Family breakdown.

[Lilybet]

My daughter has NPD and BPD and she has poisoned my son and his wife (around whom I have had to walk on eggshells for years) against me. I have tried to reconcile because they are my children but everything has failed and I feel I must accept that they don’t like, let alone love me and move on. I blamed myself, my marriage breakup and my nervous and sensitive personality. I have been in therapy, read self-help books and have my faith but I feel like a flawed person though I have improved over the years.

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 Lilibet
I can hear the pain as you describe what is happening to you and your family. BPD is a complex illness with so many dimensions that affect all those around them.

It is hard to comprehend the nature of this illness, particularly as the person most supportive ends up being the one demonised by the BPD child. Your dd can't really bear to see you paying attention to your son and his wife, so she turns them against you. It is hard to believe that this is actually part of the disorder of the bpd mind.

When we don't understand we can easily look to ourselves for the cause of the problem: my marriage broke down, my personality is too sensitive etc. It is easier to feel this way too, because BPD folk can't bear to look at their failings (it would be so intense they can't do it) so they transfer their failing onto another - usually the one who has been the most faithful caregiver.

I would love so much to help you see that it is not that you are not liked, not loved or a 'flawed person. It is BPD that is the cause of this situation - not you.

So many people here are in the same position as yourself - but they are all different to you and every one has had their own life journey. But we are all experiencing at least some of what you describe - because it is what BPD is and looks like in daily life.

I hope you hold your head high. You are not a flawed person - you have done all that you can, and you have done this in a loving and caring way. I have had quite a bit of experience with people with mental health problems and I truly believe BPD is the most difficult, complex condition of them all.

I am glad that you are making progress and I hope you are able each day to remind yourself you didn't cause this, you can't control it and you can't cure it.

You have done all that you can.

they don’t like, let alone love me and move on. I blamed myself, my marriage breakup and my nervous and sensitive personality. I have been in therapy, read self-help books and have my faith but I feel like a flawed person though I have improved over the years.