Should I ever talk about my feelings?

[Missp]

My daughter has only been diagnosed (BPD) these past 6 months - after a breakdown. After spending all her childhood trying to enable and protect her in various ways,  I decided (pre diagnosis) to tell her some of my feelings about how her depression sometimes makes me feel down, how I felt uncomfortable with her being in her room all day at home and not making a household contribution whilst I worked full time (that sort of stuff).  I had also been discussing with her how to get housing benefit when she expressed an interest in lodging with a friend. Shortly after this (and with some negative input from her disordered other carer - my ex), her behaviour towards me changed radically.  This was a total shock to me as she had previously been loving.  I expressed how this made me feel but it was as if she could no longer hear me.  She now refers to this as my 'emotional manipulation' of her.  She has moved out and in with my ex.  She was diagnosed a few months after this, after a hospital stay.

I have started using validation techniques in my texts to her and they have been so helpful.  I had an amazing breakthrough when she arrived at my door and hugged me and stayed for a cup of tea and a chat.

In her texts she has told me that, because I am 'emotionally manipulative' she is limiting the amount of time she is with me. Since using SET in my texts with her, we have really moved forward. These texts had none of my feelings in. She is still wary about spending time with me.

I think that my feelings are too much for her. Do other parents of adult children with BPD ever successfully share their emotions with them?

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

[lbjnltx]

Hi missp,

First, I'm so glad to hear that your relationship is improving by using the skills of validation and SET.  This is awesome news! 

Most likely your daughter felt more shame (inherent sense of shame is a hallmark of BPD) when you told her how her behaviors caused you pain.  Most of the behaviors of a pwBPD (person with BPD) are attempts to avoid their feelings of shame, emptiness and brokenness. Without healthy coping skills and a high level of self awareness she will feel burdened by your emotions and cannot validate you, empathize with you, or learn that her actions/choices have consequences in the relationship.  She is most likely able to validate how someone else might hurt you and validate your feelings (3rd person empathy).

It takes a great deal of recovery to get to the point of a pwBPD validating the feelings of those they have harmed.  It is possible though!  My daughter has apologized to me many times for the way she treated me in the past.  Our relationship is very healthy now.



lbj

[Rapt Reader]

I have started using validation techniques in my texts to her and they have been so helpful.  I had an amazing breakthrough when she arrived at my door and hugged me and stayed for a cup of tea and a chat.

In her texts she has told me that, because I am 'emotionally manipulative' she is limiting the amount of time she is with me. Since using SET in my texts with her, we have really moved forward. These texts had none of my feelings in. She is still wary about spending time with me.

I think that my feelings are too much for her. Do other parents of adult children with BPD ever successfully share their emotions with them?

That's a great insight, Missp  

I have also found that talking about my own feelings with the people in my life with BPD (or BPD traits) can cause problems with and for them, actually, and in turn cause troubles in our relationship.

Something I do when communicating with them, either verbally--in person or on the phone--or by text/email, is always remind myself "This is about his/her feelings, not mine!" I still convey my thoughts and feelings in a way, using S.E.T. (Support, Empathy, Truth--for those reading who might not know what that acronym means), and like you, have found that it does the trick... .My loved one isn't dysregulated and upset by the conversation, I feel better being able to communicate with him/her, and our relationship continues to thrive.

Here's an example of how I do this when I need to, in a "touchy" situation:

A few weeks ago my younger (non-BPD) son and his wife (who has BPD traits) moved into their new home. We'd offered to help them move once they told us about the purchase, but they'd hired a moving company and said they were fine and didn't need our help. So, my Husband didn't take any time off during the planned week of their move a few months later and took time off for the following month, instead, as per my son's request for us to visit them. They live 5 hours away from us.

The week of the move turned out to be very difficult for them, because the contractor they hired to do the pre-move renovations to the new home didn't actually accomplish the "move-in ready" status promised, and the moving company delivered all their boxes and furniture, etc. into a dirty, tool-filled home. With their toddler in tow, my son and D-I-L found this to be, understandably, very stressful and frustrating, and I have the impression that D-I-L (and most likely my son as well) got incredibly dysregulated over the situation.

Not knowing about the situation brewing with them, I very affectionately sent them both the same text message wishing them good luck with the move, with the hope that it all went smoothly. It was at 6:30 PM, my Husband and I were out for our weekly Friday date night dinner, and my D-I-L texted back very quickly, telling me all of their problems and stress. And that they would not mind it if we drove to their place and helped them the next day with the cleaning and emptying of the boxes.

Well, we were in the middle of dinner, had plans for the weekend already (since they hadn't taken up our offer to help them move, previously), and the drive is 5 hours one way. And we'd have to head back home on Sunday so my Husband could go to work on Monday. I knew that it wasn't our fault that this would not work, but I also knew that for her to suggest we come there (she basically avoids us most of the time) must've meant that they were desperate.

I was pretty frozen in my mind over how to respond; any response at all--that didn't include the words "Okay... .We're on our way!"--was a possible cause of their being very angry at us for a long time, maybe accompanied by a dis-invitation of us coming for the planned visit a month later (take my word for it; stuff like this has happened a lot since their marriage 10 years ago!). Besides, I really did feel for them, and felt terrible that we couldn't come and help. And at the same time, I felt a bit defensive about being put on the spot like that, especially since we'd already offered a few months--and again a few weeks--prior, to come and help with the move so we could have time to make those plans.

After sitting on my response for about an hour, I finally texted back: "Oh, that really IS a horrible situation! I'm so sorry for all the stress you are going through; it must be so hard... .Dad ordered 10 cubic yards of topsoil a few days ago, and has to move it by wheelbarrow to build up the back yard to prevent flooding of our garage like last summer. He's doing that this weekend; the dirt was dumped in our driveway  "

I didn't hear back from either of them on Friday night, and by Saturday morning my son did send a few terse texts saying that it would be nice to have family that would help, and how hard it was to do this with a toddler. Since my cellphone wasn't on at the time (I don't have it on unless we are traveling, and we stayed home that weekend to get the yard work done) I never saw the texts till Sunday night when I just decided to check it for any possible messages. I called and left a voicemail for him on his cellphone as soon as I saw the messages, telling him that I was sorry for not texting back, and why. I again validated how difficult it is to move under his circumstances, especially with a toddler, and told him how sorry I was for his situation.

He didn't call or text in response to my voicemail till Monday morning, and by then he apologized by email for not responding (I'm quite sure they were upset that we didn't come to help them, and were avoiding a conversation), and then he called me Monday evening. The phone call went well: I validated their stress, he explained that they'd really thought the home would be "move-in ready" and that they would not have this messy, difficult situation. We both agreed that had we had prior notification of the need for help (them and us), we could have arranged for us to come and help.

This storm did pass with the least amount of collateral damage, and my Husband and I are still visiting in June, and my son and D-I-L will have a list of things that they would like us to help them with for the 4 days we will be there. S.E.T does work, and taking my own feelings out of our conversations does allow for dialed-down communication. And using that technique does allow for me to state my "truth" in a satisfying way (for me) that doesn't actually make my own emotions an issue that can cause troubles in my relationships with my loved ones  

I think you have done a good job, Missp, using this technique  

[Missp]

Thank you previous posters for your help and experience. These wise words and peeks into the challenging lives of others really, really help me! After going through many tumultuous ponderings about the state of my own pbd family and reckoning my own blame in it, to see that others have processed these, and/or are still processing has made me feel much less alone. I know now to take care of my self and feelings in other ways.

Before my daughter was diagnosed, I remember her telling me that I did not listen to her (she was right, I was enabling and encouraging her to take up activities like voluntary work to help with her 'depression' instead of using the BPD useful tools - which I did not have then). In discussions about her depression, I had a distinct uneasiness when I mentioned my mood to her - and subsequent thought that she found my feelings hard to deal with.  That did not stop me having a big emotional splurge when she quite suddenly turned against me (all pre diagnosis).  That just made things worse.

I now understand what caused that shift for my daugher - the fear of abandonment. I had been discussing, and enabling, her moving out to live with a friend (I thought she wanted to do this because she had mentioned it).  This, with discussions of my low mood at her depressions, the lightweight nagging to do at least 1 chore whilst I was at work led her to imagine imminent abandonment.  So began the rollercoaster.  On the positive side, it did lead to a diagnosis - which is better than us all struggling along in the dark until she was middle aged - or never coming to an understanding of her condition at all.

I know she loves me deeply and that the rift from me is horribly painful for her. No more discussions of my feelings (until she possibly mentions them in the future).

I have a lunch date pencilled in with her in a couple of days; I'm looking forward to it (if she does not cancel)!

Your words give me hope that loving relationships can be rebuilt and be strong - maybe even stronger - because knowledge is power.

[livednlearned]

Hi Missp,

Thank you for letting us know that validation and SET skills have been working with your D. I imagine it must be very painful that she moved in with your ex, and seems to be engaged in what one psychologist calls a "persverse triangle." These are present in most families when there is even just a small amount of dysfunction. BPD can magnify the effect because they have fewer ways of recovering from the dysfunction, and lacking the skills, she engages in protest behaviors like splitting you black and resorting to more dramatic ways to cope. It's encouraging that she continues to see you, and has not split you entirely black.

Reading your post a second time, I wonder if maybe you were mixing boundaries with feelings in your conversation with her? For example, "Lately I have been feeling exhausted and run-down, almost as though I am experiencing a type of depression of my own. It takes a toll to work full-time and run a home." This is how you feel. You naturally also want more help from her -- this is more about asserting your boundaries. "Let's talk about ways that you can be more involved in running the home with me while I work full-time to provide for us." Something like that.

I also think that the natural order of parent-child relationship means that our role is to validate our kids, not vice versa. While a very emotionally healthy and resilient adult child could potentially validate a parent, a child who has a mental illness will be less equipped to do this.

Getting our needs for validation met through other adults, whether therapy or friends or family, can help lessen  the need to seek this from our kids. I do think our kids can handle our feelings -- it does take some skill to do this. My son is very sensitive to how I feel about him. I find he does better when I am genuine about feelings I have processed on my own (responding vs. reacting). If he senses I am frustrated, I can see it in his body language. I can say, "I feel tired today, everything feels a little more difficult when I'm tired. My supervisor was short with me, and that stings a bit. If I seem down, it's because of what happened earlier, and not what's happening now." He seems to need reassurance that my feelings are genuine, they're relatively stable, and I'm managing them, whether they are positive or negative. This is a big change for me since my family of origin never discussed feelings. My mom cried a lot and my dad was often cross, and no one ever addressed things directly. If anything, my dad managed our family by making sure no one felt any feelings   

Our kids have higher than average needs for validation, and this is a big ask for many of us. I'm so glad that you have seen a positive response as you apply the skills, and are willing to keep at it. I found it was helpful to approach things like a scientist, experimenting and questioning and being curious about why it worked one time, not another, and over time began to fine-tune a way of interacting that my son seems to respond to.

I've also noticed a threshold effect. If he is tired, and hungry, AND feeling down -- nothing works. I wait for things to even out with a meal, then wait until he is in a better mood, sometimes waiting a whole day to bring something up.

[Missp]

Thank you for the very useful info and tips. I know that lengthy and thoughtful replies take much time to write. Everything written is a huge support!

Before I knew my daughter has BPD, I had been thinking about showing a more emotionally honest self to her - because we were two adult women living in the same house. I have a variant of lupus, myself so I do struggle with fatigue; I hoped to promote some equity in the household tasks. It clearly was a disaster.

The feelings/boundaries separation is something I can definately work on.  I think I need to, firstly,  develop some clarity about my boundaries.  This will enable me to be clearer. Communicating in a fog of confusion and dysfunction has been so damaging.