Hi Bailey, I'm so glad that you're reaching out for support. Just getting a diagnosis, even if it's tentative, opens up a lot of possibilities for you to learn and maybe not be quite so overwhelmed by the chaos. You'll find many parents here who will sympathize and learn with you.
My uBPDd29 also self-harms, and has made a suicide attempt. I have the same questions that you do. How do I show support, without unintentionally reinforcing the behavior? My therapist has warned me that too much concern and support after the behavior can cause her to repeat it just to get my attention and sympathy. Mind you, I'm not saying that's the reason our children harm themselves, but it can be a motivator too. Most of what I've heard to do is to be very matter of fact and not to overreact.
Does your daughter live with you? My DD doesn't live with me, and she will tell me on the phone that she's about to self-injure or she will call me afterwards. I don't know if I'm doing the right thing or not, but I try to validate the emotion that led to the injury, while avoiding any direct discussion of the injury itself. It seems that self-injury is actually an effective way for our children to cope with their emotions. Like so much of BPD, it 's very hard to understand.
I've learned that I have to get my own emotions under control before I can help my DD. For instance, if she calls to talk about self-harming, sometimes I have to ask to call her back and take a few minutes to deal with my own reaction before I can respond effectively to her. It never helps if we're both emotional. When you say that your DD is unwilling to talk about her feelings, do you mean that she might talk about the cutting, but not tell you why she did it? I wonder if that's b/c one of the common problems with BPD is that they are unable to even identify their feelings b/c they are simply swamped with emotion and frequently (from what I've read) don't even know what they're experiencing. One of the helpful validating questions I've learned is to keep asking "What makes you say that?"
If you're up to it, here's a link to a recent webinar for family members on "Understanding Self-Injury in BPD." Scroll down the page and look for that title. It's from McLean, which is a reputable source of info about BPD. I found it helpful, hope you will too.
www.mcleanhospital.org/clinical-services/patient-and-family-resources?tab=borderline-personality-disorder-patient-and-family-education-initiative Looking forward to hearing back from you.