both adult daughters have traits of BPD

[Mixie]

Hi - new to this. Both daughters (no other children) have traits of BPD and have been psychiatric patients. I am estranged from one (age 32) who has declared I am toxic. We were very close until she was about 19. My second daughter whom I am very close to, stopped communicating with me and when I asked about it, she said she is not happy with her life and cannot help blaming me. My psychiatrist says 'blaming others especially a family member" is a common BPD trait. Both have received copious treatment at my expense.

Suffice to say, this has devastated me. I am grieving and I want to have hope. They are my only children. I divorced their father when they were young.

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

[CC43]

Hi Mixie,

I really feel for you.  Bringing up two daughters on you own is hard enough, but with BPD traits in both of them, that certainly increases interpersonal challenges and strife.  Indeed, blaming others for their own negative thoughts and bad decisions is a prominent feature of BPD.  In my experience, it's very common for BPD daughters to blame their mothers more than anyone else.  That might be because mothers are the most helpful, nurturing and present; or maybe it's because they identify most with their mothers.

I think you both hit the nail on the head with the observation that your daughter isn't happy with her life and she can't help but blame you for that.  I think that's probably because taking responsibility for herself is just too painful.  You see, it's much more convenient to play the victim.  It's especially easy for a young adult to play the "poor little abused girl" role, as she's barely escaped childhood, and she self-identifies as a damsel in distress, because others will often step in with "help" by doing things for her which she should be doing for herself.  (If you feel resentment towards your daughter after helping her, you might take that as a sign that you're over-functioning for her.)  It's much harder to for her to think, I am an adult now, I'm responsible for myself and what I do in life, and if I need to make changes to get back on track, then I'm the one who has to do that.  I'm the one responsible for trying to live a healthy, happy, fulfilling life as a productive member of society.  For people with BPD, that's just too HARD, because it requires consistent, concerted effort, and it also requires doing some things they'd rather not do (e.g. hold down a job, save money for a rainy day).  Their emotions are all over the place, they don't have a firm grasp of who they really are and what they want to achieve, and they just can't be consistent enough to make healthy choices consistently.  So they self-destruct, and blame YOU in the process.  And if you feel guilt, and step in, and over-function for them, then you might be encouraging that negative mode of thinking and pattern of self-destructive behavior.

I understand the sense of mourning, the feeling that you might never have the close and loving relationship with your  daughters that you once dreamed of having.  But honestly, I think you deserve to focus more on you in this next phase of your life.  Your daughters are adults now.  Your job of caring for their daily needs is done.  I'm sure you did the very best that you could to give them a good life.  Whether they choose to embrace adulthood with optimism and a sense of freedom and independence is their choice entirely.  You deserve to focus on you and pursue your dreams, hobbies and interests.  If you find therapy to be helpful, then that's great.  For therapy to work for your daughters, they have to want to make some changes.  Otherwise I think therapy won't help them much at all.

I wish you some peace. 

[Mixie]

Kind thanks for your thoughtful words. I have taken them to heart. I must give myself permission to look after me. They have both taken an enormous toll on my being. They were offered and participated in a lot of therapy in different modalities, and they should now have the insights and tools to move forward. But as you say, this is up to them. And mothers are an easy target.

Thank you again.

[KitKat68]

Hi Mixie,

I have more than one child but only one daughter and she is in her early 30’s, dx’d as a teenager. I divorced her dad when she was around 3yo. Remarried a few years later to my current husband who is the father of my other kids, also adults. My daughter is currently estranged from all of us and she was estranged from her dad when he died several years ago.

Now that her dad is dead she has him up on a pedestal but when he was alive he was the main target of her rage while splitting. When he passed away I quickly became her main target and sometimes she lumps her stepdad in, he’s occasionally been the only target, but I am enemy number one and I had to block her years back, my husband did the same several months later. Not long after she chose to stop talking to her siblings and their spouses but I think there are social media connections which still exist but they don’t actually talk or see each other.

Again, my daughter directs most negative things at me and I’ve also heard that ls pretty common. I have reason to believe my ex may have engaged in some parental alienation after we split up and that doesn’t help matters at all. My daughter has been to therapy (a long time ago) and was once medicated for a short time and both things helped, now she refuses to do either while suggesting (screaming at) the rest of us need it instead. We’ve all been to therapy and when I remind her of that (when I used to JADE with her) she blows up. She is fairly high functioning and is on her second marriage, has kids, can keep friends for awhile, and can keep jobs for awhile but always ends up getting fired.

Earlier this year she was fired for financial fraud and blames me for it. Said if we’d paid for her huge second wedding, which none of us were even invited to, she wouldn’t have had to do what she did at work. She also didn’t have many people show up on her side for the wedding (can’t keep friends) and somehow we’re also at fault. Mostly me. She “thinks” I convinced people not to go, something I would not do (doesn’t even make sense), and even if I wanted to do that I didn’t know much if anything about her wedding until a short while before it happened.

Then I was told later my daughter actually had substantial financial help paying for the wedding from a female friend of hers who is closer to my age, kind of a second mom type. So she lied about that and doesn’t care we paid for her first wedding and paid for her divorce lawyer, no longer matters. Per a daughter of the friend of hers who paid for a decent chunk of the second wedding, the friend has since been kicked to the curb. Not surprising in the least.

Long story short, my daughter would find a way to blame me for the sky being blue and will lie profusely especially if she is dysregulated. Not that it probably makes you feel any better but you definitely are not alone. I rarely speak to her, usually only via an email that I check if I feel up to it, and have not seen her in years due to her aggression and refusal to deal with her mental health. She does not miss us (which is fine) but I suspect she misses what she perceived as control over us, misses having me as a readily available target, is angry her siblings don’t appear to miss her …they don’t and for good reason.

I’ve found individual therapy to be useful and it has helped me move on the best I can as I don’t expect reconciliation anytime soon, part of which for safety reasons. The estrangement has also helped me focus on my own life far better than I was ever doing before.

[js friend]

Hi Mixie,

I have no hope for a reconciliation with my udd3, but I do have hope to see my GC again and thats what keeps me going. Tbh I dont miss the continued abuse and power and control that she tried to assert over me and it has taken  me many years to get back to some form of my old self. She is your child and it is normal for you to want the closeness that a parent and child should feel but your dd's wont begin to change until they really want to and get some serious mental help for themselves.
I would suggest that you do what you can for you and  get some therapy for the abuse you have suffered over the years. There will be better days ahead.

[js friend]

dd31