In the last two weeks my daughter has punched herself in her pregnant stomach, taken heart pills that don’t belong to her and beat the hell out of a woman in a bar. She cut me off and blames me for not supporting her. I shared these things with her doctor but she is still wildly unstable. She told me she hopes her baby dies. She lives out of state and I cannot go to her because my spouse is sick. I have been preparing myself for a call that she has died. I have nothing left anymore. When is it okay to let go? How do I let go? I cannot seem to help her and I feel like I am stuck in cement.
Hello and welcome to the family! I'm so sorry we're meeting under these circumstances and i feel your pain. My BPD daughter is 26 and thankfully past her most damaging BPD tendencies, but I still recall being in your exact position for far too long.
Can I ask, how old is your daughter? And what's her current living arrangements?
The reason I ask is because it sounds like she's been abusive for awhile now, and she's shifting the blame solely on you. That's very common with BPD and immaturity.
Another question- what was your response when your daughter punched her stomach, or took heart pills?
When my daughter did stuff like that, I dialed 9-1-1 and had police sent to her. They would see that she was unstable and a threat to herself/others, so they'd take her for an involuntary examination at a local hospital. From there, a doctor would send for a psych consult, which sometimes took hours or even days. Then they'd either release her or send her to an in-patient facility, for treatment up to a week.
This might sound terrible, but the best thing you can do for your kid is teach her right from wrong. It's wrong to abuse you, and it's wrong to abuse herself and/or others. In fact, it's against the law. Right now you're stuck in the middle of all this, taking your daughter's abuse and hoping for someone to save her, but the honest truth is that she can't be saved until she's ready to actually get some help. She needs to realize that it's a need in her life...and nothing can change until she figures that out.
However, that doesn't mean that you should blindly accept abuse either. Part of teaching right from wrong is how we talk to others, and how we show respect to people we're close to. You did well in cutting her off financially, but you should also cut her off every time she chooses to abuse you for one of a million things.
Why? Because anytime you try to take the blame for her chaos, it enables her to be even more abusive. It tells her mind, "I should treat mom this way because it's all her fault....just look at how she's reacting." That has to stop completely, you can't continue to validate the invalid since it only makes her "sicker".
How do you stop? For starters, don't argue anymore. That's an activity that takes two people. So when she gets ugly, demanding, rude, etc then you tell her that you have to go for a bit for your own wellbeing. Then just hang up the phone. Make this an obvious, predictable pattern- when you're abusive, I'm walking away.
Next, don't be afraid to dial 9-1-1. Let her go though the process of hospital, in-patient, etc. Maybe she hates you for it, but she hates you anyway. Your job as a parent is not to be liked, it's to protect your kid (in this case, from herself). Make her face her actions head-on and stop accepting responsibility for them. She's 100% responsible for her own actions and must be held accountable.
I hope that helps!
