2nd round with BPD...Now it's my adult daughter

[joyjoyjoy]

I have successfully navigated the world of BPD once before with my current husband, who was diagnosed in 2009, and after more than three years of DBT therapy successfully achieved remediation of his symptoms and lasting changes in his thought patterns and emotions. Had I not found this board back in 2010, I'm sure we would not be together and he would not have found the relief he so desperate needed. We both learned so much and our marriage is something we are very proud of to this today. Happy ending, right? Buh-bye Borderline, right? Not so fast... .

Now I know I have a tendency to spot a Borderline at thirty paces and around every dark corner, so I have to really be careful when assessing the behavior of people who ring my sensitive alarms and raise my always-waiting red flags, but this is no joke. My 24 yo daughter (progeny of ex-husband, not current BPD-survivor husband) tells me last Friday that she is cutting, says she has been depressed and empty since Middle School, and pretty much has hated herself for years. I already knew she suffers from frequent anxiety and panic attacks. But now I know she lacks empathy for others (her only emotion when confronted by someone she has hurt is guilt... .oh, and anger at that hurt individual for making her feel guilty), and says she just does not want to be here most of the time. Here, like in this room with us? No, here like on this plane of existence with anyone.

She isolates herself with her girlfriend of one year, whom she lives with. They do not see other people. They do not go anywhere but to their respective jobs and to occasional concerts together. They call no one. My daughter says they never fight. Ever. The GF has been kicked out of her parents house for coming out as gay. My daughter has gone from having a boyfriend in HS, coming out as gay in her junior year and breaking up with him, having another boyfriend in college and calling herself pansexual, to breaking up with him because she could never see herself with a man. I don't care who she sleeps with, or even settles down with, I just want her to find herself and be happy. She seemed happy with the new GF for a bit, and says they are happy together, but she has started cutting (again, apparently this is not the first time) and says she is depressed and anxious and describes herself as "really f*cked up, Mom"!

She hates her job, a job that barely utilizes the education for which I won't even tell you how much I paid, but cannot seem to make a change. Although she and GF are planning to move to Southern CA (where GF is from) next year... .uh huh. She has rifled through the nest egg she had after college and is crying broke. This was her excuse for blowing off my birthday (not the first time, and last time I checked a phone call is still free), but has no problem buying a third kitten (!) and tickets to Stevie Nicks (That last one actually made me jealous--I didn't even know Stevie Nicks was coming to town... .the perils of getting old and not keeping up with pop culture). Her sense of entitlement and selfishness knows NO bounds. She is hitting up my soon-to-be-retired-on-a-fixed-income mother for free room and board while she and GF save up money for the move to CA.

Call me crazy, but I've seen this movie before and I'm pretty sure it's called BPD. Redux.

She was so upset, she actually texted me that she could not be alone this past Friday. So I dropped everything, told her I'd meet her at Grandma's (the closest place she could get to in her state of mind). She told us she'd been cutting, feeling depressed, worthless, panicking... .all of it. I asked if I could take her for help. Obviously she needs DBT, right? Oh no. She's not doing that. Does she know of a therapist that she night want to see, that she would feel comfortable with? No. Is there anything I or her grandmother can do? No. Does she want to talk about any of this with us? No.

So we just hung out until GF showed up and soon enough Daughter and I got into it. It happened so fast. It was like I forgot every damn thing I ever learned when I dealt with my husband. I tried to validate, but I must not have been successful. I tried to get her to see she was hurting me, but I plainly forgot that this was not about me, it was about her. Anyway, utter disaster. I left in a puddle of tears, worried for her, but finally seeing it clearly for the first time. So that's good, right? Head out of the sand?

By all rights, it should not have taken me this long. She's been a mess for years, but I assumed she was immature and would grow up and out of it. Perhaps it is something you try NOT to see in your kid, because it is such an indictment of YOU as a parent (although, for the moment, I am conveniently blaming my ex. No judgement, please. It's my initial coping skill until I can handle looking back and making those hard assessments--and believe me, I've already been through this once so I know what I'm in for). Perhaps I just refused to think this particular brand of lightening could strike twice in my life. And yet... .here I am, back in the ring, fighting the rematch of my life for the heavy-weight title against my familiar foe, BPD.

Job One is to get her into therapy, preferably DBT (because anything else in my estimation is a complete waste of time) but as an adult child who does not live with me, she is pretty much on her own and I have zero influence here. As it stands right now, I am the enemy. I can live with it, as I know it will only last until she needs something from me (like a Christmas gift), and then I'll be Mommy again and she'll be sucking up.

I'll see her on Thanksgiving (with GF, who I'm pretty sure just enables her and coddles her and supplies her with plenty of weed, and that is how peace is maintained in their household), and the plan is to just move on and not address the previous encounter at all. Because not the time or place, and also what's the point? So, I'll brush up on my validation skills in the face of Emotional Mind and get through the day with as little drama as possible.

God, you forget how hard it is... .You forget how much work YOU have to do to not make it worse for them. But, this is my only child. I won't lose her to this POS disorder. Thank God for the resources on this website.

And I know this is as pity-party as one gets, but I think I can say this here: Really, Universe? REALLY? TWICE? WTF did I do to deserve this sh*t?


PS  I know this post was flippant. Just another easy coping skill to reach for in the initial panic. But I'm heartbroken and scared out of my mind for her. I know the havoc this disorder can wreak. I truly wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, yet two of the people I love the most have to deal with it. And it's just devastating.
 

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

[livednlearned]

Hi joyjoyjoy,

We must live in the same universe 

My ex husband is BPD/NPD. My son has traits.

After 4 years of healing and growth and learning to support my son through difficult healing, I met SO and we moved in together. Then his D19 came to live with us for the summer, and to my total shock and surprise, she has all the signs of BPD.

She was diagnosed bipolar with psychotic depression and anxiety at age 16, and even though I experienced BPD with my ex, it took my therapist to point out what was staring right at me, that D19 is BPD. The outside coping mechanisms look very different, but the neediness, the emptiness, the identity disturbance, self-harm, impulsivity, unstable sense of self, idealization/devaluation, suicidal ideation, emotional roller coasters, feelings of inadequacy, churn of relationships -- it's all there.

Like your daughter, D19 has experimented with her sexuality: she dated a boy in HS, was then bisexual, then gay, then transgender and wanted to go through reassignment surgery, then pansexual, and is now back to being gay.

She reaches emotional high watermarks, and goes through cognitive distortions that have left me speechless. What I initially thought was empathy turns out to be something else -- I think it's extreme codependence. She works with special needs kids and there is something a bit off about it. Same with her relationship to our dog. It's almost as though she smothers him to the point he's a little wary with her.

I had to go through what I now realize was a grieving process when I learned yet another close family member was BPD, especially because this comes on the tail-end of a marriage that ended in scorched earth, much of it fueled by a combination of BPD/NPD and the family court system.

My parents are emotionally immature, and my brother seems to be on some kind of spectrum. I watched Parenthood last summer at my therapist's suggestion to try and understand what a tight family might even be like 

LnL

P.S. That's great about your husband   


 

[joyjoyjoy]

Hi livednlearned,

Thanks for letting me know that at least I'm not alone!

I remember well what it was like with my husband when we were in the thick of it and I thought for sure we were not going to make it. Letting him go was going to be hard, but I was prepared at some point for that. It didn't end up that way, but believe me, I stayed ready for either outcome for a over a year.

It is WAY more complicated with your child. The role is so very different that it clouds everything, and I'm finding it an act of will to put it aside and just her see as someone I love, not someone I need to parent and be responsible for anymore. My guess is that it is partly my parenting style that got us here, but I can't look at that yet. I just can't.

Her father (the ex) actually has anti-social tendencies, minus the violence and outright criminal behavior. But he is shady financially, has zero empathy for others, and cannot relate on an emotional level to anyone, not even the dog. He truly thinks he's better than the rest of the world but has not done anything to merit this delusion. He is talented and smart, but never finished anything and cannot hold a job.

D24 has some of this. She has a better work ethic, but she always feels put upon and underpaid. It might be the Entitled Millennial Whiner coming out in her, or it might be her dad. Hard to say, but the lack of empathy comes and goes with her, so I'm hoping that particular scary trait is related to the BPD and her immaturity.

Your reference to the dog thing resonates. D24 is a HUGE animal lover. Since moving out at 18, she has never had less than two animals residing with her. Once she had two cats, two chinchillas and a gecko. Now it's three cats. It's like human relationships are too hard, so she fills her life with beings that ask for little in return, and yet the fact that she needs more and more animals tells me she knows what they give her is not really enough.

It didn't occur to me that I was going thru a grieving process until you said that. That makes sense. I have lost my sense of myself as a parent, as well as the equilibrium I thought I had finally gained when my current husband was fully recovered in 2012.

My parents were two of the most immature people on the planet! I'm not sure how I made it thru childhood without getting kidnapped or setting the house ablaze. I was alone A LOT. Only child. Luckily I loved to read and listen to music and was basically pretty compliant. I have forgiven my young parents for just not knowing any better. They mostly try to get it right now, and my mother and I are quite close.

I thought I was an attentive, engaged parent, so NOT like mine. My mother actually said to me on Friday, "If this was YOU sitting in there this f*cked up, I'd totally understand it. But D24? Nothing in her childhood points to this." That's just my mom all grown up now and being good to me in a crisis. But truly... .I know I have some soul-searching to do.

Parenthood is one of my all-time favorite movies! I cry at the end every time still and I've seen it dozens of times. Also, I would have Steve Martin's babies. I'm a sucker for a funny guy.

It sounds like your divorce from your BPDex was brutal. And now this... .I know life was never promised to be fair, but COME ON! Cut a girl a break! 

joy

[livednlearned]

If you love the movie Parenthood, you have to watch the tv series  It's on Netflix.

About mother/parent guilt: my therapist once told me that parenting guilt functions in very much the same way a child's sense of guilt works in a dysfunctional family, that it is preferable to think bad events are caused by our own hand, than to think they could be caused by things that are out of our control.

We are apparently horrified by the thought that we have much less control over outcomes than we like to believe.

And there are days when I actually believe that