Beyond frustrated, 20YO BPD step daughter

[Fedupsm]

Hi I'm new here and I dont' really know what I'm doing but I'm just beyond frustrated. I'm hoping connecting with others in the same situation may help. I truly hate my BPD stepdaughter. She's recently diagnosed but has been difficult from the day I've met her at age 13, she's now 20 and despite intense therapy, 2 family sessions a week and 3 separate individual sessions ...  she is getting progressively worse in her behaviours. Her mother, my husbands previous wife is decea ed and died of a neurological disorder about 6 years ago. She was very present in her 3 children(now my stepchildren) lives but it was very troubled.  We now understand she likely also suffered from BPD along with her her physical illness. By all accounts, she was abusive and unmanageable and in her last years in and out of nursing homes. My husband married her very young, she likely got pregnant on purpose.  He is a good and kind man and felt it was his duty to care for her as she had no family other than himself, his extended family and my stepchildren. She did not get along with his family and while they tried to step in to assist with my stepchildren she would chase them away. So a history of BPD and its learned behaviours exist. My eldest and youngest stepchild and I are very bonded and I love them with all my heart and care for them fully. I love our relationship and they're both really wonderful humans.  My middle stepchild with the BPD however is extremely abusive to my husband, myself and her siblings. She is controlling and emotionally abusive to her younger sister. She broke her sister's arm by pushing her off a slide when they were small,  and I've seen her physically attack her elder brother, clawing at his face with her nails, and she has slapped her father as well as hit him with a cat scratching post whilst in a rage severely bruising and cutting him. While it has been 2 years since she has attacked anyone she regularly screams, slams doors, and throws and breaks things. She is rude, manipulative, lacks empathy, is totally dishonest, entitled, regularly steals money from my husband,  and tells him what a terrible worthless father he is all while holding her hand out for money.  He argues endlessly with her and she never backs down until he threatens to cut her off financially then she becomes tearful and apologetic. My husband is absolutely without question an enabler and we are working on changing that with therapy but at this time he just cannot get past the guilt. While married to their mother he was a workaholic running a successful business but he enabled his wife malignant behaviour and really did not comprehend the damage she was inflicting upon the 3 kids and himself. Anyway, here we are today.... understanding she was 'special' and in need of help I've spent a lot of time with my BPD stepdaughter, talking with her, trying to guide her, appeasing her demands until I couldn't take it anymore. I am attending our family sessions but I'm seeing no change in her behaviours or thinking. Last week she totaled my husbands car speeding - no one was hurt thank goodness- but there is zero remorse - she's more annoyed she doesn't have a car to drive and consistently brings up the fender benders her siblings had and that they received no punishment (both were extremely remorseful and distressed even though they weren't really at fault.  What I don't understand about BPD that everyone says ... is that the BPD person is living in pain and that they are so unhappy. I actually don't feel my stepdaughter feels any sort of pain ... she completely lacks the ability to see other perspectives, rationalizes everything to her advantage and only cries when she feels she is being victimized. I'm not seeing her feel any sort of conscience or remorse ... is anyone else's BPD stepchild like this? We are actually having her tested (nueropsych eval) this week ..I'm wondering if she is going to have a coexisting disorder such as narcissism or sociopathy....? I'm trying hard to be supportive but the frustration is transcending into hate and I can barely stand to be in the same room as her. I can't even look her in the eyes anymore... she doesn't seem bothered by this.

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 Fedupsm
The most important thing for me coming here was that I didn't feel so alone. Finally there were people dealing with all the weird behaviours I was dealing with and trying to make sense of. I was thinking my DD was on the autism spectrum - or was she bipolar, ADHD???

Until I came here I didn't recognise the range of aspects that are the condition BPD!

My DD's behaviour towards me is terrible, especially the way I am to blame for the tiniest thing that happens to affect her. I think the first thing could be for your dh to understand he is not to blame for this complex condition. The other children did not develop BPD. It takes a series of factors to come together to trigger the illness and people describe it in many different ways such as rapid cycling bipolar.

There are some things that are at the core of the condition of emotional dysregulation and there is also a wide range of both intensity of symptoms and which symptoms the individual has. Some BPD folk can hold down a good job, others like my DD would find that impossible.

Therapy that involves talking is impossible for my DD: talking triggers her emotions very quickly because she easily interprets them as blaming her.

There can be co-existing conditions. In my case high anxiety is certainly co-existent. The neurological assessment is great and I hope it is helpful. It's quite impressive that SD is attending family therapy sessions and also willing to have this assessment done.

I am not sure how much the usual therapies are helpful for BPD. My understanding is that DBT therapy is the most effective if the person is willing to engage.

My DD's symptoms were very much lessened when she was on an ordinary antidepressant. It seemed to lift the bar so that she was not so easily emotionally triggered to anger and the subsequent abuse.

I am in the same house as my DD but I keep rather withdrawn. I understand the condition pretty well now I feel and I see myself as walking beside my DD, rather than with her.

The positive in your situation is that your DD seems willing to attend things. I am wondering if a trial of medication and finding a DBT therapist would help? You may already have tried these things.

I think BPD is the most difficult of all the mental illnesses - for the person concerned and everyone around them. The emotional rollercoaster ride and the chaos is exhausting - and it's very sad.

You are absolutely not alone . .

[CC43]

Hi Fed up,

I’m in a similar situation. I have a diagnosed stepdaughter in her mid 20s. She grew up with a high.conflict mother. She has an older sister who was a drama queen, got kicked out of rooming situations and attempted suicide. She says she has ADHD but I don’t believe it one bit, she just wanted Aderall and abused it for a time. But she’s matured and very high functioning now, leading me to believe she took a long time to grow up.

Her younger sister though is really struggling with BPD. She has a passive and very negative personality, unlike her sister. But attempting suicide is contagious.  She plays the victim, blaming her family for all her poor choices. Her dad enables her, out of guilt and fear. She attempted suicide multiple times, whenever she didn’t get what she wanted. Living with her has seemed like a contest in misery, to see who can inflict the most pain. She has lied countless times, telling stories about how others abuse her, twisting facts to make herself out to be the victim, when in fact she was the aggressor. When under extreme stress, she experienced bouts of psychosis. Marijuana made everything worse. It was hard.not to hate her behavior and mourn the loss of a happy life with such promise, all carelessly tossed out with the garbage.

The upshot is that when she hit bottom, she started to take therapy seriously. Quitting marijuana turned some things around. She’s much better off now than before. But she lost many years spent marinating in a miserable funk. And she cost us a fortune in therapies (mostly skipped), rent payments and lost tuition. It’s hard not to resent her when she appears able to function whenever she wants something. But she still can’t seem to hold down a job. I have a 15 year old nephew who can function in a job with more responsibility than she can. Indeed, it’s like she’s a 15-year-old in an adult’s body. In a way, that’s her emotional age, with her supersized dramatic reactions and infantile coping skills,

I’m really worried about her. She functions well when on vacation and with a big bank account. But she easily falls apart when she encounters life’s stresses. She has a lot of trouble getting going and fulfilling commitments. She appears not to really know who she is and what she wants. She seems aimless and so utterly confused. It’s hard to know if she’s just playing the role of clueless, helpless waif or if that’s what she is.

I’m not sure what to tell you. You can look at some of my posts if you like. Things have gotten better for me, in part by being more aligned with my husband. But he is still enabling some counter-productive behavior, because it can be very hard to know what to do when it comes to BPD. I wish you some patience and peace. It’s a long and arduous journey. I’ll just add that I have another stepson who is wonderful. He grew up in the exact same environment as his sisters, and he is thriving. I’d add that I think it’s important not to neglect the normal siblings, lest they feel that BPD consumes all your attention and resources. He might resent that. And you might resent that too. So be sure to do things for yourself, your spouse and other family members. Dealing with BPD shouldn’t become your entire life.