I miss my DD, but...

[gardenstater]

I'm glad that I discovered this forum as I've been Googling BPD topics. I read through a bunch of posts, and I'm feeling relief at finding a group of people who understand my family's experience. Thank you for being here.

My DD is 26. She has been a handful since she was 11 years old. She completely missed out on all typical teenage experiences while going through all kinds of problems. The worst of them included multiple suicide attempts and meeting adult men on the Internet (we were only able to have one of them prosecuted but there were more). There were physical fights, a domestic violence arrest and restraining order, 3 residential treatment centers, and I've lost count of the number of 911 calls and hospitalizations. I had to quickly get over the embarrassment of police and ambulance in front of our house. By the time she was 16 I had come to believe that she would not live to see her 18th birthday.

We once had to pull her out of a residential treatment center and put her in another one, because she was able to bully a psychologist and psychiatrist into letting her have a home visit one week after she acted out by drinking bleach. The day I picked her up and flew her to another treatment center is still one of the most frightening days of my life. Fortunately, we made it safely.

What I also find amazing is that she has never missed a beat when it came to her education. She graduated high school with a B+ average, got into college, finished her Bachelors Degree, then went on to graduate school. She just finished her Masters Degree in (wait for it...) Psychology!

I wish I could say that she's in a more productive place. She has matured, but she is still clearly suffers from BPD. I've set so many boundaries over the past few years, and she's blown past every one of them. So as of 2 years ago, I cut off all financial support. She had bounced between loving and hating both her mother and I until last January when I earned permanent banishment from her life for "financially abandoning" her, along with several delusional accusations against me and her step-mother.

Surprisingly, I do miss her at times. I think about her all the time. I decided to take a chance and reach out to her last week. I know her graduation ceremony is this week so I wanted to congratulate her and send her a small gift. I assumed I wouldn't be invited, but I thought I'd congratulate her anyway. We spoke for about 3-4 minutes and she just spewed anger while blaming me for all her problems. I said goodbye and that was that. That experience was actually good for me because that behavior reminded me what I'm missing.

Thank you for reading while I let off a little steam.

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

[Leaf56]

Hi gardenstater, I sent you a private message. Click pvt mail in green bar above to read it. It sounds like we’ve taken a similar approach to our 26-year-old adult children. I’ve been away from this board for a while, but you can read my old posts by clicking on my name. I check back in here to read when I feel bad to remind myself that things never change and to help me stay the course, and once in a while I’ll see another poster who has taken a similar approach as myself.

[Leaf56]

Here’s the gist of my stance from one of the first posts I made here. I realize now that saying “read my old posts” would’ve taken several days! And the pertinent ones are the earliest ones anyway.

“Seeing several anecdotes here on this board over the past few days with people still dealing with adult children in their 30s and 40s, I realized how important it is to force these adult children to be responsible for themselves as early as possible. I recognize and have felt the tremendous guilt involved in doing this, but realize now that I'm actually doing my son a disservice by continuing to help him. I also recognize that the only thing keeping most people from ending their help of the person with BPD is that guilt and the fear that the person with BPD will kill themselves, resulting in more guilt (and grief from loss). I'm to the point where I recognize all of this as manipulation and am now refusing to continue to be manipulated by it, even if that means the end results is my son's suicide. I can see now that this will continue until I put a stop to it by discontinuing my help. Will in-patient treatment, therapy, etc. etc. keep these folks alive? Yes, probably. But it will also keep them in this state for the rest of their lives until their enablers, whether that be parents, other relatives, spouses, friends, or therapists, say "enough," my life and the lives of the rest of the family are worth the same as yours and just because you're supposedly in pain does not mean that you have the right to ruin all of our lives.”

Then shortly after the time of this post I stopped funding him in any way.

[gardenstater]

Thanks Leaf56, yes I am in NJ and I have started reading some of your older posts. You've contributed a lot to this forum. I think there may be some alignment in our beliefs.

It makes no sense to me to expect that someone just wakes up one day thinking differently. Humans change, if they're capable, because they must change. I certainly don't mind helping my kids out financially when it makes sense and makes life a bit easier for them and they appreciate it. My DD however, is quite the entitled, ungrateful, spoiled brat. She made it easy for me to cut her off financially.

Her mom, however, does not agree with me. She pays all of DD's bills, including credit cards, gives her cash, bought her new car, and pays her insurance. At the same time DD refuses to work until she finds the "right job". My ex complained to me that its not fair that all the financial burden now falls on her. My response was that she's an adult and paying her bills is your choice not mine. It's been 2 years now and she still lives with her mom who still pays for the benefit of receiving DD's continued bouts of rage.

Our son arranged to take his mom and sister to a play for Mother's Day. DD arrived after the performance started so she had to wait for a break before being seated. This infuriated her, so she blasted them both with hateful texts. They left during the first act to try to calm her down, which was not possible, so they all missed the play. She actually accused her brother of convincing theater management not to let her in. I sent my ex a compassionate text expressing empathy for what happened. She responded with thanks and continued hope that DD will get better.