How can you manage getting angry with daughter

[Roper]

Hi
My daughter rang us this morning hysterical about not being able to manage knowing my husband and I are recovering from a horrid flu bug
Over the weekend she was managing in her flat saw her children   but now she is alone she switches to talking in an infantile way claiming she has no food and can’t cope .I tried to reason with her and finally lost the plot  calling her behaviour infantile Last week she had made it clear she wanted to limit contact with us and dredged up her unhappy childhood ex husband brother She would only speak to her father.

I am so angry and  yet feel guilty that I should not get angry because she has a mental illness and that is not the text book approach
  I do feel that she is manipulative and has no empathy towards us She simply has an expectation that we will step in with the grandchildren act as nurses /carers / cleaners and bankers  when she wants.  She  then accuse us of micromanaging her or being horrendous parents when it suits It feels like we are living a nightmare

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

[Resiliant]

Good morning Roper (it's 7:43am in my part of the world),

Get well soon!  It's important that you and your husband focus on getting well and helping each other through your own illnesses.

Has anyone else found that their BPD loved one becomes more needy and that they fear abandonment due to you having to look after a sick self or spouse?  I have found that for sure.  In my case, this year when I had a cancer diagnosis I did not tell my son for that reason.  Yet, he somehow he has a 6th sense even from the other side of the country, and after a long period of doing very well and us having a good relationship he began his torment while I was trying to process my diagnosis and treatments in my own mind.

I think it's normal and okay to be angry, especially if you can direct the anger towards the illness.  And, obviously we want our anger to turn into positive action, not negative reaction.  I have gotten angry at my son and fallen "off the plot" as you say.  That is not a healthy response, but it is human.   This is why I sometimes need to separate myself from him so that I don't react in a way that I will regret.  So, I don't answer the phone if I feel unprepared to handle things properly.

She won't starve.  You and your husband need to rest and to get better.  Take care of each other.  Pamper each other.  On her end, she might feel that the "horrible flu bug" is nothing compared to her intense emotional pain.  That, I think is what you are dealing with.   

Sorry if no real answers here, just thought I would reach out and wish you recovery.

All the best,

R

[Roper]

Thank you You are right if we are  ever ill or have a holiday or family event arranged this has always triggered a needy response.
 I am going to  try to detach myself from any communication except those relating to arrangements for managing/ helping our grandchildren
I have just reached  complete breaking point and the anger is a reflection of all the dreadful behaviour episodes that have dominated our lives .  My major worry about her behaviour now is its effect on her children and how she will manipulate them
It is  so sad that our daughter is not able to use the tools of mindfulness yoga breathing and planning her daily activities to control her bpd.  There have phases when I felt she had broken the cycle but this never lasts.

[CC43]

Indeed I can relate.  Any time my husband is sick, or whenever we are getting ready to leave on vacation, I prepare for some sort of meltdown or manufactured crisis by my BPD stepdaughter.  I think she can't bear not be the center of attention, and so she mounts some sort of crisis to ensure that she stays firmly in the center.  She's testing her dad to ensure that he continues to play the role of rescuer.  The BPD experts say this could be triggered by an intense fear of abandonment.  I'm not so sure--I think the reality is that, even though she's an adult, she remains very needy and demanding, and if sickness or vacation starts to turn our attention away from her, her response is to claim it back.

Here's an example.  This past Sunday, I was in the process of moving houses.  According to my phone step tracker, I climbed 52 floors and walked a total of five miles carrying boxes and belongings, many which were very heavy.  My husband did about the same.  At the end of the day, I was tuckered out, and my husband had sustained an injury.  Then he got a text from the BPD daughter who invited herself to dinner because she wanted us to help her with something.  I really didn't want to make a fancy dinner after a tough moving day, and I didn't have quite enough food for three, but I would make it work, because when it comes to the BPD stepdaughter, she always takes priority.  As my husband rested nursing his injury, I made dinner, while straightening up the house and recycling some of the moving boxes.  I was starving, but my husband insisted that we wait another hour for the BPD daughter to arrive.  So dinner ended up an hour and a half later than I wanted.  Finally, she arrived and we ate, and we also helped the BPD stepdaughter with what she wanted.  By then it was 8:45 PM.  After cleaning up the dinner, I said I was exhausted and needed to rest, and I excused myself to go lie down.  The next day, my husband said that his BPD daughter was upset because I seemed "aloof."  Though I didn't take the bait, that made me angry.  She was manipulating him, because she thought I wasn't acting like her servant as much as usual!  In her mind, I should never have a break!  Good grief, she needs my help with every tiny thing, and yet when I might need some help, not only is she absent, she becomes even more demanding, expecting me to be some sort of smiling superwoman millionaire nurse gourmet cook magician waving a magic happy wand.  Yet whenever she comes to visit for dinner, she naps until she's called to the table.  Does that sound familiar?  The demandingness and lack of empathy are incredible.  And underlying all of this is probably her fear that, because we're moving farther away from her, we'll be less available to help her daily.  I think that's one of the reasons why she seems especially needy right now.  In fact, it doesn't seem to be a coincidence that she'd invite herself to dinner on a major moving day.

And how about this:  whenever the BPD daughter is sick, she will come hang out at my house.  She expects me and her dad to "nurse" her back to health.  I've never said anything, but I resent it, because she spreads her germs, and then she makes my husband sick.  My husband is a big grump when he's sick, though he tends to get over it pretty quickly.  However, he will make me sick, and I tend to stay sick for a bit longer, maybe because I've been around sick people for around a week to ten days before I finally succumb.

[SoVeryConfused]

I think the hardest part is the guilt. When they treat us badly- and we step back but then think- this is our child, what kind of mom are we?

I’m taking a class and in it, they explained that we as parents are biologically wired to recognize threats to our kids and act. Not all threats are big ones but if they are emotional or upset, it sets off alarm bells. Add to that if we’ve had many incidents over time, and it’s normal to feel we should accommodate. And when we don’t, guilt.

I don’t have any answers other than to say that if you’ve been doing certain interactions with her the same way and it’s never good, maybe it is a good time to do things a little differently- be a little less available, be boring on the phone, validate then stop. Don’t offer ideas or solutions. Express confidence that she’ll manage because you’ve seen her do hard things. Just some ideas.