New here… 20 year old daughter w/ BPD

[Heartnouveau23]

Hi everyone,

I’m new here. My beautiful 20 year old daughter has BPD and it breaks my heart. This week I am the target of her wrath. I’m trying to learn about this disorder so I can properly communicate with her in a way that is validating while setting boundaries and not allowing her to annihilate my self esteem in the process. I love her dearly and would do anything for her but right now she I convinced that I don’t even want a relationship with her. The splitting and the projection is almost unfathomable. Anyway. Really grateful to have found this group!

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]

Hi Heartnouveau23 and welcome!
This is a place where people understand just what the journey with a loved BPD child is like on a day to day basis. It is exhausting, sad, challenging and chaotic.

The one thing that you will experience coming here is that you are absolutely not alone in what you are going through. I found that my friends were not able to understand and coming here was the place where I knew I was not alone.

It is a long journey and I can see you are on the right path - words like 'validating' and 'boundaries' are the language of those who live with a BPD loved one.

Just a couple of thoughts: I struggled with the concept of 'boundaries' until I read a post here that commented the boundaries are what YOU need to be able to not only survive but nurture the gift of your own life.

That was a big breakthrough for me. It changed my focus from trying to put up boundaries that DD would break anyway (what do I do then?) to making sure I had what I needed for myself. It's like the advice on the plane 'Put your own oxygen mask on first, then see to your child'.

It's hard to do and it changes as the situation changes with the age of the child and lots of other circumstances. But it really helps.

I notice that you are trying to protect your self esteem. We develop alongside our child from being totally responsible for their wellbeing and happiness, to transferring this responsibility to them. There is such a spectrum in BPD - some people can hold down a job, manage a household and family. Others, like my DD are low functioning and struggle to do any of these things.

When our child with BPD blames us for everything, usually in an intensely emotional outburst of blame and abuse, it is easy to tap into feeling responsible to 'make it better'.

Understanding that this blame and abuse is the nature of the condition - and because it is too painful to accept any blame, it all lands on a 'target of blame' - usually the person who is most caring in their lives, was the next most important thing for me to understand.

I told my DD I wasn't going to respond when she was in that state because it made it worse and she needed time and space for her emotions to reduce. I followed through and surprise - she actually calmed much more quickly.

So it's a journey and a tough one. You are on the right path, and whenever it gets too much (as it does for me frequently) I come here just to reinforce that I am not alone!

[js friend]

Hi Heartnouveau23,

A few things  I used to try with my udd was to use to try to use SET statements to help with validation. Here are a few examples I would often use.

S
Supports the person and demonstrates concern and desire to help, and that you are worried about the person and their feelings.

I want you to feel better.  I care about you. Iam worried about how you are feeling. I want to help you.

E
Communicating to the person that you understand what they are feeling.

How frustrating that must be for you.  I see that you are angry and understand how mad you can get at me.  How frustrating this must be for you. I see that you are struggling with x,y,z

Truth 
Responding to the situation while placing the responsibility with them.

This what I can do. This is what will happen. Remember what happened the last time you felt this way? (or did that) How do you think you can resolve x,y,z?

I have to admit that I had more success using these techniques in emails or texts with my udd rather than face to face because I think  it gave her time to process what I was saying rather than just exploding at me in the moment. Your dd may be totally different. I hope it helps.