impression there is a personality disorder in play this goes back at least 4 generations).


Question:

What can I do to help my daughter stop misinterpreting so many things to mean that there is something wrong with her or what she does?

[DadStruggling]

Background:

My daughter has always reacted with fury or anger when I or anyone else say anything that she may interpret as criticism or non-approval of her.

This started when she was a baby before she could walk. If she heard in my voice, or saw in my face, that I did not approve of whatever she was doing, she would clinch her fists, tense up, and scream loudly.
As she got older, she would react to the same situation, with intense anger that "overpowered her".

After 5 years of age things started gradually getting better. She is now 11 and most of the time just walks off and spends some time being alone dealing with her anger in another room.

She is aware of that her incontrollable anger is an issue. When I try to talk about it, she doesn't open up, and if she says something it's something along the lines of "that's just what I'm like".

The sad thing is not that she has these strong reactions to criticism, but rather that she tends to interpret so many things as criticism that are not criticism of her. I.e. she tends to misinterpret all kinds of interactions to mean that she is bad or inferior in some way. This is not only with me, but also with other family members, teachers and friends.

Undoubtedly she has some issues with self esteem. But otherwise she is living a healthy life with fairly ok functioning school, friends and relationships.

Her mum is a highly manipulative narcissist who also has a similar issue of misinterpreting what people say to the worse  (I have the impression there is a personality disorder in play this goes back at least 4 generations).


Question:

What can I do to help my daughter stop misinterpreting so many things to mean that there is something wrong with her or what she does?

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

[Swimmy55]

Welcome .
 we understand here , you are not alone.  While it won't be possible for you to change her mindset , you can modify your reactions to her.  The two pronged approach would be to read up on BPD while at the same time figuring out how to best respond to your daughter.  Or even trying to figure out what exactly is going on with her.  She is 11, so that is the "tween" period of time where hormones are starting to churn and that is going to add to this stew within her. 

I also would strongly recommend obtaining the help of  school child psychologist to see/ talk to your daughter .  You could run this by them and see what they say.  There is a chance that if she's not disruptive/her schoolwork is not suffering , they won't pursue this, but it's worth a try.  Or they can maybe point you toward some resources.   The next step would be to maybe talk to your local crisis center- not because there is a crisis , but they do have a info on community resources and psychs .  They could even be available to talk to your daughter over the phone .
 Here is some suggested reading from this site as well.
https://bpdfamily.com/content/treatment-borderline-personality-disorder

There are tools in the drop down box you could read through as well on communication.   
Please write back here as often as you need.
 

[Sancho]

I agree with Swimmy that it would be really good to get advice/help from professional people especially given that there is a family history of personality disorder and she has had these responses since very young.

I have been concerned about my 11 year old GD recently - her mum is very BPD - as she shows strong attention seeking patterns.  I had been reading this article:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/the-intelligent-divorce/201510/the-borderline-daughter

A lot of the battles I have had with GD are to do with her taking responsibility for just little things. Anyway, I was so fed up with these battles, I actually sat her down and said that I was trying to help her become independent - read her just a couple of selective bits from this article.

Her response was a bit reactive at first, but I have to say there has been quite a change.

Soo I am wondering if something like this might help your daughter? It might not be easy to have a sit down chat - she might react after half a sentence and storm off - perhaps you could write a few lines.

Just a thought - but I do think to get advice at this stage might be really helpful in the long run.

[DadStruggling]

I agree with Swimmy that it would be really good to get advice/help from professional people especially given that there is a family history of personality disorder and she has had these responses since very young.

I have been concerned about my 11 year old GD recently - her mum is very BPD - as she shows strong attention seeking patterns.  I had been reading this article:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/the-intelligent-divorce/201510/the-borderline-daughter

A lot of the battles I have had with GD are to do with her taking responsibility for just little things. Anyway, I was so fed up with these battles, I actually sat her down and said that I was trying to help her become independent - read her just a couple of selective bits from this article.

Her response was a bit reactive at first, but I have to say there has been quite a change.

Soo I am wondering if something like this might help your daughter? It might not be easy to have a sit down chat - she might react after half a sentence and storm off - perhaps you could write a few lines.

Just a thought - but I do think to get advice at this stage might be really helpful in the long run.

Thank you for the link Sancho. Looks very interesting since it's so specifically about daughters ! Look forward to reading it.

You mention your GD. Sounds like she is lucky to have you in her life

My mother has been great for my daughter by just being a safehaven of stability and calm. Someone who always takes her side, and spoils her rotten. It's great when you grandparents can compensate for the shortcomings of us parents.

[DadStruggling]

Thanks Swimmy
Your advice is good, and the link with resources was interesting.
I've read every book and forum there is on BPD while trying to deal with my daughters mother.
Also exhausted every route of help via school or health-clinic. However, they are busy with kids with worse problems/more violent...so did not have time for my daughter.
Once I get money I'll pay for private therapist.

[Swimmy55]

One thing to consider- when I contacted  the local crisis center, they had a list of a couple of " sliding scale" psychs- these professionals were willing to accept whatever the patient could afford based on income.  May be worth checking out. 

[PearlsBefore]

Not telling you anything you don't already know, but yeah - she has an NPD mother, she's used to hearing loaded comments that "sound sweet" but are actually criticisms...and therefore she interprets everything she hears with a similar lens - her self-esteem says you probably hate her, probably think her dress is ugly, therefore when you say you like her shoes you must be dissing her dress.

There was once an 11-year old with a similar tendency with a really unhealthy family-of-origin; her mother, father and older sister were all diagnosed so there was a whole mosaic of mental health issues, although she got depressed and miserable rather than angry. The best somebody could do for her was things like make a point of inviting her to play boardgames , and when she or a relative said no she wasn't playing tonight they'd excuse themselves and say they were going to go do something else because really mostly hopied to see her winning Parcheesi strategies like last time how she escaped the blockade and wasn't so interested in seeing everybody else's playing styles. Cheesy, but cheesy works on an 11-year old still.

Even if she didn't always play, a year or two of this really helped her self-esteem.

Now, in fairness it wasn't a perfect strategy and had some roadbumps, but I'm happy to report these days she's been married for three years, has a child and is seemingly the success story of the family.

Where you're the father it'll be more difficult because she'll assume you're doing it out of pity and you're just required to show her love, etc...so if possible you might want to conspire with a family friend.

[DadStruggling]

The best somebody could do for her was things like make a point of inviting her to play boardgames , and when she or a relative said no she wasn't playing tonight they'd excuse themselves and say they were going to go do something else because really mostly hopied to see her winning Parcheesi strategies like last time how she escaped the blockade and wasn't so interested in seeing everybody else's playing styles. Cheesy, but cheesy works on an 11-year old still.

@PearsBefore

THANK YOU! I cannot tell you how much your reply resonated with me in terms of being relatable to my daughter. Even down to the unimportant detail of the particular boardgame (Parcheesi).

And I do definitely know what you mean about "conspiring" to positively influence her. However, I failed to understand your example above (the text I quoted above). If you don't mind, could you please explain with other words?

Also, I'm more than interested in anything else you would be willing to share that could help!

Thank you

[PearlsBefore]

You've got a PM giving more detail - since this forum is terrible at highlighting private mail arriving, you can click https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?action=pm to see it; I think new mail is at the bottom not the top.