Teen daughter - possible bpd, false perception, grieving

[Annyah702]

Hello all!  I'm new here.  I'm scared to post, but trying to muster the courage to share my story anyway.  I could use some validation and support as I'm learning to accept that my daughter is gone from my life.

My only child, my daughter, has always struggled with emotional regulation, as a young child she would hurt herself (hit head, stab with pencils) or beat herself up emotionally when she thought she was disappointing us or others.  She didn't know how to deal with big emotions, and I, sadly, was not equipped to help her deal with those big emotions either.  I did my best and what I could, of course - always, but I always felt like I wasn't helping her in the way she needed.  As she moved into pre-teen and teen years, this emotional dysregulation turned into self-harm cutting.  Her moods would swing all over the board - from friendly, happy kid to depressed & withdrawn.  All of this I see now with clarity looking back and it seems to make sense, but at the time, I had no experience with this kind of mental disorder and definitely was not equipped to handle it.   

3 years ago we had a nice fathers day, where she told her step father that he was like a dad to her.  A few days later there was a disagreement I had with the step dad about her (that I was too easy or too soft on her-  which I was because she is so emotionally fragile), the next thing I know I'm getting a call that she's not coming back to my house for the custody swap because the step father makes her "feel uncomfortable."  Of course this launches into police and CPS investigations.  Nothing comes of any of them, and reading all the claims she has made are all claims of perception-  she thinks he looked at her a certain way,  she thinks he was planning to hurt her, she thinks he was trying to touch her. Nothing was actually happening. Conversations she quotes as being inappropriate are taken out of context, cherry picked and spun, and situations were not happening the way she is saying they happened.  But the whole thing makes me feel like I'm CRAZY - and questioning my own reality.  It makes me sounds like THAT MOM siding with an abuser or something, but nothing happened the way she believes.  Now, I'm not saying that I didn't make mistakes as a mom and that step dad didn't make mistakes of course, but nothing like the story she believes.  The terrible part of it all, is that she truly sees it as what is real and what happened, cannot fathom that I didn't see it that way, is not interested to hear any alternative discussion or consider that there could be another way to see the situation.  It kills me to see her hurting so much and so deeply, and I can't do anything to try to fix, help, or offer solutions.  I wanted so much to be able to try to find some type of middle ground, open a dialogue and try to mend, but instead she cut me off.

Over the three years she has been in therapy and working with a psychiatrist going through series of medications to help with her mental instability.  The idea of borderline personality disorder is or has been considered but they don't diagnose that in teens.  Funny enough before it all came down, my daughter tossed out the idea of having this disorder- which I sadly dismissed - honestly thinking it was something else.  Therapists only see her as an "abuse" victim (and look at and treat me like I'm this terrible mother and person) and seem to ignore any idea of bpd, despite her symptoms that all seems to line up neatly.  So 3 years to the day, she tells me that my relationship with her is dead to her, and asked that I stop reaching out or trying to see or spend time with her.  It is not the closure that I wanted for us, but it's the closure that I have for now. 

I'm now working towards a place of acceptance, and yes I have a therapist and have been working with therapists for years.  I'm hurting, grieving again (been grieving for 3 years), feel crazy, feel like "that mom", feel rejected & abandoned by my only child. I feel all this guilt and shame.  No one around me knows what to say or how to help. I magically want someone else to have all the answers to tell me or show me what to do so I understand it all and stop hurting.  I worry that, even though it seems to line up, that it's somehow "just an excuse" to connect the dots to bpd.   I guess what I'm really hoping for, is someone else out there can see me and validate me as not crazy, that yeah it might actually line up, and to hear that I'm NOT that mom.  While I'd love for someone else to magically have all the answers, I know it's something I will have to wade through, but hearing other people's experiences is very validating and support from others who have been hurt in the same ways and understand is also helpful.

Thank you for listening.   

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

[Sancho]

Hello Annyah702 and welcome to the family here. There is so much in your post that people here can identify with: grief, confusion and the feeling that somehow you are going crazy with it all.

Can you give a little more detail about what happened 3 years ago? Did your dd overhear her step father saying you were too lenient?

It is these types of reactions to perfectly legitimate things that seem to be part of BPD. Her step father's opinion can be valid - so can yours. It is difficult to explain to others the tightrope that a parent walks with an emotionally challenged child.

You have walked a tightrope for many years supporting your daughter and at every step you have done the best that you could possibly do. I hope you can move from feeling guilty. We know what that is like because we all feel responsible for our children. But we didn't cause this illness, we can't control the actions of our children and we can't cure it.

Repeating that mantra a million times helped me move away from feeling guilty:
I didn't cause this
I can't control it
I can't cure it

You will read posts here where parents are dealing with extraordinary stories that their bpd child spreads about them and/or other family members, step parent etc. We are drawn into a strange, nightmare world of constantly asking ourselves
what is real?'

I find it helpful to think of one - just one - claim that is being made, that I can demonstrate to myself that it is not true. For example if one claim is supposed to have happened when you are present and you know it didn't happen, remind yourself of this often. It keeps you in reality, because BPD people can flip from reality to fantasy easily - hence 'borderline'.

Unfortunately many therapists simply accept what the client says, and abuse claims trigger processes that can fall short in terms of natural justice. In the case of my bpd dd, stories about me (all false) have given her the attention she craves. I understand how desperate a bpd person can be for attention (a deep, deep need) but it is still hurtful and leaves me feeling powerless as to how to get the truth out there.

Can I ask how old your dd is now?

One thing I had to come to terms with was that I am someone who wants to 'fix it'. So I jumped in often to fix things just so my dd could sort of function. I have had to learn - slowly - to 'let go'. There is a poem I posted here called 'Letting Go' that I found incredibly helpful. The final line is 'To let go is to fear less and to love more'.

I was so fearful for my dd. I had to let go, and accept that I couldn't control things.

Your dd seems now to be enveloped in a lot of attention and part of that attention is your attempts to connect with her. I wonder if she feels you will keep trying to engage with her?

Your dd is still very young and even though this process has been going on for 3 years, I do think it is early days for someone so young.

Hold your head high: you have done all that you possibly could do. In the long run the truth will come out - you do not have to defend yourself. Work hard at 'letting go' and being kind to yourself - you deserve it.