Adult child lashing out

[Parents! Get help here!]

Hi. Pretty sure I’ve joined in the past to learn how to cope with my husband’s BPD. Years have passed, our marriage has survived, but our eldest child’s BPD has escalated. Their impulsive behavior has put so much strain on our family that after having broken a family contract in multiple ways, we finally told them they had to look for their own apartment. They were 24 years old at that time.

Since then, there has been one crisis after another. From physical abuse of their roommate (now former roommate) which led to an arrest and brief hospitalization, to email harassment of landlords (multiple complaints of both minor and imaginary issues with their apartment), to seriously deep cutting which resulted in us calling 911 for a wellness check and yet another brief hospital visit and psych evaluation.

In the most recent text blowup, they angrily lashed out saying that they’d warned us that they could not live on their own and that the fact that their life is falling apart is exclusively our fault for being awful parents. Not quite sure what they expect us to do to help because when we ask, we get nothing but a rehashing of the past and how we failed as their parents.

They are against seeking therapy (says it doesn’t help) and refuses to try medication. When they were a teen, they were in various group therapies, individual therapy, and partial programs. There was even a brief 2-week facility residency. Medications were tried and, in their words “did nothing.”

My husband and I are a few years away from retirement and plan to move to another state. We’ve already said that we would be willing to help them move with us but that they would still need to live in their own apartment. But they continue to insist they don’t want to move to the state we’ve chosen and want to move to a rural place and live alone (contradiction of their insistent that they cannot live alone). But we also cannot deal with the continuing crises with the addition of 3000 miles between us.

Has anyone had success dealing with a BPD adult child in a situation like this?

[StuckinReverse]

Hi. Pretty sure I’ve joined in the past to learn how to cope with my husband’s BPD. Years have passed, our marriage has survived, but our eldest child’s BPD has escalated. Their impulsive behavior has put so much strain on our family that after having broken a family contract in multiple ways, we finally told them they had to look for their own apartment. They were 24 years old at that time.

Since then, there has been one crisis after another. From physical abuse of their roommate (now former roommate) which led to an arrest and brief hospitalization, to email harassment of landlords (multiple complaints of both minor and imaginary issues with their apartment), to seriously deep cutting which resulted in us calling 911 for a wellness check and yet another brief hospital visit and psych evaluation.

In the most recent text blowup, they angrily lashed out saying that they’d warned us that they could not live on their own and that the fact that their life is falling apart is exclusively our fault for being awful parents. Not quite sure what they expect us to do to help because when we ask, we get nothing but a rehashing of the past and how we failed as their parents.

They are against seeking therapy (says it doesn’t help) and refuses to try medication. When they were a teen, they were in various group therapies, individual therapy, and partial programs. There was even a brief 2-week facility residency. Medications were tried and, in their words “did nothing.”

My husband and I are a few years away from retirement and plan to move to another state. We’ve already said that we would be willing to help them move with us but that they would still need to live in their own apartment. But they continue to insist they don’t want to move to the state we’ve chosen and want to move to a rural place and live alone (contradiction of their insistent that they cannot live alone). But we also cannot deal with the continuing crises with the addition of 3000 miles between us.

Has anyone had success dealing with a BPD adult child in a situation like 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

[CC43]

Hi Stuck in Reverse,

Your name aptly describes your adult child's situation.  They are stuck in a rut, blaming their current problems on a terrible childhood.  The "blame game" is a classic BPD strategy, and, ironically, directed towards the people who have helped them most.  It absolves them of taking responsibility for themselves as adults, while typically getting parents to over-function for them, out of guilt, fear and/or love.  Are you paying their rent or insurance?  Doing things for them that they should be doing for themselves?  Working hard at your job so they don't have to?  You might be providing perverse incentives for negative behaviors.  In fact, they might RESENT you for making them feel so dependent on you.  Are they raging at you, treating you badly, while holding out a hand for more money?  Welcome to the club.  These are typical issues for parents with adult children with BPD.

Maybe a silver lining in all this is that your adult child is at least attempting to live independently from you.  At some point, they should realize that you have absolutely nothing to do with their altercations with roommates, and landlords, and bosses, even if they try to pin the blame on you.  When they find themselves friendless and hopeless, they may finally "hit bottom" and decide that committing to therapy and/or medications is the only way forward.  They might eventually see that they themselves are the problem, as well as the solution.  Bumping up against "real life" outside of your home might help accelerate that process.  However, it's really hard for them, given that they have juvenile emotion control.

In the meantime, I'd encourage you to live your life.  Your whole life shouldn't be BPD, and you should be "modelling" how to live a good life.  If your adult child calls you, you can be there to listen to them, but only if they are respectful.  If not, hang up (or leave the room).  In addition, my advice would be to establish boundaries.  You probably know about boundaries, which are rules for how YOU will act in certain situations.  One of my boundaries is, I will listen to loved ones with BPD, but if the conversation gets too heated and stresses both of us out, I employ a "three strikes" rule.  I'll say, this conversation is stressing me out, so if we keep talking this way, I'm going to hang up.  If they continue with Yes, but . . . I'll say, we're not getting anywhere, so if you continue talking this way, I'm going to have to hang up.  And if they continue once more, that's a third strike, and I hang up.  I'm nice about it, but I'm firm.  They know it's my boundary, so they can't really get mad at me for keeping it.  However, if they are screaming obscenities and hurling venom at me, then I hang up promptly (or leave the room).  I deserve respect, and when they are so dysregulated that they are screaming obscenities, then they aren't able to listen to anything I have to say anyway.

Regarding a move far away, I might advise caution.  I get the sense that your adult child is still highly dependent on you.  If you move hours away, it might make continued support impractical, unless you have some allies who are close and can step in for you.  Do you need to check in on him regularly?  Do you feed him with dinners at your place?  Do you talk him through crises?  Do you help him understand bills or paperwork?  Do you help him find medical treatment?  This might become more difficult if you are geographically distant.  If you think your parental support is helping him, you might want to consider carefully the geographic separation.  But if your "help" is actually hindering him, then maybe some separation is what you need.  It's hard for me to judge.

My stepchild with BPD also wanted to move far away.  But she was so immature, she would have lost her support system.  Anyway, she wouldn't be able to sign a lease with no income.  And she failed to realize that moving far away wouldn't change anything, because she was still the same (dysfunctional) person when she wasn't getting therapy.  The solution was not to find her a new place.  You see, if she really wanted to move, and she was ready, she'd find the place herself.  I bet the same logic applies to your son.  If he wants to move, he'll need to make it happen, not you.  He'll commit to therapy, find a job and sign a lease.  But since he's not ready, he won't do it.

Look, I know that BPD is really hard to deal with.  Maybe I'm tough, but just because someone has BPD, it doesn't give them a free pass to abuse others in my opinion.  Yes they'll have to work hard at therapy, but we all have our issues we have to work through.  I don't see it as life-ending.  In fact, my stepdaughter has made significant progress in the last year or so.  Sometimes I think, if she can handle coming back from a pit of anger and despair, she'll be able to do all sorts of things.  But I try not to pressure her, because it would be overwhelming for her.  I focus on baby steps of progress. 

All my best to you.

[StuckinReverse]

Thanks so much for your quick, in-depth, thoughtful reply. To clarify a few things about our daughter (I guess there’s no need for gender anonymity because I highly doubt she’s on this board anyway), we actually do not help her monetarily. In fact, this is one of her complaints. When she’d asked me to pick up Boost for her from BJ’s, I did. But when I asked how she was going to reimburse me (Venmo, Apple Cash, whatever), she lashed out at me accusing that it’s all about money with us.

While she was living at home and had obtained a full time job, she was expected to pay a nominal “rent,” which was more like chipping in for her share of household expenses. My husband came from a family where this was expected. She also didn’t like it when her father reminded her that this was not HER house and that we had rules to follow and that if she didn’t like it, she was welcome to move out. Other parents might say the rules were old fashioned. For example, boyfriends were to leave the house no later than 10pm. No loud conversations on the phone after 10pm. Keep her area clean. Stuff like that.

But she’d break those rules and there would be heated arguments. Her logic was that is she was paying “rent” she should have more rights.

As you mentioned, the silver lining is that she has been managing on her own. She pays her rent, in person, EARLY. She’d been paying for her share of the car insurance and paid for her own car while still living here. When she got her own full time job with benefits, I told her she would start paying for her health insurance and I removed her from my plan. The most I do is feed her when she comes to visit, let her wash some laundry, and send her home with leftovers. And my husband’s way of helping her is by maintaining her car and sending her home with gadgets and plants for her apartment. Of course he expects both our daughters to pay for the oil and filters. He’s saving them the labor charge.

In spite of the drama she creates, she’s been managing beautifully on her own. She even has more money in her checking account than we do!

Yes, her father yelled in the past. A lot. He’s also BPD, though now that he’s in his 60s, he’s a different person. We’ve been to hell and back and I gave him a chance to redeem himself. But our daughter has not forgiven him for traumatizing her and me for not divorcing him.

She’s been sending me texts that break my heart because I know she’s hurting and wants me to feel that pain. I guess I let her because part of me feels I deserve it. I let her say what she has to say and only respond with “I’m sorry you feel that way but I can’t erase the past.”

Her father wrote a heartfelt poem for her and decided to send it to her the other day, hoping it would make her see that when she hurts herself, it hurts him. She replied that his words were “victim blaming.” Yeah, she’s well versed in psychology terms.

My husband was ready to tell her that she can’t come here again until she seeks help. That we’re not her personal free laundromat. He stopped short of saying that to her as she was raging at us in our basement the other day. Again, he’s a changed man because years ago, he would have said that to her and escalated the situation.

At what point can we say, you’ve punished us enough? Do we ban her from the house? I fear that will only make things worse. But I do agree that something needs to change.

[CC43]

Hi there,

Thanks for the details!  Your daughter sounds very high functioning. It’s fantastic she’s working and living independently. That should go a long way in boosting her self esteem.

With BPD, especially if untreated, she’ll probably have trouble handling her emotions. She could have trouble dealing with disappointments, feel slighted all the time, and lash out in anger at seemingly insignificant things. You probably feel her ire the most, precisely because you are important to her (otherwise she wouldn’t care so much).

I’d reiterate, boundaries are key. Walk away if she swears at you, threatens you or is abusive. If you engage, you feed the fire. Take her wrath as a sign that something else is going on in her life that she isn’t handling well. I find that the best response to an adult tantrum is an adult time out. Only when she’s calm can she begin to listen and try to problem-solve. When she’s raging about her terrible childhood, she’s misguided. Like you say, you can’t change the past. But you are there to help her look forward,  when she’s ready.

[StuckinReverse]

Thank you, again, so much for your feedback and support! As I told my husband, we might not be able to get her to seek therapy but we certainly can reach out, share our story with others, and learn what WE can do for ourselves. It’s a start.

I just have to make him understand that changing the locks and telling her she’s not welcome here until she starts therapy/takes medication is only fueling the fire. If she’s already afraid of abandonment (us moving across country in a few years), and this is how she demonstrates her fear (by self harming and verbally attacking us) he will be making her worst fear a reality. And I dread where that could lead to.

But somehow we need to get across to her that while we will always be here for her, we are not her emotional doormats.