Lying, confidentiality and BPD

[Danae]

 I have real problems with the whole areas of confidentiality and lying, not in principle in ordinary circumstances, but in relation to my BPD daughter. She gets really angry with me if she ever finds out I've told anyone she has problems. I try not to tell her whom I've confided in as she cuts them off ever thereafter, but sometimes the information comes out accidentally or confidences are broken, or sometimes it's the dr I've spoken to and he's felt he should follow it up, particularly if she's been threatening suicide. Likewise, I have told lies both for her and to her, usually to protect her or her feelings. Yes I know this all sounds really bad written down, but I've just felt driven to extremes to survive. How do you get the balance between what's OK and what's not OK on both these issues. I'd like to make a resolution that I'm never going to do this again and be totally honest and upfront with her all the time and tell her I'm going to do that, but that if I do, she may find I'm telling her some very uncomfortable truths.

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

[MammaMia]

Danae

Welcome to BPDF, we are happy you are here.

How old is your daughter?  Sharing information about her disorder with others may depend on her age and/or the circumstances. If she is over 18, you have entered a very precarious place.

It is never a good idea to lie to anyone, much less pwBPD whose sense of self and trust are already in jeopardy.  There is a very real risk of losing all credibility in anything you say or do in the future, because pwBPD are very perceptive when it comes to others being dishonest with them.  

There is great information on this board that may provide some helpful guidelines for better communication with your dd. Please take the time to read it, if you have not already done so.  

It is difficult to know exactly what your situation is. Can you provide more detail?  We want to help, but need more facts.

Please keep posting.  

[Danae]

Thank you. She is 29. I've tried to only contact medical help when she makes suicide threats, but I have confided in friends just for my own survival. But she doesn't want even my husband to know about her situation which makes it really difficult since we are all in the same household. As far as the lies go, I agree about the non-wisdom of it but I'm sometimes put in v awkward situations - eg if you don't/do tell so and so this/ do that, I'll run away and never come back/kill myself, if you don't support me in this all your promises about being there for me and supporting me are meaningless etc etc, proves you don't really care. I guess that's just straight blackmail but it's quite scarey reality.

[MammaMia]

Danae

Sounds like emotional blackmail bordering on abuse.  You are being manipulated and she is using guilt as a weapon.

Is your dd unable to work?  Has she ever lived on her own?  Has she received any therapy and/or treatment, and have you consulted a therapist to help you cope? 

If you all live together, I suspect your husband is very aware of dd's issues. How does he handle her behavior, and does it negatively impact your relationship with him?

Tough questions, but necessary.

[Danae]

Thanks for your reply. She does work a little. Trouble is she's a creative type so work is a little unconventional. A lot of it consists in sitting with books and paper and pens in her room. She also does a small amount of teaching. So she does tend to be round far more than I would wish although she was away at university for several years (and hopefully going off again shortly). She is getting therapy but no medication. My husband is certainly aware of the situation, but is not an uncomplicated person either. He tends to think I should take a very tough line, but because some of his tough lines are very lacking in empathy and human kindness, I've often found it hard to agree with his way of handling things. In fact, my d feels a lot of the problems stem from his harsh attitudes as she grew up, although he's the sort of person who means well, but is just rather Victorian in his approach to things. And yes, it does all impact very negatively on my relationship with him, partly because of our very different approaches to it. Also on my other daughter who has her own family, but finds it hard to visit because there is so much fall out when she does.

I guess because I'm basically a softie, I'm not very well equipped to counteract blackmail. The whole thing is such a foreign field to me, I hardly know where to start. I grew up in a fairly conventional family where basically everyone loved and respected one another and no-one ever tried to hurt or manipulate anyone or would have been interested in doing so. We were far to busy making the most of life.

[lbjnltx]

Hi Danae

Being in the https://bpdfamily.com/content/emotional-blackmail-fear-obligation-and-guilt-fog is not a comfortable place to be.  I hope that after you read the info in the above link you will see a path out of the FOG.

Respecting your d29's privacy is important for your relationship with her.  It is also important that you have support from people who won't judge your daughter, who won't judge you, who will listen to you with empathy, who will validate you and support your healthy choices.  A therapist, this site, and trusted friends are all great resources for support.

lbj

[MammaMia]

Danae

I am sorry to hear your husband is not supporting you as he could.

It sounds like he really would benefit from learning more about BPD, so he can better understand how to support you and dd.  Bpd is not your garden-variety mental illness and cannot be treated as such.  It is not bad behavior, it is a very complex brain disorder that is usually accompanied by signs and symptoms of other ancillary mental illnesses.  It is in control, and the degree of seriousness can vary.

Please find a way to get some support for yourself.  It will make a world of difference in the quality of your life.  So many of us have been where you are, and it is a dark and lonely place.

Please stay with us also.  We can help.

[Danae]

Thank you for your replies which I'll work through. Events have rather taken over as my daughter's gone missing and has eliminated her Facebook page.

[MammaMia]

Danae

OK, take a deep breath.  I know this is frightening.

Do you have any idea what caused this?  She may be punishing someone for something, and it may have nothing to do with you.  I do wish she would just call

to let you know she is ok.

Please keep us posted.

[Danae]

OK, the police have found her and say she's quite safe and with a friend but clearly does not want me to "find" her. They said she's feeling v unloved.

She had said to me in parting texts that if I dared tell anyone what happened she would never speak to me again (hence I guess blocking me on Facebook). I texted her to try and reassure her and got a reply saying I want to be at home, it is you not making that possible. But possible for her means me dancing to her tune constantly and not being able to function as a person myself. She would say that's my problem, I lost that choice when I chose to be a bad parent.

I have a whole list of ways I'd like to change things so we can function  as a household but can't think how to tell her this is going to happen without her feeling even more desperate.  She just rejects all verbal assurances of love and she is convinced that unless I do what she says in her way, I'm not demonstrating it either, therefore I don't love her (likewise my husband). But it's almost impossible to fulfil her criteria and not good for any of us.

Sorry, I'm rambling I a bit, but would love to know how to lovingly convey to her that changes need to happen and me then being able to I stick to them myself and not give in to her. She's v clever at manipulating a situation to her advantage. Eg if I said I wasn't going to ensure she woke up in the morning, she'd wait a while and then persuade me that just this once it would make all the difference, then a bit later, it would be so helpful while she's trying to achieve this one thing, and then before I know it, I'm having to do it all the time and in a certain way. Likewise with her meals, which she says she can't eat outside her room because she gets freaked out by going downstairs and she's scared of seeing anyone else in the house.

[lbjnltx]

What did you think of the info in the FOG article Danae?  Did it resonate with you?  What would be your next step to implement to help get out of it?

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

[lever.]

One thing that helped me with the confidentiality dilemna was to say quite clearly, in advance, that I would NOT keep it confidential if I thought her safety was at risk (through suicide). I would contact the police, doctor or whoever necessary.

Regarding support for yourself-be very careful who you use- it can lead to a breakdown in trust if she feels you are not respecting her confidentiality. I once made a huge mistake in this regard and trust has never been fully re-established. My intention was to help both my DD and the other person involved, but I would stand back and let events run their course knowing what I now know. I unintentionally exposed that my DD had been lying.

[Danae]

Thanks for all your messages. As you can imagine things got rather complex after this episode and I just did not think of updating my posts or doing anything except survive. Basically, we got her back home after about a week, although she refused to have anything to do with my husband or anyone else who comes to the house at all. It was really quite awkward. However, I had to go abroad for 3 weeks in August (a real blessing!), during which time she managed somehow or other. And now things have actually changed rather dramatically for us as she's taken herself off, back to university. She's struggling but is coping - just, and they are giving her a lot of support. She's still calling me about every day or two with huge to-do lists and things she can't work out herself, but by and large she seems to be getting stuck in and trying really hard. Just hope it will continue. I feel as if I've got my life back for the first time in about a year or more, and when she does scream and rage I feel so much more able to cope with it. The challenge will be of course, when and if she decides to come home for a visit.

[livednlearned]

Hi Danae,

These breaks when things are feeling a little easier are so important to our well-being! I'm so glad your D came back home and is now working to improve herself. Does she know that she is BPD? It sounds like she is in a place to work on improving herself. Would she consider therapy of any kind?

There are so many helpful skills for us to learn and tools that work  -- they do require time to read about and put into practice. I found it worked best to begin with coworkers, acquaintenances, friends and worked my way up to family, including my son. This is particularly helpful with skills like validation and learning to set boundaries in ways that are more likely to have a positive effect. I also learned a lot about how my own guilt (the FOG that lbjnltx linked to) really destabilized things and made matters worse. My T explained how my son desperately wanted me to have a backbone, and boundaries, so that he would resent himself less. It was the first time I ever thought of it that way.

I'm glad you posted an update and let us know how you're doing.  

LnL

[Thursday]

Hi Danae-

Your posts have me thinking this afternoon.

I have a step-daughter who was diagnosed as BPD (actually suspected as being BPD) when she was 17 and she is now 24 and doing quite well.

When I first joined the family I saw my husband doing things for her like what you describe with your DD and when I asked him why it became clear that he had slipped into these unhealthy patterns and took roles with her that I had a very hard time understanding. It also very quickly became clear that she wanted me to follow suit.

And I would not. There was a lot of push and pull but I always held my ground and stuck to my boundaries and as a result she and I developed a relationship that did not include the things she demanded of her Dad and to a great extent of her friends.

To give an example, she has OCD ( sounds like your DD does as well) and for a brief time got obsessed with numbers. She wanted me to only have the radio in my vehicle tuned to certain channels- those that had numbers that she deemed "correct". I explained to her that these thoughts of hers didn't pertain to me and I wasn't going to go along with these thoughts... .my vehicle, my radio, my choice. I was very direct with her.

Her Dad would go along with her requests though and allow her to change the radio station he was playing and soon he would not even attempt to put the radio on at all unless it was set to one of the numbers she would allow.

She never had a freak out with me about this. At first she got mildly agitated but as I drove her to a lot of appointments and social events she eventually quit asking me to change the station, quit telling me how important it was to her, and eventually this was behind us. While it was happening I would try to matter-of-factly point out that she was toleratating her own agitation and that the world didn't fall apart because the radio station had a #3.

Once her Dad saw that there were different standards for riding in my car he could see that he didn't need to go along with her requests and things would get dicey for a bit but if he held to his paradigms all would eventually work itself out.

LnL says

I also learned a lot about how my own guilt (the FOG that lbjnltx linked to) really destabilized things and made matters worse. My T explained how my son desperately wanted me to have a backbone, and boundaries, so that he would resent himself less. It was the first time I ever thought of it that way.

At the time a lot of this was going on I had no idea what was wrong with my SD. I could see that she had some sort of mental illness. I didn't know about validation and other useful and beneficial tools, I just knew inside that it felt very wrong to allow her to make unreasonable demands of the people around her. I also knew I did not want to be a part of these behaviors. This is the lucky part of coming at this from an outside perspective- yes, there can be a benefit to being a step-parent if you are as stubborn as I am! 

I am wondering if you think it might be beneficial to examine how you got started in allowing your daughter to call so many of the shots. I think it is understandable, when we begin life with a child to mold ourselves around them, to try to figure out what makes them happy- sort of like trying to figure out what your infant is crying and what all of the different sounding cries mean- diaper change? hunger? etc. Do you think this has been a gradual ascent into letting her tell you how she wants things or has this come as you have sought ways to help her?

For my husband, some of the things he would do for her that she could do herself were things he started doing when she needed him to and simply never thought of drawing a line when it was no longer appropriate.

I believe that our differences in parenting my SD have actually helped her as she has gotten more perspective and has matured and gotten help with her problems. Using tools to communicate with her has also been a big part of her growth, our growth, as a family. She jokes about it now- "Thursday just never would take any of my silly crap."

Going back to the quote from LnL, I think it has been a relief to her that she didn't push at me the same way she did at her Dad. I have much less resentment towards her and she has less to feel guilty about as well. We have also gotten to a point where she can talk to her Dad about how he enabled her (this is all borne of the 12 step culture we are a part of, her with AA and us with AlAnon.) and we can laugh about it. Feels good.

I hope you will read the links that LBJ provided. There is so much good information there. It can be like turning off a light switch when we figure out that a lot of the things we do to help are actually keeping our dear ones STUCK. Once the lights go off there can be many new ways to turn them back on!

It is a lot to sort through- take your time and whittle away a bit at a time. It is SOO worth it!

Best regards,

Thursday

[Danae]

Thursday, I think my path was rather like the one you describe for your husband. But whenever I tried to pull out, another crisis happened to make it hard - not always precipitated by her, but by things happening to her. She seems to gather bad luck around her, some through her own low self-esteem but sometimes totally unexpected and external to her.

My problem is that whenever I've really tried to pull back, things have gone really pear-shaped and we've never really got beyond that point before I've yielded again - hence the running away, suicide threats etc, and if I don't respond she says she has to do more and more desperate things to get me to react ie tow the line! And with my husband and one or two other family members who won't play her game, she's just cut off all contact and has nothing to do with them.

I guess really I have to take the risk she'll do that with me too but I haven't quite plucked up the courage. We have friends whose daughter disappeared about 10 years ago and they do not even know if she's alive, she just cut them out of her life and I guess I'm quite scared of living with that scenario.

To date, I've been trying the gradual approach, just making myself less and less available while still giving her space to moan, complain and stress periodically. But in a sense she does still call the shots when she is in contact. And I dread the possibility of her coming home at Christmas. She attaches so much importance to festivals and celebrations but now makes them totally impossible since she won't join in or have anything to do with anyone else who's around but tries to control things from behind her bedroom door.

[mimi99]

I'm glad that things have settled down a bit and your daughter seems to be doing better. I understand your concern regarding her return home for holidays, etc. Have you considered coming up with some boundaries that are important to you and going over them with your daughter when she arrives home? If you choose to do that, make the boundaries ones you are able to stick with and enforce. For example, with my BPDd24, if she raises her voice during visits, the visit ends immediately. If she chooses to use drugs, we will not give her money when she gets kicked out of the halfway house, etc. She refused to pay child support even while working 2 jobs, stating "you wanted custody, you deal with it" so we went to the county and asked for assistance through what is called here in the US "kinship care". Now they are going after her for the child support. I will not drop it--she is an adult and this is a consequence of her choices. It can be a bit like dealing with a giant 5 year-old. She must experience the consequences to learn the lessons. I don't know if she will learn, but I do know she won't learn if I take away the consequences. Or more accurately, she will learn that I will take the consequences for her, which I am no longer willing to do. I am a much happier person as a result.

[Danae]

My plan has been to try something like that, but it's going to be hard. I've already tried implementing one aspect of that (having a paying guest whom we know well, in the house from now until the New Year) and she's already saying my doing that will make it impossible for her to come home, and so proves we don't care and so she has nothing to live for, she might as well die now etc etc. When I said that since she kept to her room I didn't think it would make much difference, she got really angry. Do I just stick in there and hope she doesn't really mean it ie about dying? I don't think it will blow over ( not her way) but clearly this will be the first test.

[Kate4queen]

My BPD son ended up controlling our household while we all walked on eggshells around him, accommodated him, lied for him, apologized for him and made his siblings feel we weren't understanding how they felt as well. My son even made an excellent job of driving a wedge between me and my husband making him the bad guy and me the saint.

I hate to tell you this but unless you do something to get out of this cycle of fear and emotional abuse things will get worse rather than better. I thought my DH was being terribly unreasonable and harsh about my son until I was able to stand back and realize he had seen such a different side of my son (black and white and splitting-typical BPD coping strategies)

When you are stuck in that situation you don't even realize how much your BPD person is controlling your life.

You are going to have to be brave. She's 29. Before you allow her back into YOUR home, you need to sit down with your DH and draw up some basic rules about how she needs to treat you. I can guarantee she won't like any of it but stick to your guns. Read some of the excellent advice on here about how to deal better with a person with BPD, read some of the great books and I hope you find some peace.

[mimi99]

My experience with my daughter is that she used threats of suicide as a manipulation. I hope that she would never follow through on them but once when she was 16 or 17 we did take her to the emergency room when we felt she might be in danger.

A typical threat would be something like

her: You stopped paying for my phone?--how will I call 911 if I want to kill myself?

me: Do you feel suicidal right now? I will take you to the ER or call 911

her: No--but I might later

me: If you do, you can ask someone to call for you

her: F--- you, I hate you, you have never been there for me, you are not my mother... .

I certainly wouldn't take a suicide threat lightly, and would make sure any weapons, razors, pills, etc are under lock and key. If she has a plan, or threatens to kill herself--call 911.

My d often says things like she would be better off dead, but this quickly passes when it doesn't get the desired response, and when her emotions calm down she acts like she never even said anything like that!

There are several articles/posts here about boundaries and reinforcing them. One thing that I was taught (and quickly forgot) when I was in a relationship with an antisocial PD is that intermittent rewards encourage the pd to continue to try to get the result they want, because their experience tells them that eventually the effort will pay off.

(The following is a quote from United for now)

Intermittent reinforcement: slot machines use this. They pay out on irregular schedules. You never know when you will win, but you know that if you keep pulling the handle that sooner or later a pay out will occur. It may happen on the third pull or the twentieth pull, but you will win if you keep trying. The fact that you KNOW that you will eventually win, keeps you hooked into trying.

What does this mean? If you tell your partner that you won't answer the phone while at work, and they call you 20 times, and you answer on the 21st attempt, you have just inadvertently given them intermittent reinforcement. Now they know that if they bug you enough, that you will always eventually respond. This actually escalates the behavior you are trying to stop. They believe they can win if they just keep pulling the lever, even if they go broke trying, they will keep at it. The more irregular and unpredictable your response to them, the more they will keep trying. It is the combination of hoping they will get their way and not knowing when it will happen that keeps them trying.

How to discourage dysregulated behavior.?

Consistency in not responding is the only way to discourage undesired behavior... .

Your partner has to learn that  when you say no, that you mean no.  Any hint of weakness is a reward, encouraging him/her to continue trying.

Another link--

Once we stop giving in, they will often escalate the behavior for a while. https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=108307.0


We are also struggling with the upcoming holidays. My d is not allowed to come to our house, but she does have a right to see her daughter on Thanksgiving and Christmas--so what to do? Ugh--sometimes I just wish our lives could be "normal"

[Danae]

Thank you. Those are all useful ideas. My last phone call I indicated I would not ask our lodger to leave in order to pacify her and after a lot of ranting at me, she hung up. I sent a couple of texts afterwards asking if she'd like me to call back and saying I understood how she felt etc, which she has ignored.

I'm wondering if I should try calling her again say tomorrow, not to take the conversation up again but just because I care, or is it best to do nothing and wait for her to call me? Ie will a call validate her when she's feeling miserable, or simply reinforce the bad behaviour?

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

[Kate4queen]

I'd wait. You've said what you wanted to say, so leave the ball in her court. It's a start to changing things and making her realize you aren't going to always be the one chasing after her. One thing I've learned on these boards is that if you care more than your person with BPD does and do everything for them, make everything right etc etc you are just enabling them.

[lbjnltx]

One thing I've learned on these boards is that if you care more than your person with BPD does and do everything for them, make everything right etc etc you are just enabling them.

... .and keeping them stuck.