sibling rivalry

[capecod]

My D34 has decided that if I pay attention to her grown brothers and their families then I must be slighting her, that I favor them over her. I was wondering if this happens a lot, their pitting themselves against siblings. I had made arrangements to do 'something' with her but she didn't get up until 1:00 so when I needed to pick her brother and his son up at camp in the middle of the day she threw a fit saying 'everything always revolves around them'. I'm trying to learn this language, the non-triggering one, but I get exhausted and, I'm sorry, I get angry too.    I'm not giving up but these blow-ups are discouraging to be sure.

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

[jellibeans]

This is very common in my home between my daughters... . recently my older D graduated and my dd15 was very deregulated the week before.  She competes for attention and seems to be only happy if the focus is on her. At least this is how it appears but I am not sure if it is her need for attention or the pain she feels or the envy of her sister who doesn't struggle in school has a pretty get along personality. My dd15 will always say things like "you like older D more than me"... . etc... . she feel slighted very easily and I think that is because she is super sensitive.

I think you need to understand this disorder to really try to interpret their behavior and reasons for acting the way they do. At the beginning of the summer she told me she was going to start running again... . I reminded her of this a few times and finally she got upset and told me that when I tell her to run she thinks I am calling her fat... . she is not fat... . she is actually underweight so I was pretty shocked when she told me this. I think this is a pretty good example of how in their heads they hear something completely different and I would think this is an error in thinking. This is the same kind of thinking they have when a friend doesn't return their call... . instead of thinking oh they got busy they will call me later pwBPD think oh they don't like me anymore... .

I don't know if I will ever understand this disorder... . I learn something new every day... .

[qcarolr]

I see this kind of rivalry with my DD27 and my gd7. We have custody of gd since a baby. DD has much more of a sister type r/s, though in her mind she is a good mom. DD is in a more calm place for a bit -- taking respite after lots of trauma with friends and bf gone on a trip. I have actually been able to talk about the jealousy gd has for my time with DD. Don't know if she can think of it the other way around. Sometimes DD acts and thinks like a 13-15 year old. And to remind her that she has been very mean to gd in the past few weeks.

Wonder when the calm will shift? Maybe we can get some treatment started before bf gets back  -  :)D seems to want feel better and to do her probation. Then she is saying how she will do ok in jail, probation is too long and hard. No way to predict this.

qcr  

[six]

my ds25 lives in fear of any of his siblings succeeding where he is failing.  when his younger sisters got admitted to college he had a meltdown.  he is terrified that one of them will get into a romantic relationship and/or get married which he views as the ultimate achivement and is concerned taht he will never be able to do. he is in competition with them and with everyone else for that matter. 

he definitely feels like i "favor" the other kids and I love them more.  Not sure he is wrong about that to be brutally honest.  the other kids give so much to me in terms of love, affection, caring, understanding.  how could I not feel differently toward them?

i know that a parent is supposed to have love for each child and I love him in my own way.  I would never want to see him in harms way, I would run to help him if there was something I could do for him.  but there is no way that i can feel the same way about him that i feel about my other children.  wish that were different

[vivekananda]

welcome to our boards   from me!

It is a challenge to keep a sense of perspective when there is a child with BPD in the home, isn't it? As parents we want the best for all our children, but sometimes our hurt makes it hard for us and 'sibling rivalry' is a difficult situation.

I think our kids with BPD have very fragile egos. If they feel they are ignored, then they will feel invalidated and this is hurtful to them. They have disordered thinking, their reality is skewed by their distorted emotional reactions, so they don't see things the way we do. There are these reasons and probably more to explain what seems to us as unreasonable behaviour.

The more we learn about BPD, the more we can understand why our kids do what they do. The more we learn about the skills that can help us and apply them, the more we can improve our relationships with them.

Are there any other explanations for why a pw BPD expresses jealousy like capecod's d did? What sort of skill do you think would help in a situation where your child became hurt or angry for what seemed like unwarranted jealousy? What is non triggering language?

Vivek       

[griz]

Hi capecod and Welcome:

This same situation used to have with my DD18, where we would make a plan and by the time she was ready our plans would need to be altered or cut short.  I don't know if this will help but when I make a plan with her I am very specific.  Yesterday we planed to go to the bookstore but I knew I wanted to be home early so I could wind down after the weekend and ready myself for the work week so I told her when she asked if we could go to the bookstore, "I would love to go together.  I want to leave no later than 3:30 because I want to be home by 6pm because I like to wind down early on Sundays".  At 3pm she was doing some school work and I said to her, I am just going to jump in the shower so we can leave at 3:30 and then we won't have to rush our bookstore visit.  She was ready at 3:30.  At 5:30 I texted her in the store (we were in different sections) that just said, "meet you at the register in 10". 

Maybe it would be helpful if you were specific about your plan.  You could even mention that you would like to leave early so that you could spend a lot of time together.

Griz

[Reality]

Wow, griz!  Well-defined plans! 

One of the best ideas I ever learned was:

Organization is the key to alleviating anxiety.

(I am adding any other kind of emotional dysregulation).

A support system is another key... .

Reality

[lbjnltx]

Our children who suffer with BPD have a very difficult time holding 2 opposing thoughts/beliefs at the same time... . it causes them to have frustration.  This is called the ":)ialectical Dilemna".  Because they are emotional thinkers (black and white) and less logical/reason thinkers seeing the shades of grey is blocked.

Your d34 wants your attention.

You have other people in your life who you want to give attention to.

Your d34 sees you give your attention to someone else and not her.

You are giving away what belongs to her and she becomes resentful of anyone who receives your attention.

You don't give her attention=you love them more than her.

I continue to work with my d16 (who has successfully completed long term residential care) to see the shades of grey.  I state "because I do something for someone else does not mean I do something against you.  think about it."  I also use her own actions as examples.  "If you choose to spend the day with your boyfriend does that mean you don't want to spend the day with Lisa?  Does that mean that you don't care about your relationship with Lisa?"

This same principles also applies to making choices to take care of self. "Just because I choose to do something for myself does not = doing something against you".

If we want them to hear us, it is important to first validate their emotions so that they are better able to process their feelings and move towards a balance of emotion and logical thinking mixed together... . called a state of "wisemind".

Here is a link to some information that you may find helpful:

Invalidation and the Dialectical Dilemna