Enabling needs to stop.

[quasimodo2]

I’ve just found this forum of people with similar situations and as I read through some comments, realised I might just have stumbled upon a resource which may help.
Once again, i find myself at odds with one of my daughters with BPD. Her decision making and choices always lead to the same outcome, sooner or later, and I’m always waiting for the “other boot to hit the floor”. Emotionally drained only begins to describe how I feel every time I have to deal with this daughter. Faced with every trick in the emotional manipulation handbook, right up to suggesting self harm, she has learned how to shovel blame and derision all over me for years, every time the inevitable crash happens and shame is faced with th,e consequences of her own choices.
I am currently trying to decide if I should now, give her money to keep the current crash at bay, and cut off all future contact with her. I am so dreadfully worn out trying to help/support/ encourage/ enable this daughter.
My other 2 daughters who have also had issues, but with help and support have navigated their way to happy productive, and meaningful lives. They are a joy to be with. They have cut off all contact with middle daughter many years ago, because it always ended in conflict and tears.
Their mother, who has not been interested in the girls since she could no longer use them as bargaining chips in negotiating with me and also as ammunition when dealing with housing departments, is BPD and family life was chaotic and uncertain because of her. She finally took off with someone else and dragged the girls along as well. She knew this was a way to hurt and control me. She had no real interest in the girls, and a year or so after break up, the girls returned to my hometown. I was living by then, in a 1 bedroom flat, so there was a huge upheaval and readjustments to deal with. Enough to say, we somehow made it into ordered happy lives, except for middle daughter, for whom everything and everyone eventually become problems for her, much like her mother.
She has bounced around the country from all sorts of billets, and is currently living in a rental in london which was never going to be affordable, again. This is one of the urgent main issues, but i know if I give money again, the situation will only be delayed and it will be wasted. If I do not cough up again, threats of self harm are now being subtly introduced to the texts so she is really ramping up the pressure.
My other daughters both went to university and have progressed responsibly and through their own efforts, with support from me when appropriate, and have fulfilling lives.
Middle daughter, makes nothing but ammunition, from all the many resources and encouragement which have been put her way. Ingratitude and sullen insults are common currency.
I am at a point where i find, I do not like my daughter at all, and it’s always a relief when she is out of touch for some time. Ignorance is bliss so to speak. But the threat of next eruption is always hovering in the background.
I feel my only reasonable course now, is to go full no contact and let what happens, happen,but it’s so difficult to do.
Any advice?
Any helps?
Witzend.
Again

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,

Your story will resonate with many parents on these boards.  Based on what you've written, I think you're mostly out of the FOG--shorthand for making decisions out of Fear, Obligation and Guilt.  You see what's happening:  if you save your daughter from the consequences of her poor decisions, she won't learn, and on top of that, she'll treat you badly.  That's because she embraces a victim attitude, which in my opinion is the worst aspect of BPD.  The victim attitude means that other people are the source of her never-ending problems, not her own poor decisions.  That means she expects everyone else to change, and everyone else to bear the consequences of her choices, not her.  And that renders her unable to take charge of her life.  She has no agency.  But, it's working for her, because she continues to do whatever she wants whenever she wants, no matter the consequences.  Why would she change when it's working for her?  Besides, she's convinced that YOU, her family and her terrible childhood are the source of all her woes.

And yet, you don't want to see your own daughter suffer so much.  You'd love to help her, but she's unable to accept your help in any positive way.  When you rescue her by providing shelter or other support, you're basically enabling the status quo, and you're suffering right alongside her.  She's abusing you and making you feel miserable.

I'm familiar with the threats of self-harm and suicide attempts.  When my BPD stepdaughter started threatening bodily harm, that's when she went "nuclear" in my opinion--down a path of mutually assured destruction.  As she bumped up against adulthood, she felt increasingly scared and incompetent, unable to figure out who she really was or how to survive.  As her problems became adult-sized ones, such as securing a place to live, going to college, getting a job, and dealing with adult relationships, she crumbled under the pressure.  As her daily problems grew and became more complex (and expensive), her dysfunction grew, too.  She started out with vague threats of self-harm, but they escalated into multiple suicide attempts, each one more serious than the last.  However, since my husband was operating in a FOG, whenever she threatened or attempted suicide, she'd actually be rewarded.  That makes sense; my husband thought, if he didn't give her what she wanted, then she'd be DEAD.  Out of love for his daughter, he set her up in increasing expensive apartments, and he paid for multiple semesters of tuition, and he gave her a bottomless debit card, in the hopes that, if he just set her up with everything she needed, she'd figure things out.  But BPD doesn't work that way!  What happened is that she would be evicted, she'd drop out of school, and she couldn't hold a job for more than a couple of days.  She descended into a pit of despair, treated her dad and extended family terribly and accused him of all sorts of abuses.

I guess my advice is, if your daughter threatens self harm, call 911 or offer to call 911 for her, and she can decide whether to take you up on it or not.  My other advice is, if your daughter is treating you horribly, then that's her choice, but you don't provide support if she does that.  If she wants your support, then she needs to treat you right, and ideally get therapy.  She can choose to go her own way, because she's an adult.  But you don't have to enable her when she's making bad choices and treating you like dirt.

Look, I understand the feeling of not loving your kid anymore.  I confess, when things got really bad, I actually wondered, well, I wish she did try to commit suicide again, because that way, maybe she'd land in the hospital and get the help she desperately needs.  In a way, I think people with BPD have to hit bottom in order to snap out of the victim mindset and start to accept help in the form of therapy.  Your daughter might not reach that bottom unless she's on her own for a while.  Because if you always rescue her, she'll have you to blame, even if logically, that doesn't make any sense.  Yet BPD thinking isn't very logical, it's driven by emotions.  She's upset, you're the parent, and so you're to blame.

[CC43]

PS,

Regarding your question of going no contact, my opinion is that you leave the channels of communication open, because she is your daughter after all, and deep down you love her, just not her BPD behavior.  However, if your daughter sends a mean text, you do not dignify it with a response.  Delete it like it's spam if you need to, because it is spam!  You can take it as a sign that she's disappointed or stressed out by something in her life right now.  In fact, I bet she might regret sending you those mean texts sometimes.  If you don't respond to them, she can pretend that you didn't see them and weren't affected by them, and maybe that way, she feels less shame and regret, which can be a big part of BPD.  Sometimes I think that the mean texts are designed to rile you up, to get you to join her in a hate session.  If you don't respond, you might help her quash the flame of her ire, by not feeding her heated emotions.

If you talk on the phone, and she starts yelling out of control or uses abusive language, you can say, "I need a break, we can talk later.  Bye."  Now sometimes, I recognize that emotionally volatile people need to VENT their frustrations, and I might give them time to do that.  I might listen quietly, without offering solutions, because they don't want solutions, they want to be heard.  I try to keep my commentary short, like "It sounds horrible to feel that way."  But if the conversation starts to turn too sour, I might say, "We're not getting anywhere, let's talk about something else."  If she doesn't heed my request, I'll say, "This is stressing me out, if we don't talk about something else, I'm hanging up."  And if she continues her negative rant, that's a third strike and I'll say, "I need a break, bye."  That way, she has a choice in how the conversation goes, and she gets a couple of warnings.  I don't directly blame her; I make it about my own discomfort in the conversation.  I don't have to lie, because she really is stressing me out, and I hit my limit!  If you try this technique a few times, she might catch on and learn to stop before her rants get out of control.  If she calls you back right away, you can say, "I'm hanging up if you continue to yell at me/beat me up about xyz."  You can repeat this another time, and if she still doesn't respect your boundary, then silence your phone and don't pick up for the rest of the day.  In effect, you're giving her an "adult time out."  She needs time and space to cool off.  My advice is, do not interrupt the time out.  Wait until she's ready and she approaches you with respect.

Just my two cents.