After radical acceptance

[understandnow]

My 34yr old son exhibits every characteristic of a narcissist BPD person.  I had my first test last week on things my therapist and I worked on and read everything I could get my hands on.  After he exploded on me and had a meltdown to which I did not take personally nor did I react.   (Proud of myself,) I used my sympathy empathy and a chance to talk when he could calm down.  He now is using silent verbal abuse and has not contacted me.  This is his normal behavior after he spirals down.  My question is, do I let him stay away and not contact him.  He uses the grandkids as a pawn.  He brings them over about two times a week and when he does come around it is usually in about 3 weeks.  I can live with this as my husband and I have a fulfilling retirement lifestyle.  I just haven't read too much on what to do with the silent treatment.

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

[Rapt Reader]

Hello, understandnow &

I'm so glad you found us! You are in the company of lots of parents who are in the same boat that you are in, and who have dealt with the same sad behaviors in our own relationships with our offspring... .

It sounds like you are learning a lot and starting to get a good handle on how your son's mind works, and what you can do to make changes to your communications with him to help make things better. Please remember to check out the links to the right-hand side of this page to supplement what you've already learned  

I've dealt with the Silent Treatment, also, and in the past (before I learned the valuable tools of detachment, not taking these behaviors personally, and Radical Acceptance that this is how my BPD loved one just is) that would truly make me feel wounded and hurt, bordering on angry at the unfairness of the treatment. I'd follow him around and plead my case, making the big mistake of JADEing: Justifying myself, Arguing my point, Defending myself and Explaining myself. I found that engaging him like that would just make things worse, escalating the situation; JADEing is a NO-NO  

At this point--after finding this site in April of 2013, after my adult (now 38) son was diagnosed with BPD--I've found that my best response to the Silent Treatment is to depersonalize it and ignore it, but in a loving manner. Sounds weird, because I do still feel wounded by this treatment, but I detach in a loving manner (my body language, words when I have to use them, etc.) until it is over. Something I've found is that since I've been doing this, not only does the timeframe go quicker for me (since I'm doing my own thing and not ruminating over figuring out how to "get him to talk", but it actually does end up ending quicker too.

When there are grandchildren involved, it hurts even worse... .But you can get a handle on this and hopefully the timeframe won't be as long as in the past. I think, rather than look at it as letting him stay away with no contact from you, maybe try to act normally? Like, if something comes up and you need to contact him, do it in a loving manner. If you don't need to contact him, don't contact him, and do that in a loving manner, too (if you know what I mean). You be normal, and loving, when you finally see him or talk to him or need to contact him.

This is what has worked for me... .What do you think? 

[js friend]

Hi Understandnow,

I would agree with Rapt Reader about carrying on normal life when dealing with the silent treatment.

Iam a gm to 2 small children from dd20 and it definitley still hurts when dd uses the silent treatment to cut all contact with me so i know nothing about what is happening with the children,. It is abusive and hurts and dd knows that it hurts but I have Radically Accepted that she is the way she is  can almost now predict when it will happen. I know how much it hurts  to be cut out of your gc lives this way.

For me, the best way to handle it is that I try to go about normal life keeping myself busy. I have a pretty busy life anyway so it helps, but my heart still breaks for the gc. My dd used to use  silent treatment much more often and for longer periods when she lived at home, and it used to effect the whole household much more as there was often a depressing atmosphere around everyone. I thought it was normal teenage stuff then and would try to jolly her out of it or try to get to the bottom of it not realising that I was probably who she was angry with and didnt want to talk to me. Now she is out of my home, it doesnt have such a dramatic effect anymore and the periods of silent treatment she uses are relatively shorter. We are all so used to it now, and even tired of it! Contact is usually re-established because she  wants something 9 x out of 10 it is usually because she has no-one else to look after the gc.  I wish she would think of the children when she does it though as it must have an awful effect on them to be ripped away from people who love them like this because dd is feeling angry.

It wont hurt in the period of silent treatment  to contact your son occasionally to ask him how he and the kids are doing. But dont chase or hound him for information or ramble on about what you are up to( My dd isnt interested in what my life entails).

And Keep all contact you have with your son during this period bright and breezy and short with no expectations of a response. Many of my calls to dd go to voicemail, and texts go unanswered when she is giving me the silent treatment and now I just think oh well. Another thing is, you are looking forward to seeing your gc in a few weeks time but be prepared for this not to happen. Loosely make other plans incase it does not happen. If he brings them great, but if he doesnt then you are not still sitting there twiddling your thumbs.

Yep The Silent treatment sucks!

[understandnow]

I thank you both for your input!  I have learned to let him alone and when he does contact me, I say nothing of the incident.  I treat him with kindness and love.  I did voice my personal limits awhile back that we all treat each other with kindness and respect. And we will continue to see his oldest daughter 12 yo. With whom we raised most of her life.  She now lives with her mom who is wonderful concerning her seeing us.  He lost his visitation to see her.  But this is his biggest trigger.  He uses his other three children as pawns and can't use her as a pawn because the mother is so willing for us to be involved in her life.