How to stop engaging with an angry BPD adult child

[Shinejo]

Our 22 year old daughter has just been diagnosed with BPD.  She is a delightful person most of the time but when her BPD traits  flare up we are at a loss as to how to deal with it.  She is living away from home (about 3 hours) but her psychiatrist is in our town so she comes home for bi-weekly visits with him.

I am looking for advice on how to manage the relationship with her when she enters a period of anger and blames all of her stresses and anxiety factors on us.  We try to be encouraging and supportive but the angrier and nastier she gets makes it harder and harder to do.  Outside of "washing our hands of her" (which we are not prepared to do) we don't know how to react/respond without escalating her anger and/or our upset.  When she is like this - everything we say makes her angry.

Any tips on managing this?

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

[C.Stein]

Hello, 

It can so hard to face the raging and negativity.  I understand the desire to distance yourself from that, but you can't because she is your daughter.

Please take some time to read the excellent resources available on the right.  Specifically look at the tools on how to more effectively communicate and manage a relationship with someone who suffers from this disorder.

Feel free to ask any questions, we are here to help.

[lbjnltx]

Hi Shinejo,

Welcome to the Parenting Board, we are happy to have you here with us.

Engaging in circular arguments, standing by and taking verbal abuse/blame, and responding in ways that make the situation worse are common problems in our relationships with our BPD children/adult children.  It is so confusing and painful for us that we don't readily see a way out.  Please know that you are not alone in your dilemma.

There are multiple ways to approach the solution to this problem.  We can validate the feelings our kids have, we can set boundaries and enforce consequences of violating those boundaries, we can reply with Support, Empathy, and Truth statements, and we can simply take a time out.  Personally I have found a combination of all of the above works best for me and my daughter and our relationship.

Does your daughter engage in these behaviors by text/phone calls or is it limited to in person visits?

lbj

[Shinejo]

The majority of her anger/accusations etc are by text.  I hate this method of communication but as she doesn't live with us and more often than not won't call or answer our calls, texting has become a far too common communication tool.  I am in the middle of reading what I can to develop coping skills and communication tools to manage the relationship but despite the best intentions her anger seems to infiltrate me and I end up getting just as angry or upset.  WHat does a parent do when their BPD child ignores advice from either her parents and refuses to take the steps that her mental health professionals have laid out for her?  Unfortunately the resources in her city are very limited (as they are everywhere I assume) and in order to get better, the onus is on her to make calls and take steps which she refuses to do.

[Rockieplace]

You really have come to the right place.  I felt the same as you when I first joined here.  Although my BPD daughter is 33 I still felt it was my role to fix everything for her and tell her basically what to do.  It only served to provide her with ammunition to fire at me when on the rare occasion she followed my advice and it failed and any other occasion when she felt the need to vent!  I was either Mother Theresa or the Devil Incarnate depending on the day! 

I started with the  validation video and then worked through the tools on the right.  I then read a few books such as Walking on Eggshells and, my favourite - You don't have to make it all better'.  I am now practising validation with not only my BPDD but with everyone who has the misfortune to cross my path    I'm not saying that things are perfect - far from it.  But communication with my BPDD has improved 100% and I know that even when I don't succeed in making things better at least I've managed not to make things worse.

To be frank I prefer the texting/whatsapp mode of communication as it gives me thinking time.  I can draft replies and reflect before pressing the 'send' button.  It's not so easy in a live call but now I just listen, listen, listen and make sympathetic noises and it seems to work a lot better.  I've also tried very hard to avoid defending myself.  Something that absolutely enraged my daughter previously.  Using logic and too much positivity just makes things worse too with my daughter.  With BPD it appears that the tools that seem most effective are quite counter-intuitive.

You are in such good company here.  Good luck.

 

[lbjnltx]

Standing by and watching them fail is hard on us parents.  This is our inability to cope with our own pain.  You are doing all the right things at this point Shinejo, learning the coping skills to deal with the pain and disappointment, realizing you can't change her or her choices (she is an adult), learning about the disorder and your d's struggles, and learning how to improve communication and the relationship.

There is a learning curve here and it will take time, please be patient with yourself.