How to negotiate a relationship with an adult child with BPD

[rethomofBPD]

Hello
I have 28 yo daughter who I am realizing has significant traits of BPD. She is extremely bright and has won prestigious international awards and attended a top law school. However she has struggled with relationships with her peers since she was a young child and never fully accepted or treated her younger sister well. While she has amazing intellectual capacity she is emotionally extremely dependent upon us (her parents) and has a number of medical issues, many of which are exacerbated by if not a result of psychosomatic origin. Most of her doctors do not consider the psychological factors affecting her medical condition and she seems to be receiving increasing amounts of what I see as unnecessary care. In addition she is very controlling in her relationships with the immediate and larger family--often disrespectful of other's feelings or needs.She will call us at work which can be very disruptive or late at night. We need help setting limits and balancing our concern for her and need to protect ourselves. Her presence with the immediate family often causes significant tension and discord which we want to stop. I hope to learn how others navigate these kinds of issues. We want her to be part of our lives but need to control the way in which her behavior is affecting the rest of us. Thank you.

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

[Sadnhurt]

Welcome rethomofBPD 
When I read your post, it was like reading a story from my life, everything with the exception of your daughter's medical conditions.  I'm sorry to say that I do not have any advice for you as my 27 yo daughter recently cut me out of her life... .but I feel your pain... .tenfold.  It is very difficult, I cry a lot, I miss her terribly even though she treated me badly.   There are some very informative links  to the right of this text.  I am fairly new to the site so I'm just trying to find my way.  My counsellor told me about the book, "Stop Walking on Egg Shells" by Paul Mason and Randi Kreger... .I am working my way through that which is how I found out about this website.


This has also been my life up until recently she cut me out of her life because I asked her to move her things from my home telling her that she is difficult to be around at times.  After going on a 1 year exchange to Brasil following high school graduation, she completed her four year program at a local university, then went on to work her way through jobs to pay back her student loans.  But personal relationships have been very difficult for her, at first I thought she just had issues being able to keep female friends, every time she had a new friend, something always happened or was said and she was no longer friends.  Her reliance on me as her Mom for her emotional needs was also huge.  She could not seem to deal with anything that related to emotions... .so she'd call me, crying.  And of course, I always propped her up and tried to make her feel better but after she broke up with her boyfriend and moved back home, I had to ask her to leave because I was walking on pins and needles all the time, not sure what to say or not say that would set her off.  I have a very small family, but she has nothing to do with her only two cousins or my brother.  She only has a relationship with my mother (and a phone relationship with my sister), because my mother has always given in to her, always treated her differently that her other 2 granddaughters.  So when my daughter came for her things, she moved everything into my 77 yo Mom's place.  The strange thing is, I asked her two years ago to move her things but she didn't, she made very little progress in getting rid of it or going through it, yet as soon as she moved it to my mother's, within the first 2 days, she had 9 boxes of stuff to give away. 

My daughter cut me out of her life saying I cannot possibly love her or be proud of her if I am not willing to store her stuff at my house.  Then she blocked me from all social media, changed her phone number and has no contact with me.  I had emailed her a couple of times to tel her about my elderly father's condition and she responded with, ":)on't feel obligated to email me, I can get the information from Grandma".  That hurt.  And my mother would never say anything to her about her behaviour.

So I live not knowing exactly where she is or how she is, I know all I'd have to do is ask my mother but there has always been a triangle between the three of us so I know that anything I asked about my daughter would get right back to her from my mother.

My apologies, I should not have rambled on but I'm quite stunned at how similar our daughter's are.
Keep posting and checking out the resources to the right side of this screen.
Feeling your pain,
Sadnhurt

[rethomofBPD]

I'm sorry Sad and Hurt. It's a no win situation. We have been through periods of no contact though it usually turns around. However I think this is part of the manipulative scheme of the BPD. It's easy to say and hard to do, but try to move on in your own life. She will probably return eventually. I don't know how I feel about you mom letting her keep her stuff with her--that sounds like splitting to me.Keep you head high!