My daughter wishes I was dead.

[depressedmum]

Please forgive me if this letter is a bit messy.

My daughter is in her early thirties. I have struggled with her anger and verbal abuse of me etc. since her teenage years. The situation improves for a while but soon goes back to awful again.

We have had counseling separately and together. I have met her counselors to be told of my faults and failings and sat quietly listening to lies and wondered how they could believe it.

Once a counselor asked me what I wished for my daughter and I said ‘I wished for her a happy life.’

My daughter said I said ‘I never want to see her again and I don’t care.’

I find her terrifying to be with. I am afraid of her. I cannot say anything without thinking really carefully how she will interpret it.

Yet I feel angry at being so abused and feel I am being used and abused.

At the moment we are at awful. 

She has been diagnosed with various things bipolar etc. but usually they change their mind about this.  She has been alcoholic but gave up drinking. She replaced that with cannabis but says she gave that up – I don’t know.

She takes a huge amount of prescribed drugs.

A clinical psychologist I was seeing said her behaviour sounds like borderline personality.

Her behavior is very like the behaviours I read about here.

She was close to my mother who kept her happy by giving her money and whatever she wanted. As a result my daughter has no awareness of being careful with money and expects her bills to be paid by me (now that my mother died.)

She has told me she wishes I had died instead of my mum. At the moment of my mother’s death, she became hysterical and ran out into the hospice garden.

The hospice clinical psychologist was brought to her by nurses and then came to me.

She implied I should have been looking after her. Ten minutes earlier I had held my mum’s hand as she died. The psychologist didn’t seem to recognize I was a human being who had just lost her mother. I have this problem a lot in my life.

The clinical psychologist warned me that my daughter should be watched carefully for suicide risk.

It was my mum that had died and I wasn’t allowed even a moment.  I was shaking inside and I am now as I remember.

After my mum’s death she began asking me for money the whole time. A friend who knows us both very well said she was only nice to me for as long as it took to extricate money from me. I was angry at the time but gradually I realised there was a sad and painful truth in this.

The same friend said he would never recognize me from my daughter’s descriptions of me as evil etc.

I realized the only time she was civil to me was when she was anticipating or manipulating money from me.

When she began taking in animals she found on the streets and expecting me to pay I began to refuse.

I set limits and said she needed to live within her means. She asked for money to pay a bill and I said yes but I set conditions - only if she didn’t take in any more animals and only if she didn’t ask me for any more money until the New Year (this was august)

Two weeks later she found another animal and asked me for money. I refused. She became very abusive and sent terrible emails. She posted nasty stuff about me on Facebook and I practically had a nervous breakdown.


Following my mum’s death I had depression and anxiety, which only improved after my daughter broke contact with me and I called her bluff by accepting it. The relief of not having her manipulative phone calls was enormous. I can’t describe it.

My own father, who was a violent and cruel father to me and is still cruel but too old to be violent, supports her against me and gives her money all the time and tells me to give her money if I don’t.

My daughter’s father is not interested or supportive apart from liking to pass judgments.  We split up when she was 12.

My own family situation was awful. My brother is also violent, alcoholic and nasty to me and I have cut contact with him. His daughter is abusive to me, presumably because of this.

I have a lovely husband who really doesn’t want any contact with her or any of my family because of the effect on me.

To be honest I don’t want any contact either. I can’t take any more. I feel like a failure as a mother and she has convinced a lot of people about my awfulness.

My words are twisted and used against me.

I am very hurt to be honest. I don’t get mothers day cards, birthday cards or Christmas cards but I have never forgotten to send her.

I have had several operations in the last few years and she has never visited me, nor sent a card.

I also had an accident, which left me unable to walk for the best part of a year. I am now on medication for anxiety and my health has suffered.

Last time I was admitted to hospital she rang me up and told me to tell the doctors she was sick. There is no end it. She is completely self-involved and unless it happens to her it didn’t happen.

She likes to make herself the centre of any tragedy. When my aunt died – again when I was with her, my daughter went hysterical and started running around the road etc.

There have been lots of suicide threats and also threats to get involved with moneylenders if I don’t give her money.

She attacked her partner and put it on Facebook that he beat her up. Then it turned out that she attacked him and the police had to take her away – not her.

She will sometimes (when I had my accident for example) send texts with tons of loving messages but I don’t feel it is meant – I feel she is just buttering me up for the next time she wants money.

Her birthday is coming up and I am thinking of not sending a card or giving her money.  You see I know the only time she is nice is when I give her money and that breaks my heart.

I can’t live with having to bribe my only daughter to be nice to me and I don’t feel it helps her.

I feel awful about the whole thing. I feel like a failure as a mum and my self-esteem in my extended family is low because I know how I am portrayed to them. 

Everybody has a lot of sympathy for her and a lot of dislike and sometimes hatred for me.

If I express to my daughter how I feel - say for example if I say ‘I feel very hurt when you say you wish I was dead’

She will rephrase it back to me as ‘you feel’ ‘you feel’ what else do ‘you feel? Why don’t you care about what I feel…’

I have been to hellish places in my mind with this. I am going to stop now I am sorry for rambling.

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

[peaceplease]

depressedmum,


I am so sorry for all that you are going through, and I am glad that you found us here.  It sounds like you need much support, and you will find it here.  I am sorry for the loss of your mother.   And, I am sorry that you have no support from any of your family.  I can't even imagine the pain of not having any of them to support you through this.  I hope that you can begin to heal.

How awful to feel judged by her counselors!  They should realize there is always another side to the story.  Are you still in counseling?  Do you have friends to support you? 

Please read all that you can about BPD.  We have a wealth of information.  I will give you a few links to look at.


Video-What is Borderline Personality Disorder?

Top 50 most often asked question

Depression: Stop Being Tortured by Your Own Thoughts

I hope that you can come and join us on the parents board.  You may find others that have many parallels to your story. 

Here is the link for the parents board:  Parenting a son or daughter suffering from BPD board   Come join us when you ready.

What are you doing to take care of yourself?  Do not blame yourself for being a failure as a mom.  You did not cause this, and it is not your fault.

Please let us know if there is anything that we can help you find.

I look forward to reading your future posts. 

peaceplease

[crazedncrazymom]

I'd like to join peaceplease in welcoming you to BPD Family!  I am so sorry you have endured such a tough time.  Many parents, including myself, can relate to at least some of what you have experienced.  It is so heartwrenching to give your all only to have it thrown back in your face by an ungrateful child.  It sounds like you have some very good, strong boundaries.  It is great that you have already figured out how to protect yourself from some of the damage your dd could do to you financially.

I know exactly what you mean regarding the therapist.  Here you are falling apart and the therapist is all like... .well, you need to validate her feelings.  I'm like... HELLO!  I could use a little validation too before I go feeling all validating.

I'd keep sending those birthday and Christmas cards maybe minus the cash.  It's a great way to keep the door open so your dd knows you are there for her. 

You will find a lot of support for you here at BPD.  Please keep posting!

-crazed

[depressedmum]

Thank you both for replying. I do appreciate it. I have learned to set boundaries but I wish I had learned earlier. It doesn't help that my own Dad interferes and joins with her against me when I do set a boundary.

There is a huge price to pay for setting boundaries. I have become a hate figure because of this and okay it is better not to have contact when it is damaging me but not having contact feels so wrong.

Sometimes I feel like the kid who wants to stick their finger back in the fire for the millionth time - just to see if it will burn -this time.

Thanks for the advice about the cards. Opinions vary on this. My own therapist advised no contact including cards and presents but I felt that was harsh and I never could do it. Her advice is to shut the door and lock but I want to peep out through the window even if I can't be a normal mom.

The thing that hurts the most is that I know she would be perfectly nice to me and would act like a loving daughter - if, and only if, I give in to constant demands for cash. I used to be manipulated by long or sad stories but there are too many stories and I realised that I was going to be broke myself.

There appears to be a currency in my family of money instead of love. It is very sad but even my brother and his daughter work on my dad to manipulate money out of my Dad and I feel he gives money out to everyone in order to be allowed to treat them badly.

My brother couldn't wait for my mother to be buried before he started trying to figure out how to get my dad out of his house to sell it. I went against him on this and protected by Dad and was rewarded by my brother being abusing and not speaking to me and my Dad sticking up for my brother because his pride wont allow him to believe my brother wants him out of the house.

My Dad has tried to manipulate situations to place my brother and me together and try and force me to have contact. When I refuse my Dad then tells me everything is my fault - that I am the only one in the family with the problem etc.

It is hard to stop myself wondering if he is right. Is it me? I try not to do this as it leads to depression.

I walk, I garden and look after myself best I can.

I am lucky to have a kind gentle husband.

Thank you

Depressedmum

[mary93]

hello Depressedmum. I can so relate to what you are saying, as been there (still am). I get the impression you are not surrounded by the proper therapists etc, example the "shut the door and lock it" advice. Yes I would definitely say shut the door, but definitely not lock (just my opinion), as these are our children after all and they are sick (would someone tell us to lock the door if our child had cancer). At this point in my situation with my daughter I am only doing what is good for me right now, as can't handle doing anything for her and anyways she rejects anything I do. I am doing individual therapy, group therapy etc and keeping the kleenex industry up and working  :'( . Its very very tough to be in this situation as damned if we do damned if we don't, so we should do what is good for each one of us. I sent my daughter a birthday text as that's all I feel to do. It must be a good day for her as she responded, so right this minute I am "good" with her, but maybe tonight I will be on the other side who knows    . Now the xmas holidays are coming and that is going to be bringing a whole lot of stress. I will not be doing anything this year as I just can't handle it, and she will have to deal with it. She lives with her dad now, so she can do xmas there, as it will finish me off if I have to do anything. I also noticed that for right now, I do better with no physical contact with her, as the body language and the moods etc are very hurtful to me and I suffer greatly after. Do something for yourself, and make yourself feel good  

[qcarolr]

depressedmum - 

I have been in this worn down, worn out place. It can be so dark and dreary. There seem to be many relationships in you family that are unhealthy. Sometimes I have to stop, step back, and find ways to just take care of myself. And I have found it impossible to do this alone, on my own, though I am an independent sort and have tried and tried.

Is there a way to turn down or turn off the volume of messages from others for a bit? Where can you reach out for support just for you - to guide you to find some internal peace instead of focused on how you relate to your DD or son or dad or ex... .? Do you belong to a faith community that could give you some personal support, a friend, a new counselor - just for you?

The tools at the right can also work when we apply them to ourselves. This is often the best next step. Give self empathy, self validation, become more self-aware and mindful, touch into our values and what limits really mean for us... .  Learning these things and practicing them with myself and others that are safe (my dh most often) --- this is what eventually has led to a better relationship with my BPDDD27. And it gives me a stable place to be when things are not going so well with my DD27 --

Let us know how we can help you find some peace. It is your turn.

qcr

[crumblingdad]

Welcome and sorry for all your pain.

You have come to a place where so much can be learned of your d's illness.

One thing stuck out in your post and I want to be very clear.

You did not fail as a mom.  You are a wonderful caring and loving mom with very little support and a very difficult situation.

You did not cause your daughters mental illnesses anymore then if she was diagnosed with cancer, or diabetes or any other illness.  I've been down that road as a father blaming myself and it's an empty place that is not at all accurate of the reality of the situation.

All you can do is learn about it and hopefully reach a place with proper boundaries, which it seems you are doing.  Along with that you can also learn radical acceptance and how to better understand her.  First, however, the most important step is your own health and well being and making sure you take care of yourself and the pain you are going through.

Hope you can find some comfort here as it's been a tremendous benefit for myself for support from those that understand the pain, as well as great resources and information to help moving forward.

[suchsadness]

Hello Depressedmum 

I want to join the others in welcoming you to this board. I too know what you are going through and understand the "feeling" of being a failure when it comes to being a mother. I also understand the manipulation behind the kindness and expectations of money.  I wasn't raised that way and never ever expected to be supported by my parents so that is a hard one for me.  However, I do realize that I played a big part in my dd36 being able to manipulate me that way.  Setting boundaries with someone who abuses you for saying no is such a hard thing to do especially knowing that you will pay the price.  But good for you for setting and sticking to boundaries.  I'm so sorry that you do not have anyone to support you except your husband. I too have a loving supportive realistic husband who helps me stick to boundaries that I have only recently been able to set. 

My dd36 became so abusive to me last spring that I blocked her from my cell phone and was glad to abide by the no contact she had demanded.  The relief I felt when the abuse stopped was great, but that didn't stop me from feeling bad and extremely sad about losing contact with her and my beautiful grandsons.  She told me I was dead to her and her two sons.  I did end up sending her a birthday card (no money) in October which came back return to sender because she doesn't live at the address I sent it to anymore.  Shortly after that she did contact me and we have had some minimal contact since that time, with today being the most ever and her letting me wish my grandson happy birthday.  I don't mean to hijack this thread I just want to let you know that there are many of us out here who are in the same situation as you and can relate to what you are going through. 

Please be good to yourself and find the support you will need to stay strong and learn the skills for dealing with the daughter you love, who is very complex.  There is so much support and information on this website and I don't know what I would have done without it.  Take care, you are in my prayers!