>Validation

[Morningdawn]

Hello, struggling so much with my 23 yr daughter. Over past year her outbursts and rages have got more and more. I am recognizing patterns of behaviour with her starting so called conversations to kind of bait me which quickly descend into her demanding constant apologies, accountability and validation for everything she says and feels in the moment, in the past. There’s a lot of blame constantly for everything in her life and I am number one target and cause if everything. I have said sorry many times but of course I am realizing it is never enough for her. It is relentless. So now I try to end convo which does not go down well cos she wants to keep going. At my wits end, and trying to shut it down seems the only way to save my own mental health even tho after I am still left feeling shredded and exhausted. Her latest line is to say I will be to blame and cause if our relationship break down. All seems impossible to deal with. She is v big on respect and validation from outside relationships and it’s unrealistic and she fails to see it or get what she wants from people but with me, it feels inescapable as we live together. Do others have similar scenarios with ‘constant validation ‘

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

[CC43]

Good morning Morning,

What you describe sounds to me like classic BPD.  I bet your daughter is blaming you for a terrible childhood, for ruining her life and for not doing enough for her.  She might start out sounding like she's not delusional, but as she gets riled up, I bet she turns mean, calling you a terrible parent and accusing you of all sorts of transgressions, most which are highly distorted or patently false.  Is she stuck in the past, dredging up the same old complaints, over and over again?  No matter how much you apologize, or you try to put things in perspective, it's never enough, is it?  In fact, once you start validating her, in an attempt to get her to calm down, she takes that as an invitation to try to get you to validate things that aren't even true, right?  Once she's riled up, she seems to spin out of control, and all logic gets thrown out the window.  She doesn't know how to calm herself down.  My adult BPD stepdaughter would do the same thing when she wasn't getting the right treatment.

I have a few theories about this behavior, and they might clash with some of the classic recommendations on these boards (e.g. validate the feelings, not the facts).  First is that your daughter is blame-shifting.  She's not really mad at you for what she's accusing you of, even if that is what she THINKS she's mad about.  I bet what's really bugging her is fear about the future.  She knows she's an adult in age, but she still feels like a dependent adolescent, and it's killing her.  She doesn't really know who she is (she lacks a stable identity), and she doesn't have stable relationships (friends, co-workers, family, romantic partner).  Without the high school routine that was forced upon her, she feels rudderless.  Is she having trouble in college, and does she have a hard time finding (or keeping) a job?  Has she lost her friends?  She is discovering that she's not functioning well as an adult, and that makes her SCARED as well as inferior.  "Everyone else" seems to have an easy time making friends, finishing college and/or working, whereas she completely falls apart.  This induces in her a deep SHAME.  Rather than take setbacks in stride (failing a class isn't the end of the world, having a fight with a roommate can happen, but apologizing goes a long way; everyone has to start at the bottom in the work world, getting fired isn't the end of the world, there are a million other jobs out there), and rather than take some responsibility (I'll never make any money or friends if I stay lying in my childhood bedroom all day), she regresses in AVOIDANCE.  What does she do?  She dredges up ancient history from childhood and blames her dysfunction on that--terrible/unsupportive/abusive family members, they are the ones who make her dysfunctional.  This thought pattern makes her MAD, because she doesn't have what she wants today.  When she sees you, she sees an opportunity to lash out and unleash all this anger and frustration onto you.  If you're up for listening to her, you become her punching bag.  This is all just to avoid acting like an adult and taking responsibility for her life and her decisions.  That is simply too scary.  She RESENTS you because she still NEEDS you desperately, and it's killing her inside.

On top of that, generally speaking, her expectations are totally unreasonable and unrealistic.  I think this is rooted in adolescent or childish thinking patters.  She's impatient.  She's demanding.  She still expects adults to over-function for her.  She still expects to be the center of attention at all times.  She expects too much devotion from friends.  She wants to make decisions, but if something goes wrong, she expects you to face the consequences and "rescue" her, because you "owe" her.  Now, when she was a kid, this was normal.  But now that she's an adult, she's having trouble adjusting her expectations, and at the same time, her childish expectations simply aren't being met.  She still probably expects that you continue to pay most or all of her living expenses.  She's resistant to doing adult administrative tasks, and she's frightened because she doesn't necessarily have the know-how, either.  She's afraid to ask for help, say from a friend or an employer, because she'd be "exposed" for her lack of knowledge, for the fraud she feels she is.  She wasn't really prepared to do autonomous, self-guided study in college, or to figure out how to apply for jobs, or even how to accept coaching from a supervisor.  Any "criticism" would be taken personally, and she'd completely fall apart.  I bet she hasn't really embraced the notion that she's responsible for herself now, because she's probably blaming you, full-time.  Let me guess, your daughter says she suffers from anxiety?  My bet is that's because she feels incompetent, inferior and scared.  She's so afraid of a failing and a little stress that she gives up before she even tries, and to cope, she's lashing out at you.  Does this sound familiar?  If it does, it's because I've lived though it.

Now for the validation question.  I know we're supposed to validate the feelings (shame, anger, distress, disappointment, etc.).  But I've observed a few things when trying to validate someone with BPD.  First is, I think that what they profess to complain about isn't necessarily the underlying problem.  I think the BPD brain will dredge up an unrelated incident to deflect from the real issue (a disappointment, feeling inferior, feeling incompetent, feeling rudderless, feeling lonely, etc.).  So if you try to validate that, it doesn't work, because you're validating the wrong thing!  Second, I think that by validating an ancient grievance, it can serve to distort it and blow it out of proportion.  It's almost as if by reenacting the same argument over and over again, it's etching a rut in her brain.  In fact, I might see it as a maladjusted coping mechanism.  She's dredging up the incident because it's bizarrely comforting to her, in rehashing the same old argument.  She's replayed it in her mind so many times that she wants the opportunity to showcase her perfected rage with you.  She's making you out to be a bigger and bigger villain at each successive telling of the story.  Anything to avoid dealing with her real issues of today, to avoid taking responsibility for her life.

So I guess my advice is, if you're tired of being her punching bag, exit the conversation.  Give her a time out, and don't interrupt it if you can.  She needs time and space to cool down.  Try to engage only when she's calm.  If she dredges up the past, you might try to say something like, I can't change the past.  Let's talk about something else.  Sometimes with my BPD stepdaughter, we might say something stronger like, We never get anywhere with this conversation, it only seems to make you mad, maybe you need to discuss it with your therapist.  Or, You're not being abused NOW are you?  Talking about how you feel mistreated doesn't make you feel any better, does it?  Let's stay focused on today.