angry

[Parents! Get help here!]

4 months of chaos and counting......
 3 recent ED visits and finally an inpatient psych visit which ended up in a discharge because she refused to consider partial hospitalization or residential care. Daughter went to her home and seemed ok for 24 hours. Boundaries set up to limit text messages and visits because of rages which become ugly very quickly. Received one phone call today with her again crying, upset and hysterical with me saying I needed to leave the conversation. But then I got angry with her continued verbal attacks and the "coaching"  she now gives me - " you are not helpful to me when you get angry, you need to validate my feelings". I have been trying for YEARS to stay calm, be supportive, respond the way I should, get her the help she needs, and I'm just so frustrated.I seem to spend 100 % of my time trying to understand, read about BPD, be a better parent and  I am exhausted from trying to navigate the way I should behave. I never see a text or call from her that I don't get anxious or feel dread. She always goes to the suicide threat as emotional blackmail then goes to the ED and says she didn't really mean it. So, I take my limited phone calls, using my boundaries and I still feel so helpless. I'm so tired.

[Winniethepoo]

4 months of chaos and counting......
 3 recent ED visits and finally an inpatient psych visit which ended up in a discharge because she refused to consider partial hospitalization or residential care. Daughter went to her home and seemed ok for 24 hours. Boundaries set up to limit text messages and visits because of rages which become ugly very quickly. Received one phone call today with her again crying, upset and hysterical with me saying I needed to leave the conversation. But then I got angry with her continued verbal attacks and the "coaching"  she now gives me - " you are not helpful to me when you get angry, you need to validate my feelings". I have been trying for YEARS to stay calm, be supportive, respond the way I should, get her the help she needs, and I'm just so frustrated.I seem to spend 100 % of my time trying to understand, read about BPD, be a better parent and  I am exhausted from trying to navigate the way I should behave. I never see a text or call from her that I don't get anxious or feel dread. She always goes to the suicide threat as emotional blackmail then goes to the ED and says she didn't really mean it. So, I take my limited phone calls, using my boundaries and I still feel so helpless. I'm so tired.

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

[Sancho]

Hi Winnethepooh
I can really relate to the exhaustion of the BPD journey. There is nothing like it in my opinion. There is the constant emotional battering, the anxiety regarding their wellbeing and wondering what can be done to help and then there is the thought of ‘Is this going to go on forever’ feeling that just drains every ounce of energy.

It seems you have some boundaries in place now which is great. The biggest challenge I found was how to protect myself from having my own emotions being battered and bruised.

I did notice that my DD would explode at me, then she would quite quickly recover once the emotions had settled, and I was still in emotional turmoil. The next step was realizing DD was directing her response to feelings of abandonment and anger at me and she was totally irrational at these times – these were times of pure emotion that she needed to discharge.
If I engaged, the emotional turmoil lasted much longer. If I stepped away, it kept it going and even made it worse. So one day I told her that I was not going to respond when she was like this because it meant her emotions couldn’t settle. So I did exactly that – Greystone rock or a form of it.

I listen but don’t respond. If DD calls me on not responding, I repeat why I am not.  I don’t hang up or move away – usually DD ends up doing one of these things herself.

It has made such a difference because – I think – I feel more in control emotionally.  I understand it’s HER need to vent, it is irrational and I repeat to myself the 3 C’s – I didn’t cause this, I can’t control it, I can’t cure it.

I hope you are able to have some time to recover some energy. Thank you for posting. When someone posts here and tell us how it is for them, it makes such a difference knowing we are not alone on this demanding journey.

[Winniethepoo]

Thank you for the response. I really don't like the feeling of being out of control myself. I am not sure why I am feeling angry at times. It just seems so unrelenting. I will keep to my calm space and try to weather these storms. I just wish they were a little farther apart. My husband and I have demanding jobs and other children and it is taking us longer to recover from the rages because they are so demeaning and the language out of her mouth is just so hurtful. I will remind myself that it really isn't her in these episodes and stay focused. I have a great deal of difficulty with the suicide threats which come on a constant basis. I have called 911, crisis lines more times than they can even handle. I think this is a way for her to prove she is not being abandoned. But is also taking a great toll on my mental health even though I tell her she knows who to call, etc and I feel secure knowing she knows what to do.  So, I get angry after I force the police or crisis workers to do a wellness check and she won't allow them into her home.

[Sancho]

I wonder if the anger is due to the feeling of being ‘cornered’. This is how BPD makes me feel. We are presented with hugely intense problems, we offer solutions which are rejected/dismissed. It feels like we are ‘trapped’ into the chaos and -if we are ‘fix it’ people like I am – the frustration of having no control over whether or not someone will at least explore options is enormous and can lead to feeling really angry.

My DD is normally not very articulate, but when she rages I am amazed at the fluency of her abuse, distorted facts and horrible language. It is like she has been taken over by a demon!   It seems the brain is just bombarded with emotional distress.
The suicide threats are very, very distressing. It is perhaps the biggest thing that we cannot have control over. No matter how many protective layers we put around someone we love, we cannot prevent them if they eventually choose this path out of the pain.
I think it is important to draw on your knowledge of your own daughter. I went into overdrive whenever my DD threatened to take her life, then I stepped back to look at things a bit. I came to see that the threat itself was a way of DD coping with intense pain and feelings of abandonment at that point in time. She was telling herself that there was a way out of the pain and she was locking me into responding in order to ‘explain’ to herself the reason for the intense feelings of abandonment.
In a way, saying she was going to kill herself was a way to lessen the pain because she was telling herself there was a way out for it to stop.

Then I thought about my DD. She is very anxious, has a very low pain threshold and a fear of the unknown. She self medicates to relieve all this but of course when she is self medicating she is quite happy!

So I came to the conclusion that a) the thought of suicide was a tool for DD to lessen the pain and she was probably not likely to act on it and b) I had not control over the possibility that she would act on it.
I used the poem ‘Letting Go’ by Nelson Mandela a lot during the most intense time of suicide threats. It was really helpful and some of the lines still come to my mind automatically.

“Letting go means I can’t do it for someone else’.

Just one more thing – sorry this is so long!

When DD and her boyfriend lived with me there were instances of domestic violence. I remember DD asking me to call the police, which I did, but by the time they arrived DD and boyfriend had made it up and were both targeting me.

The next time DD asked me to call the police I told her she needed to do it herself – which she did. This time she did deal with it and boyfriend was taken away.

I wonder if when DD threatens, it would be helpful to say something like ‘It is so distressing feeling as though this is how it is for you. I will get back in touch in xxxxxxx to see if things are the same and if they are I will need to phone for some help.
You probably have tried all these things so sorry if I am ‘taking coal to Newcastle’ as the saying is.

[CC43]

Hi Winnie,

I think you’re right to feel angry, even if you don’t want to harbor anger for your daughter. Maybe you could reconcile this internally by admitting you don’t hate your daughter, but you do hate her behavior right now.

I’ll echo the kernel of the idea of a prior poster that the suicide threats could be a means for your daughter to feel some comfort and/or control, misguided though that may seem to us.  You see, she might be in so much pain that the notion of ending it, once and for all, could finally provide relief. Having that option, that choice, has value. Nevertheless, your daughter is choosing to live. In a way, she’s demonstrating that she can still take the pain, even if it is intense. This might give her a sense of control, when her emotions are surely making her feel out of control.

I also agree with another poster that I find that just being quiet is often the best way to handle rages, especially if I feel off balance (as I’m more likely to say the wrong thing). There’s no reasoning with her when she’s riled up.

And I understand the relentlessness of the stress and worry, it can really wear one down. Sometimes I don’t have a proper outlet, which is why I come to this site, to help me process events, get some perspective, and maybe some tips too. I also take long walks in nature, which I find therapeutic.