Intro

[AcousticMinded__]

Hello, I'm new to this board and I'm experiencing all sorts of feelings (sadness, anger, guilt, and so many others). My estranged adult daughter (1 yr), seems to have BPD traits. They were recognized by a family member who has a child diagnosed with BPD. I've done extensive research on BPD, and many of the BPD traits were present during her teens, but I had no idea back then. This estrangement has also affected my relationship with my grandchildren, and has left me absolutely brokenhearted.

Do you guys have any suggestions or advice as to how to navigate this? I'm just mind blowned by this whole situation and need some perspective. Thanks in advance!

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

[Pook075]

Hello and welcome to the family.  I'm so sorry you're going through this and I experienced the same thing when my BPD daughter was in her late teens and early 20's.

For advice on how to navigate, what's your long-term goal?  Do you hope to be active in your daughter's daily life once again, or just meet with her on holiday occasions?  And does she live in your town or further away?  There's so many factors involved here- who does she live with?  Is she in a serious relationship?  Can she hold a job?  Does she have kids?

Each of these things can change the dynamic because of her outlook.

Just a general answer though, without knowing any of the specifics or your actual goals, would be to let your daughter live her life and wait for her to resume contact.  BPDs go in cycles in all close relationships and for the moment, you're the enemy.  That will change when another relationship fails and she needs someone to be close to once again.

With that said, there's no harm in occasionally reaching out with well wishes...I hope you're doing well, I look forward to catching up, etc.  What you don't want to do is validate the invalid by saying, "I'm so sorry for what I did, please forgive me!!!"  If you did something wrong, then sure, apologize.  But whatever it is she's demonizing you for, don't just blindly apologize for it since that enables her disordered thinking that you are in fact a bad person.  It will only push her further away.

I hope that helps and i look forward to learn a little more about the situation your goals, etc.

[AcousticMinded__]

Hi there thanks for taking the time to reply! So my long term goal is to have a long term relationship with my daughter and therefore with my 4 grandchildren. During her teens and throughout her adult life were never close, but at times we were able to connect very well, and I always wondered why it wasn’t a constant healthy relationship.

So to give you some perspective, my daughter always made me look like the villain, when she would speak to my closest sibling (her uncle). I did have issues with my romantic relationships stemming from codependency and people pleasing.But regardless, I was always the best parent I could be to her. My then husband, her father, had substance abuse problems and we split when she was 4, and it was rough on her. He was an inconsistent presence in her life after the divorce, and the few times he did spend time with her, he would bad mouth me, play the victim so therefore in her early teens she would throw it in my face and blame me for the divorce.

 I had a very tumultuous childhood, my mom has undiagnosed mental illnesses which run on both her parents’ sides. I’m currently seeing a therapist, and working on myself. The therapist is also helping me deal with my daughter’s estrangement.

My daughter is 38 y/o, has 4 children and is married to her high school sweetheart whom I consider to be an emotionally abusive man. He has terrorized my oldest grandson who’s now 16, and my daughter would just sit there quietly watching it all unfold, so if I ever tried to bring it up to her, she would be dismissive and would become very defensive and angry. My son in law doesn’t get along with me, and he doesn’t hide it. I’ve tried anything and everything to be on his good side, but to no avail.

My daughter lives about 50 mins away from me. After my fiancé and I retired, we moved to the state where my daughter lives in hopes of mending/work on our relationship issues(we moved here before she stopped speaking to me) and the this year on Mother’s Day, one of my brothers called to check up on me and with well wishes, and that’s when we started a convo regarding my niece who has been diagnosed with BPD and BD and was admitted to an inpatient psychiatric unit when she was 17.

Hopefully this gives you a better perspective of my situation, I know it’s a lot to read and I appreciate you taking the time to do so!

[Pook075]

Hopefully this gives you a better perspective of my situation, I know it’s a lot to read and I appreciate you taking the time to do so!

Thanks, all of that does help give a much clearer picture!

Okay, let's start in the past.  BPD often stems from childhood trauma and a rough marriage/ugly divorce would fit.  Feelings of abandonment are at the core, so the person is so afraid of being neglected that they often sabotage their closest relationships (in other words, you're not abandoning me...I'm walking away so you can't do that!  But it's the same thing either way).

Does your daughter have BPD?  We're not qualified to guess either way, but we can say that there's definitely some BPD traits there so this forum would help regardless.  There's a great book, "Stop Walking on Eggshells, 3rd edition" that has criteria in the front for a loose diagnosis- I'd highly recommend the read (even if you just borrow it from your local library).

So what can you do?  It's complicated since every circumstance is unique.  BPD's almost always have a favorite person that they idolize (her husband) and then many other close friends/family that they see as bad/evil.  This can flip-flop frequently...she gets mad at the husband, and suddenly her neighbor is the best person ever.  But the husband's approval of you carries so much more weight than it should if this is BPD.

While you'd love to fix everything with one phone call or visit, it probably won't happen that way since this is all on your daughter's terms.  Mentally, she has to realize there's benefit to letting you back in, so to speak.  This is often a slow process UNLESS something happens with her husband, then things can change quickly.  And I don't mean divorce or anything drastic...just an argument where she feels abandoned could completely change her perspective.

My advice would be to reach out slowly over time.  How are the kids doing?  Could we grab coffee and catch up?  Stuff like that.  Reaching out with birthday or holiday well wishes is also a good time to make contact.  Maybe she replies, maybe not, but you continue to make the effort in a positive way...just thinking about you and wanted to say hi, stuff like that.

Again, from the last post, what you don't want to do is directly talk about the past.  If it comes up in conversation, then fine, it's okay to briefly say you did the best you could in the moment.  It's okay to apologize if it's appropriate.  But remember that you're working on a relationship in 2025 and that's where the focus should be...today, next week, next month, etc.

I hope that helps, and please feel free to ask any questions.  I'm sure others will chime in soon.

[AcousticMinded__]

Thank you so much for your advice! I was having issues logging into the site the past couple of days, but it seems to have resolved somehow.

That's exactly what my loved ones have been saying, that her husband has been a huge influence in this estrangement, and by the way, she does idolize him, which is crazy. She hasn't been formally diagnosed with BPD, and she's reluctant to seek therapy, so I guess she will never be properly diagnosed. My therapist asked me thorough questions about her childhood and teenage years, how were her friendships, how was our relationship at the time and so forth, so she came to the conclusion that she most likely has a personality disorder, probably BPD.

This whole reality with my daughter (my only child) is very tough to deal with since I already have a difficult relationship with my mom. I'm sure she also has several mental disorders as well, but has never reached out for professional help, she just doesn't believe there's anything wrong. Also, I should mention that my grandmother (mom's mom) was diagnosed with paranoia schizophrenia, and my grandfather suffered from PTSD (veteran) and severe depression and alcoholism. I know mental illness can run in families, and mine check most of the boxes so to speak. 

I am looking into support groups from the National Alliance on Mental Illness, to see if I can find a virtual meeting I can participate in. My therapist has been pretty helpful, but I must admit, this whole experience has blown me away, the overwhelming rollercoaster of feelings of sadness, guilt, frustration and anger is just something I never imagined I would experience in my life.

Thank you again for chiming in and taking the time to listen! 

[Pook075]

Yeah, I think the site was temporarily offline...something similar happened last year from outside hackers or some type of attack.  Unfortunately, that's the world we live in these days.  It appears all is well now though.

Unfortunately, yeah, mental health can run in families and it's probably much more common than people realize.  My mom was always super angry over the smallest things, and 20-30 years ago we'd just say, "That's how some people are."  But now I can see so much more that explains how she was actually suffering- it's sad.  People never truly know what someone else is dealing with.

Hopefully you find an online support group and feel free to post here as needed when questions come up or you just need to vent.  We've all been there, or are there now, and there's a sense of peace to be found when you know you're not the only one, that this is actually a thing in this world that people have to deal with daily.

I hope that helps!