Hi,
First time posting or even being in a thread like this. But BPD in my daughter has meant total chaos in our family and years of trying to figure out the best way to handle her. She is 30 yrs old now and we have been through endless episodes of rage, threats of suicide, calls to police and ER visits. She has been been cast away from her friends and some family members who can no longer tolerate her episodes which become incredibly mean and caustic. She has had access to the best of care with no shortage of counselors, psychiatrists, and med adjustments. My husband and I suffer from repeated verbal attacks and need to set boundaries but this is always met with suicide threats or hysteria. The days begin with an overwhelming dread thinking that at any moment things can spiral. It is like living with the feeling of potential abuse from a captor.
Hey Winnie and welcome. Your story echoes mine and raising our BPD daughter (now 25). I know that fear all too well and it controlled every part of my life for over a decade.
A few things. First, your daughter has a mental illness. You want her to get better, but she's happy living how she is now because she gets everything she wants just by throwing a tantrum. If you were in that situation and got everything you want, would you want things to change? Of course not....because you're allowing her to run your life and dictate everything. She's the self-proclaimed queen and you respond to her reign of terror by doing exactly what she tells you to do.
In other words, she's living her best life...even though she's miserable. At least for now though, she can say everything is your fault (because you're allowing her to keep that narrative).
So what to do?
If she throws a tantrum, threatens to run away, to harm someone, to hurt herself, you dial 9-1-1 and say she's a threat to herself or others. And I know what you'll say, you've done that. But you haven't done it enough. Have her committed 3x a week if necessary, until she gets so sick and tired of hospitals that she decides to maybe do things a bit differently. Maybe in time she'll even realize that she can't treat her family that way and might have to deal with her own problems for the first time in her life.
I did this with my daughter at 18, we kicked her out of the house and told her good luck. If she wanted to return, she would follow a few simple rules about being respectful, kind, and helpful. If she couldn't do that, then out she went. Of course, we got an explosion and threats, which is when we dialed 9-1-1. She was gone for a week, threw a tantrum when we got home, and we kicked her out.
This process repeated over and over again, with our kid being homeless for almost two years. She bounced from friends couches to halfway houses to mental institutions, begging to come home but wanting to punish us as well. And we kept going back to those few simple rules...we want you here but you're not torturing the entire house with your nonsense. It's your choice how to respond.
After maybe 3.5 years, she finally reached rock bottom. Bad things happened to her because of the friends she kept (others with mental illness and drug abuse), and she checked herself into therapy. She came home a few months later kind and remorseful, wanting to be a part of the family and also wanting to actively get past her mental illness.
Suddenly she took therapy serious and her life began to change, as did our relationships with her.
I shared my story to point out two things:
1) I couldn't save my kid, but I could protect my home from her.
2) Nothing would change until my kid was ready to change.
Right now, you're enabling your daughter to behave badly. She does something dumb, blames you, and then you do whatever she wants. In short, this is your fault for accepting her behavior and it enables her to be even worse the next time. You have to stop and send a clear message that abuse is no longer allowed in your home....do whatever it takes to get the point across.
In my case, kicking my kid out "saved her" and completely changed the course of her life. In the moment, it was horrible and gut-wrenching to see her suffer and listen to her threats, but you must accept that those choices are on her and not you. All you can do is dial 9-1-1 every time and wait for the life lessons to stick.
I hope that helps.
