Exhausted

[Need support]

My daughter has BPD, likely NPD and anxiety disorder. Although she was always “high need” as a child, prone to tantrums and later just seemed difficult and selfish/kind of a jerk as a teenager, I always hoped she’d grow out of it. After my son died 4 years ago things came to a fever pitch with her anxiety. She dropped out of college minutes from the finish line. After living with me, working minimally and being a complete ass to me for several months I told her to leave. She went to Europe and stayed in a community of homeless transient people for over a year. When she had spent all her money et and destroyed all her relationships she come back to the States and lived with her father for 3 months. She burnt her bridges there and came to me for a few days and was wildly out of control with her emotions. Worse than ever. By some miracle she took our advice at the 11th hour and went into mental health treatment. But just as things were improving she stopped the meds. When she left there she was helped with lodging for a month but never did anything but sporadic food delivery. I very reluctantly succumbed to letting her come to my home to see if she “liked the area” find a full time job and therapy and get in her feet. She’s been here 3 months.Barely working part time cleaning houses. Never leaves my place to do activities or meet anybody. And waited a long time to finally get some therapy but who knows if that’s even helping. I’ve asked her to be on her way next month but she has no way to support herself and no plan. I am in the extremely stressful and anxiety provoking position that I will have to make her homeless. I need a support group. 12 step? I do go to Alanon. But I need specific support for those who love BPD’s. I’m in Colorado. Can anyone help?

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 there,

I bet your story resonates with that of many parents on this site.  I can relate, too.  My stepdaughter has BPD and spent her early adult years much like your daughter, bouncing from living situation to living situation.  While she was untreated, she tried college multiple times, but she'd quit as soon as assignments were due.  She lost her friends from college and burned all bridges there.  She also lost her besties from childhood due to her outbursts.  She mostly stayed with her dad and me, but if we required anything of her, such as working, she'd give up after a day or two, have a colossal meltdown and then stay with her mom for a few months, repeating the self-sabotaging, back-and-forth dysfunction.  She wouldn't contribute anything to the household except for negativity and passive-aggressiveness.  She'd sleep the day away, barely wash and lived in a mess, which was a reflection of her mental state.  Daily cannabis use and social media binging seemed to feed her negativity and also created delusions mixed with paranoia.  Sound familiar?  In my household, things were worst when my stepdaughter was NEETT--Not in Education, Employment, Training or Therapy.  She was less functional than a kindergartner, who manages to go to school, eat with the family at mealtimes, put away toys, take daily baths and say please and thank you (most of the time).  And my husband allowed his daughter to be less functional than a kindergartener for far too long in my opinion.  By allowing this in his household, he prolonged her suffering, as well as the suffering of the entire family.  He was too afraid of setting expectations and boundaries, lest she have a meltdown or try to commit suicide.  But that's exactly what she did--she'd threaten or try to commit suicide whenever she didn't get what she wanted.  She was basically an emotional terrorist living in our home.

I'd say, kudos to you for not allowing this dysfunctional behavior go on for too long in your household.  If you are supporting your daughter in any way, with housing, insurance, transportation, etc., then my advice would not be to allow your daughter to be NEETT.  She could choose to do nothing--she is an adult, after all--but then you don't support her.  By not supporting her, you are not enabling dysfunction.  She might choose to go on her own way again, and that's her right.  But by making that choice, she might hit bottom (faster), and she might come to realize that she needs you as an ally to turn her life around and make some positive changes, including therapy.  It may be that her months in Europe convinced her that she can't go it alone, and that you're not the one causing her problems, she is.  And since she's burned all her bridges (probably), you're the only ally she's got left.  It could be a very positive first step that she realizes this.  Then you can become her main ally on the journey to a happier life for both of you.

Look, it sounds to me like you both suffered a major crisis with the death of your son, and that would be traumatic for both of you.  I'm sorry for your loss.  If your daughter was close to graduating from college at the time, that shows she has a brain and could function pretty well in the past.  Today more than ever, it's possible to finish a degree, with all sorts of online study options for people of all ages.  But quitting impulsively and self-sabotaging behavior is a typical coping mechanism for people with BPD when under stress.  Her emotions could have been so intense at the time that it seemed impossible to continue with schoolwork.  And the stress of figuring out what to do after graduation is enormous, especially for people with BPD who have a fragile sense of self.  I know that issue is eating at my own stepdaughter right now.  Historically, her coping tactics for stress were to quit impulsively, thereby avoiding the stressful situation (the flight response), but quitting would bring on intense feelings of shame and disappointment.  Then to cope with the resultant negative emotions, she'd lash out at others (the fight response), blaming them for causing her distress.  She'd often weave stories of "traumas," typically from the past, as the reasons for her current dysfunction.  Yet her traumas were mostly invented, and not nearly as extreme as losing a sibling.  Even so, her brain is wired to perceive natural anxiety as "trauma", and her automatic response is flight or fight.

I think it's great that your daughter is getting therapy.  It could take some time to find the right therapist whom your daughter trusts.  She's been through a lot; maybe therapy needs to be her number one priority right now.  I found that with my stepdaughter, I had to adjust expectations concerning her development.  Though she was an adult, emotionally she was far behind, maybe even "handicapped".  In fact, I felt her emotional age was only about 70% of her chronological age.  So at 25, she was basically still a teenager, and yet she was facing adult-sized issues that were well beyond her emotional maturity.  Thinking this way helped me adjust my own expectations for her, while at the same time, giving me hope that she will mature, with the right therapy and support.  To think that she could jump from doing nothing and sleeping all day, to balancing full-time work and therapy, just wasn't realistic.  I'd recommend re-calibrating your expectations and taking baby steps.

In my stepdaughter's case, things started to turn around when my husband gave her an ultimatum:  If she wanted full financial support, then she had to follow the doctor's orders as a first step to getting back on track.  (Previously, she wouldn't stick with recommended therapies, programs or medications because she didn't feel like it).  My stepdaughter seemed to like the notion of heeding "professional" recommendations.  And maybe she could still cling to the victim narrative:  that she was "abused" and thus needed professional remedies.  For my husband, this approach was a relief, because he wasn't tasked with coming up with new ways to help his daughter, as everything he had tried to date (giving her everything she could possibly want) had failed.  Thus, at first, my stepdaughter's main priority was therapy, taking medications as prescribed and avoiding illicit substances.  Only later, when she seemed more stable, did she progress with baby steps.  First was a simple, low-stress part-time job like dog walking or deliveries (while continuing therapy).  Then she tried independent living with roommates.  Then she took on jobs with more structure, responsibility and hours.  And then she took an online class or two.  Only after showing she could handle that did she try full-time school again.  Eventually, therapy became less frequent, going from an intensive program plus weekly one-on-one sessions, to sessions twice per month.  Looking back, I see how she made significant progress in a relatively short time.  To her credit, she worked hard to turn her life around.  Though there were some setbacks, what was important was getting back "on track," on a pathway leading towards an adult's independent life.  She's talking much more about the future now, rather than ruminating endlessly about ancient grievances.  Though she'll dredge them up sometimes, I think she does a better job at re-centering herself and not letting the negative thoughts derail her so easily.

I'll wrap up with another piece of advice:  you need to live your life, and that includes self-care.  You're no good to your daughter if you're completely stressed out and seeing everything through a FOG (fear, obligation and guilt).  I think you need to model for your daughter what a healthy adult's life looks like, and that includes doing fun things for yourself, and getting therapy for yourself if you need it.