Another visit another blowup

[HopefulFather]

Our daughter hasn't been officially diagnosed but it seems very likely she has BPD along with anxiety and depression.  Many years of unhelpful therapy started when she was an early teenager.  As many have mentioned we never got much more than "we don't diagnose teenagers" even though we new there was more to it than the typical problems associated with the teenage years.  We managed to get her through high school, but she failed out of college due to not doing her work or showing up to class.  We transitioned away from paying her rent when she dropped out of college, but by this time we had resolved that she could not live at home as we could no longer tolerate the constant stress.  The book title "walking on egg shells" is very descriptive of how our lives felt.  So we were in a place where we didn't fully see our daughter's BPD yet and thought we were just forcing her to live the consequences of her actions.  She would have to get a job and start paying her rent.

Well that didn't go so well either.  About 9 months later she (along with her live in boyfriend) came to us to ask us to cosign for an apartment because they were going to be evicted in 10 days and though they had all kinds of excuses we knew it was because they hadn't paid their rent.  Fatefully we decided we wouldn't cosign and instead bought a mobile home for them to move into.  Fast forward a year and our daughter is pregnant, the boyfriend thankfully is moved out, and we spend thousands of dollars and a couple of hundred man hours repairing the inside of the mobile home we own because their many battles have damaged the drywall and doors in most of the room of the house.  The only good news was because we own the home the boyfriend had no right to stay in the house.

At this point our daughter is 23 and our granddaughter is 9 months old.  They live a little over an hour away and she decided she wanted to move back to our area.  We agreed because we didn't want our granddaughter in the public schools where she currently lives, and she would be closer so we could help more.  So we are in the process of moving the mobile home to  a piece of property that we bought.

This is the short version of a long story that has been punctuated by the stress and pain of dealing with the day to day as it is with a BPD daughter.  Everything that has ever gone wrong with her life is our fault.  We are the worst people on the planet until she needs something.  She appreciates us greatly until she doesn't.  I am quite frankly pulling out all the stops and spending money that I should be spending in other areas of my business to move the mobile home.  We pray that we can protect our granddaughter but are afraid she will eventually become the target of our daughters anger and blame for whatever is going wrong at the moment.

Lately every time she comes to visit its for a couple night stay because it's "such a long drive home" (80 minutes) these visits are almost always accompanied by one or several blowups where she attacks us for everything we've ever done wrong for the last 15 years or longer as every time she attacks us she seems to remember something that happened even younger that we have no idea of.  Her anxiety often triggers the most unreasonable fears and because we obviously can't fix the situation she attacks us because we are closest.

Most recently she had just left the driveway and within 8 minutes called hysterical because our granddaughter had fallen forward in her car seat asleep and she was convinced she was going to suffocate and there was no possible solution to this problem other than "Im going to just drive off the road", or "If she dies then I can just end it because I won't have to worry about leaving her", or "You obviously just want her to die", because I didn't give her the right answer to her problem at the moment.  Then she went on to torture me by telling me all of the worst things a parent can ever hear about what she would do or not do concerning our grandchild.

I hope this isn't too much.  I felt like it would help to give some back story to my current situation.  I have appreciated everyone's posts that I have read and it makes me feel a little less alone.  My wife and I guardedly optimistic that she can at least continue to parent our granddaughter and we will be allowed to have contact with her; I know this is a serious source of additional heartache for many of you, but we fear she will never fully be able to take care of herself and we will never really be at peace.

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

[livednlearned]

HopefulFather, I'm so sorry for the pain that brings you here and glad you found these boards. Does it not drive you mad the tip-toeing around diagnosis during the teen years? I feel we would've been spared so much pain if the psychiatrist even said, "Could be BPD or bipolar, or both. Let's get more information to help us understand if it's BPD so you can start learning how to support her best -- the skills are counterintuitive and must be learned."

One can dream  

It's admirable that you set a boundary and had her move out after she dropped out of college. I imagine that was a tough decision to make. And you helped her get through high school. No small accomplishment.

The example you describe of her daughter in the car seat sounds like a mama who knows on some level she is struggling with parenting, and the shame of knowing that is probably too intolerable to admit. She targets you as the cause of those feelings instead of recognizing they are coming from herself.

Have you found anything helps? We often talk here about tiny little changes. My stepdaughter at 16 was identifying as trans and getting Ds in high school. It didn't seem like it at the time but almost 10 years later I can see a series of tiny little changes that have amounted to something almost like a stable form of instability, if that makes sense.

What was the *wrong* answer given when she called about her daughter in the car? I wonder if she is not actually looking for a solution, only a sense that someone is there to acknowledge she feels alone and scared. A tricky dynamic to navigate, for sure.

[HopefulFather]

Thanks for your response lived,

I think your right about her internalizing her parenting struggles, and also about her not really wanting a solution.  I offered to meet her at an expressway exit to help her adjust the car seat to a more suitable angle and she didn't really want that.  Her mother and I have made small steps in learning how to not make it worse by arguing, blaming, or retaliating when she attacks us but it is very difficult to make the move to being empathetic without being patronizing.  She usually admits her anxiety was driving her when she is attacking us but we often have to block her from all sources of contact until she calms down.

She has taken steps to startup with a new primary care physician near where she is moving to (near us), but we'll see if she follows through with their suggestions.  She mentioned the Dr. Prescribed Prozac to help with her anxiety and she has already texted me that it is causing strange side effects which is a precursor to her deciding it "isn't going to work for her".

She was diagnosed as having bipolar 1 by an actual Psychiatrist a few years ago but she didn't follow up with appointments.  I think I am correct that BPD is often misdiagnosed as bipolar 1but the medications they prescribe for bipolar 1 don't usually help with the BPD.  Upping the dose ultimately caused her more trouble.  This experience has caused her to distrust doctors and medications even though she really still needs something for her anxiety.

On top of all this I should mention she was adopted by us when she was days old.  What a wonderful gift!  However we know the situation with her birth and two older siblings her birth mother was parenting was very tumultuous and we think there may have been in utero trauma related to these circumstances and drugs and alcohol abuse.  She has in the last couple of years located these half siblings and birthmother and there are striking similarities in their behavior.  It has been good for her to be able to connect to this part of her existence, but she doesn't quite see what we see in terms of the striking similarities between her and her siblings and birthmothers behavior.

[livednlearned]

I offered to meet her at an expressway exit to help her adjust the car seat to a more suitable angle and she didn't really want that

It's funny you say that. SD25 is a similar way with H, who is very solutions-focused. SD25 has so much anxiety about her job as a special ed teacher, to the point she experiences suicidal ideation. H tries to help by saying it's ok to look for other work, that she doesn't have to do this as a career. Which elicits anger because she perceives this advice as confirmation she isn't competent.

I seem to have more success with validating questions (they must be questions) and sounds of comfort (mmmm, ooh, ahhhhh, huhhhhh, oh noo) versus words. Whereas more is expected of H and he has a harder time not offering solutions. Lately, he is letting calls go to voicemail and when they reconnect she has moved on from whatever fire was lit, similar to what you describe doing with your daughter.

IShe was diagnosed as having bipolar 1 by an actual Psychiatrist a few years ago but she didn't follow up with appointments.  I think I am correct that BPD is often misdiagnosed as bipolar 1but the medications they prescribe for bipolar 1 don't usually help with the BPD.

That's the same with SD25. She was dx'd bipolar by a psychiatrist at 16. Recently she was told by a new psychiatrist she doesn't meet the criteria for bipolar. I'm not in a position to know, really, except that her behaviors match BPD more than anything else. SD25 did report auditory verbal hallucinations (I believe that's what they're called) when she was 16 that probably complicated things. At different points we have learned one therapist believed she was on the spectrum, another said it was depression with psychosis, and yet another said she had an auditory processing disorder.
 

IIt has been good for her to be able to connect to this part of her existence, but she doesn't quite see what we see in terms of the striking similarities between her and her siblings and birthmothers behavior.

Similar with SD25. Her mother is BPD, and multiple therapists for SD25 have suggested her mom has BPD. SD25 describes having many of the same behaviors as her mom, yet there is no connection made that they both may suffer from the same thing.

[Roisin]

Welcome Hopeful Father. Your journey with your Sd sounds very familiar. I applaud your hopefulness. I can not with honestly say I hold to that any longer. The journey with my BPD daughter has been like many I’m sure. All the varying treatment providers, a new diagnosis for each new more medications to add to the page long list. I listed every treatment provider, hospital, respite, therapist, diagnosis and medications and printed out the list. That way I’d have it in hand for the next haphazard stop on the way to finding help for my daughter. I would ask how can one child have so many diagnosis, she’s 7 for god sake. She isn’t Ted Bundy. Dark humor is never appreciated by these esteemed professionals who really don’t have the answer and can’t just say that. Borderline or any of the personality disorders is never to be considered for one who is under the age of 18. If you as a parent question that, then it is you as a parent who is questioned. Didn’t stop me. I’d ask “ so how does that work magically when my daughter is 18 she gets to become one of these & how come that doesn’t work with other illness. Like happy birthday your 18 you can have liver disease, no it only holds to personality disorders.” It was infuriating. Yes she is of age now and formally diagnosed with BPD. All those years of her life wasted with bogus diagnosis & treatment that didn’t work.
Don’t get me wrong I didn’t ever give up on my daughter but I gave up hope and learned that I had to deal with what was & is. There’s no escaping this. Not for our children or ourselves. I tell my daughter when we are speaking, “ you didn’t ask this & we sure as hell didn’t sign up for it, what we have to do is find a way to live with it that is respecting to the needs of all of us.” [ family] That is not easy & we move 1 step forward 3 back. And trying to absorb all this empathetic listening, going grey rock when you have a child with rage so intense it threatens peoples existence it’s dam hard too follow the guidelines to good communication skills with your BPD adult child. It’s a journey & not everything here is going to be something I can do or work in my situation but just knowing I’m not alone is life giving to me.
Sorry for such a lengthy response I forgot that I read somewhere really should not do that.