Introduction

I am the mother of a 29 year old married daughter who has a diagnosis of BPD. She is the last of seven children and began to exhibit characteristics in puberty. As a teen, her friends were African refugees with gang connections. She overdosed on aspirin when she was a senior. She moved out at 18 and was essentially homeless for about a year. After she moved out I discovered that she had been stealing my check pads and writing checks to herself to the tune of about $6,000 over a three year period. Yeah, I'm an idiot for not balancing my statements. She then moved to Las Vegas and ended up with a pimp. She was raped a couple of times and attempted suicide at which time we flew her home. She then met her husband and marriage has settled her down some. She has been married 8 years and has a six year old daughter. This sounds good, but it isn't. At first they beat each other up when they fought, which was often. Now they are just extremely verbally abusive. They both have good jobs and have been employed long term in the same places, but have chronic financial problems. We bought them a condo to live in to provide stability for our granddaughter but our being their landlord is difficult. Just before Christmas she googled her medications to find out the least lethal and how many she could take and survive. She wrote a suicide note on Facebook and took the pills at work. They called the ambulance and she was hospitalized for four days, then released on new medications. They seemed to be working better, but Christmas morning she discovered that her husband was being unfaithful so we have all been in a tailspin since. Today she and her daughter are driving to Colorado to stay with our son and little family, to escape her husband. My son wants to talk to her. He is a very calm. successful and intelligent man, but I'm afraid she will burn her bridges there. Today I had a meltdown. I have been quite strong for years but I kinda lost hope today when she texted and said she and her husband were fighting again. I have been kind of a mama bear and I can't believe her husband still speaks to me, but we have a good relationship. I am a school psychologist and am knowledgeable about BPD and have, of course, read Walking on Eggshells and I Hate You Don't Leave Me, and DBT books. I actually do DBT with my students. I feel hopeless and have actually cried for a couple of hours today. I have another daughter that has bipolar and she is not quite as enmeshed with me but has been equally unhappy for years. The rest of my kids are really high functioning. We say we have the Hookers and the Harvards. I am just looking to communicate with others and hopefully to garner support for maintaining boundaries. I'm such a caretaker that I have a hard time saying no and telling her when she's being unreasonable.



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