Lavende
So glad that you found us on the parenting our BPDkids board. I am hopeful you will find help here to make your life better with your DD (dear daughter). It is a very painful journey yet there are more and more stories shared here about successes. Little ones and big ones.
The links that Kwamina gave you are good ones. I also suggest clicking on the "Foundation Reading" link in the right sidebar for books and videos for understanding and loving our kids. The videos are a great way to get a good understanding with case study examples quickly. Even if they focus on adolescents more the principles still work with our adult kids.
The most difficult concept for me to 'get' was that I had to put most of these tools to work on myself first before I was able to engage them with my DD28. I practiced a lot with other, less risky people in my life. Co-workers, DH (dear hubby), friends... .As I practiced I noticed changes in my level of anger, resentment, exhaustion (self-care is important!) etc. Only then was I able to really change how I interacted with my BPDDD in ways that have improved our relationship.
I have an adult daughter who lives with us at home. She adores my husband who is the good father and I am the mean mother.
May I ask how old your DD is? (dear daughter) Does she live with you because she is in school or another reason she cannot live on her own? Does she have siblings in the house? Does it feel like she tries to put herself between you and your dh (dear hubby)?
I try validating her feelings, empathy but I also try to put limits especially on alcohol . She drinks one bottle a day. She is becoming more verbally abusive and I do not feel safe at times.
How do you cope with verbal abuse? Validation does not work at that time.
Are you and your dh able to work out your values that her behaviors seem to violate? How well do your values fit with your dh's? Coming from values is a good start to finding the personal boundaries that might work. It is most effective when you are working on this together, and let your DD know this by backing each other up in setting and enforcing these values-based boundaries.
Validation and empathy are at the top of the Tools list, and they are of key importance. Still, they have to be balanced by the other tools. There are times when validation is not the best approach, especially when abuse or violence is involved. Safety first. There have been many times with my DD that I felt threatened. She would not allow me to walk away or drive away. We had to get police involved. She would spend time at ER getting psych eval. These were all very crisis oriented and temporary solutions. And we still would use them today if needed. Safety First. The other strategies take longer to put into place and see the benefits/changes. I certainly wish BPD was something I knew about before her dx at age 23. Maybe some of the crises would have been avoided. Then again, maybe not.
We had to ask our DD to leave the house. She lived homeless and did I ever feel guilty the first couple years of this. Yet, even when she was living in our home off and on the past 10 years she was gone more than she was here. I realize now that it is her choices making her homeless and I have little impact on those choices. It is her choices to drink or do drugs and avoid treatment. Mental health treatment and drug abuse treatment.
I am a retired teacher.
How does your training as a teacher help or hinder how your react to your DD's acting out behaviors, if it does? It is a constant struggle to accept my powerlessness over my adult child. Really, the only person I can really control is myself. Then my actions may elicit a new type of response from someone else. Changing my patterns creates the opportunity for changes in the other members of my family. In tiny little steps things continue to get better. Maybe not as I imagined. Better. Much better for me, dh and my gd9 (who lives with us).
Keep coming back. Let us know how things are going. What questions you have about the tools, videos, articles, etc. We understand and care.
qcr
