The festive fun begun for anyone else yet?

[donnab]

So I guess I should thank my lucky stars that it started on the 15th instead of earlier this year. We have our dgd as my dd wasn't able to cope with her, was in a violent relationship and using drugs. It's her birthday on Sunday and it all came crashing down around my head yesterday and she had a meltdown. Was due to come to contact today, and we were going to be celebrating her birthday but her emotions have got the better of her so it's not happening. Which will mean due to the distance I won't now see her until next week.

A big part of me thinks well if you're going to be feeling upset that you're not with your family why aren't you coming to spend time with your daughter, mum and step dad! No doubt she will be feeling very sorry for herself come Sunday.

And so it begins. Roll on the 27th when normal service will commence! I wish all you the very best to get through this difficult time!

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

[Rapt Reader]

Holidays, and the fear of interacting with close and extended family members, pretty much always trigger my own adult (38) BPDson's Social Anxiety. He can go from happy one minute, to depressed, angry and/or petrified the next, if between those 2 minutes he is made aware of some family social function (that he thinks we may expect him to join).

It's her birthday on Sunday and it all came crashing down around my head yesterday and she had a meltdown. Was due to come to contact today, and we were going to be celebrating her birthday but her emotions have got the better of her so it's not happening. Which will mean due to the distance I won't now see her until next week.

We've had to practice Radical Acceptance (Radical Acceptance for family members) pretty much non-stop with our son, and just realize that--at least for now, and even possibly forever--he's not going to react the way our non-BPD son does, or in ways that we would love for him to react.

The Holidays go much smoother when we just let him be "him", and not pressure him to be more sociable and engaging. We don't expect him to join his Dad and me, and the rest of the extended family, in the huge family celebrations that both sides of the family tend to have... .

And so it begins. Roll on the 27th when normal service will commence! I wish all you the very best to get through this difficult time!

I wish you and your family, donnab, a wonderful Holiday Season, too 

[js friend]

Hi donnab,

I do think that letting of expectations lessens a lot of the heartache. I know that it is difficult because you have little gd  but try not to let it bother you too much.

Over the years dealing with my dd and her BPDbehaviours  I have learnt not to have an expectations when it comes to family events and festive occasions. We have endured many meltdowns in the lead up to, during and after these events. Typically she will claim to be suffering from some serious illness that prevents her from attending in the run up to it and then suddenly turn or or not on the day. I have learnt not to question it anymore. I have been accused of trying to control her by trying to get her to get involved in past events... .(she hates to conform) She used to respond to spontaneity better when she was younger but these days  any form of spontaneity has fallen flat and I have accused us of not giving her enough notice.

Nowadays I will just ask dd what she would like to do on her birthday (and xmas) and leave it up to her.Her usual response the past few years is that she doesnt want to do anything.So I keep it low key. I dont cajole anymore. Ill buy A card and gift. In reality usually the "I dont want to do anything on my birthday" has turned out to mean dd  just dosent want to do anything with us (her family) on her birthday, because she has already made plans with her friends or latest b/f and doesnt want to share any of these details with any of the family. 

if your dd is anything like mine this may be the case.

[thefixermom]

Our holidays will be drama free with my DD having moved across the country.  I'm on one coast and she is on the other. Contact is minimal but cordial, which I appreciate and work to maintain. I think she does, too.  Reading these posts makes me sad because about 3 years ago when she moved back home and it was Christmastime, I had not yet heard of BPD and I pressed her to join in with the family, thinking it would be good for her and give her a chance to meld back in during a cheerful reunion (our extended family is not drama prone). She got triggered just at my urging of it and a huge episode ensued, which was the catalyst for ongoing fights, rages, destructive tragic encounters, interventions, attempts at triangulation and off/on estrangement that went on for the duration of her stay.  I'm sitting here now asking myself how it might have been had I just let her be and not thought I knew best and had not tried to "reason" with her.  I've come so far down the BPD road since those days.  I won't beat myself up as I did what I thought was best at the time and I know she did, too.  I hope and pray she, like me, is healing and building her life back in a positive way, and feeling less pressure this year by not having her big extended family so close.  She is deeply loved by them, but not understood. I wish all the people here... .the BPD's and the nons... .the best holiday they can have and I am a proponent of radical acceptance and giving the BPD space to ride out what must be a very difficult time.

[Eyeamme]

Fixer mom,

I could have written that. I too am on opposite coasts from my daughter. I had tickets to spend Xmas with her and her family (including my two little grandsons). I cancelled the trip and we are NC.

I want to thank you for helping me understand radical acceptance. You have been so helpful. Merry Christmas.

Xx

[thefixermom]

Merry Christmas to you, Eyeamme.  I'm making myself choose joy and peace. That's part of radical acceptance, too, I think. To choose to accept them and to choose to let our hearts carry some joy alongside the pain. 

[twojaybirds]

I knew I had the whole season figured out a about a month ago until now.

My dd21 who lives with her boyfriend about 10 miles away was stressing trying to figure out how to be with us, her boyfriend/his family and their friends at their new apartment.

I made it easy.  We are celebrating Christmas this weekend.  I paid for the 4 of us to go to an event out of town (a 2 hour drive) ... got us separate hotel rooms. How wonderful.   No gifts. She was all on board for this  It is a big holiday lights/theater/ etc at a 300 acre retreat center that she and I had talked about going to when she was younger. 

untill this past week.

My dd has gifts for us and was dropping hints about what she wanted.  I gently reminded her the  'no gift' rule which made her upset.

She is upset because the boyfriends family Christmas is not what she expected and now the big  'ta-da-' she was expecting isnt happening so she is grumbling about a boring Christmas.

She does not want to drive to our out of town weekend.  My husband (not her dad and a man who opted never to have kids) can only take so much of her incessant chatter which is why I made it clear we are taking separate cars, now she is looking into buses and trains and adding all these additional problems which I am staying out of. 

Oh well I know again I have done my best. I am going to enjoy this weekend knowing we do have separate rooms and separate escapes and the place is  certainly big enough we can divide up as we want.

I'll take lots of photos and put together a small photo book for her.

Yes the festive season is truly upon us!

[thefixermom]

Sounds like you went to a lot of planning and expense, twojaybirds, to put together a very nice option.  I think what works for me is to remain flexible. I can appreciate that a 4 hour round trip drive by one's self to a Christmas gathering might be daunting for your daughter and a bit lonely. And if it were me, I would probably respond to the gift giving request with a, "Okay, that sounds like fun... .we'll have a little present exchange, too."  I appreciate that your husband is not tolerant of her chattiness but I would also (if it were me) suggest to him that, "Hey, it's Christmas and we are all going the extra mile (literally!) to make this pleasant. And once we get there we will have our own space as needed."   But you know everyone's limitations so I respect the choices you have made.  I hope it works out well.

[donnab]

Man I still get caught up n the drama so easily no matter how long this has been going on   She has been so very low this week. It hasn't helped that my son has decided he no longer wants a relationship with her and he is forging a relationship with their father who wants nothing more to do with dd and hasn't for some years. She has been really depressed, crying, talking of suicide and how she is so lonely and should have her dd back. As well as this I got caught up in an email discussion with a friend who has been spending some time talking to dd and said to me gd should be returned to dd and with our support this would be the best thing. I tried to explain to her she couldn't possibly understand the complexity of the situation or what gd went through in her first year and while there's no question that dd misses her daughter immensely how she has been feeling this week is about her illness which she is still reluctant to engage in any therapy and get well and that would not be a stable environment for a toddler to be in.

Alongside trying to offer emotional support to my dd I have been struggling with my feelings over my son forging a relationship with his father who did not support us while they were growing up and has acted so cruelly towards dd and also my feelings towards their paternal grandmother as I do not feel she supports dd at all and has more or less stopped any contact with dd except for comments on her fb pictures.

It's my dd's birthday today so yesterday, after much backwards and forwards of what she was going to do and then she has no one and is all alone, I offered for dd to come to our house, spend the afternoon with gd and us and we would get a takeaway.

Today at about 3.30 I manage to get hold of her and she has cancelled as she went out last night and is hungover and whatever else.

It's so exhausting and also saddens me that I can still be so very codependent