Tired of the beatings

[Storm cloud]

My child has BPD, and has just raged at me and my husband about how awful we were as parents, unnurturing, traumatizing and many other things. No matter what we say or do it never seems to help our 30 year old adult child.

Sick of being the bad guy and sick of hearing about 20 year old problems that aren’t even true.

Storm cloud

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

[kells76]

Hello Storm cloud and

I think anyone in your position would be tired of hearing repetition of things from decades in the past, especially when accompanied by rages and with no real sense of moving forward or resolution. Sounds like this has happened frequently; would you categorize these rages as circular arguments, or something else?

Does your 30YO live at home? Do you have any other kids (or anyone else besides you and your husband) living at home?

Has your 30YO received an official diagnosis? If so, is your child accepting of the diagnosis (or denying it), in treatment, compliant with treatment, rejecting treatment...?

What does your in-person support system look like right now? Do you have understanding family members, supportive friends, a therapist?

These are such difficult family relationships. It's no wonder you're at the end of your rope  Glad we can be here for you  -- we get it.

kells76

[Storm cloud]

My child has raged at us before, they are circular arguments revisiting childhood traumas that she can’t articulate. Usually the discussions don’t make sense- they start off with one thought and get deflected to something that has nothing to do with what we started talking about. These rages usually happen at  family gatherings. After what we think is a nice time she says she will no longer come to an event (thanksgiving, Christmas, birthday) etc. and says she wishes she had another family. Family events without her are peaceful, but I feel sad that she doesn’t seem to want to be a part of them or just doesn’t have the capacity for them. Her announcements at family events always come out of the blue, we don’t know what suddenly makes her blow.
She was diagnosed as having BPD when she was in high school (grade 10) after having attempted suicide for the second time. She has been in treatment but doesn’t talk to us about it.
My daughter is married and has a job. I don’t know how her marriage is going, but she recently had a big blowout with her husband, left the house, and threatened suicide again when he mentioned a separation from her.
She says she wants to have a relationship with us but only if we submit to her demands of endless apologizing for what we did in the past , and only if we are authentic about it and only if we are accountable for being the terrible parents that we were.(sorry for the venting).
Yes I have a support system, my husband and my sister are there for me.
We let her vent for a short time and then ask how can we move forward and how to support her but she doesn’t answer.. She keeps going back to her terrible childhood and events that either we don’t remember or never happened.
We have another daughter and they don’t have a close relationship.
It’s exhausting and traumatizing to me. I am 69 and while I am healthy if this keeps up I’m not sure how long I will be.
Today she sent a long message demanding that we apologize again, acknowledge her trauma,  feelings, be accountable and take counseling with her. Counseling in the past didn’t work and ended up making every one in the family a bad guy but her. I’m done with this. I know this is a mental illness but I have to take care of me now because this is going nowhere.
I feel guilty about thinking about walking away from this craziness but I need a break from her. I don’t know what else to do.