My Daughter

[mygnolava]

Hello all,

My 20 year old daughter has BPD. She is going to therapy (supposedly) and they are using hypnosis and DBT.

She has a pattern of fixating on older adults. She becomes obsessed with them and takes on their personalities.  This has escalated to a sexual level with her most recent obsession.

He is 62. I grew up knowing him - I'm 58. We went to the same high school and have many mutual friends.

When this initially began a few months ago, I called him and warned him about her condition. He said she wouldn't stop contacting him and so he had to block her. She continued to pursue him and is now with him. She stays overnight often. She tells me that she's still a virgin, but I know it's just a matter of time.

I am not sexually prudish at all. This situation, however, is clearly not a healthy one.

I have been using gray stone communication with her. She knows I don't condone this relationship or behavior. Her response is that she's a big girl and that this is not BPD. She believes they are in love.

I consider the options of taking her car and kicking her out, confronting him, enlisting mutual friends, cutting off communication with her...

Help.

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

[Sancho]

Hi mygnolava
I can understand why you are so concerned. My dd has linked up with so many different men over the years. Sometimes there has been an age gap - though not as great as in your case.

The most difficult for me to cope with were ones that clearly had major problems - mental health, just out of jail etc etc. Knowing my dd I would be waiting for a violent episode with even the worst outcome possible ie that she would be killed.

At first I used to want to DO something and I did in fact spend a lot of time and effort - in the years before she was 20 mostly - trying to steer things. If I managed to steer her away from one direction she just took another - sometimes worse track.

I had to let go of the steering, but I always had the door open so she had her room here. It meant she could leave if things got tough and she had a roof over her head etc.

When a child becomes adult there is not much you can do except close the door to them in different sorts of ways. I haven't wanted to do that. I can't control what dd does, so my bottom line is that the door is open here. I think it has saved her over and over again.

I do think I would keep telling the mutual friends you have of your concerns and about your dd's illness. It might be a way of putting indirect pressure on the man involved. 

Just a couple of thoughts . . .

[mygnolava]

Thanks. I am trying to find the balance. She's unaware of the severity of the situation. If she stops therapy or isn't putting clear effort into it and this behavior continues, I take the car and drop her from our car insurance. I will stop financial support as well.