Is this a reasonable boundry?

[In4thewin]

Cliffs Notes. My 19yo daughter, diagnosed with BPD by a therapist (not a psychiatrist) graduated HS last year and has been living on her own since February in an apartment I pay for. She isn't living with me do to ongoing abuses. During last years "gap year", she held 3 jobs, each for only a couple months working few hours, before getting let go. She has been attending an online IOP for about 4 months, doing group therapy 3 days a week for three hours, and another hor with a private therapist. A family session can be added once a week and after she was in the program for several weeks we tried that. The first one went well, and the second one turned into a PLEASE READ show with explosive emotions, name calling etc, that the therapist couldn't level down. This was the first time this therapist saw first hand the kind of issues I had been dealing with at home. Shortly thereafter, my daughter "fired" her therapist an requested a new on with the program, who she has been working with since. We have had no family sessions.

Fast forward to present day, my day decided to go off all her meds a couple months ago and has been resistant to even try any other medication, choosing instead to self medicate using pot. Her behavior toward me has not improved at all, and in the past week has tipped the scales. I quite literally can't be in her presence or say anything without it resulting in a blame rage and character assasination, with the most vulgar of language possible. Clearly the 4 months of IOP has not helped, and I suspect that the use of pot and lack of all meds whatsoever is taking it's toll.

My daugher is "supposed" to be starting cosmetology school in September with a first payment of a few thousand dollars being due next month, but I have serious concerns about her ability and/or willingness to actually take the program seriously and dedicate the time and energy needed to do well. She has a new BF who works all day, and every night she's over at his house spending the night. They are basically living together because when he's home, she's there. Her only priority is and has been to find and maintain a relationship, and she has a long history of allowing relationships to control what she does and when, regardless of commitments or expectations. I'm worried that she just isn't in the frame of mind or stable enough to do well in this program right now, and I'm tired of throwing good money after bad trying to help her when all signs continue to point to her not being dedicated to pursuing a life of her own. It's a full time, year long program, 5 days a week--all day, and the first 3 months are classroom studies before they even get into the hands on things.  I just keep thinking that at best she's going to start this going through the motions and attending every day, but she won't open a book outside of class as needed...... because he's home from work.

On Thursday we are scheduled to have our first family session with her new personal therapist, but after a crazy explosion yesterday over literally NOTHING, I'm afraid she going to call it off. She does not want to talk about anything that ultimately requires her to be accountable and since things are so bad right now, she may not want her therapist to really know what's going on. I know that I'm getting ahead of myself but I'm planning on that happening, and if it does, I'm strongly considering letting her know that since we cannot have even basic civil communications alone, if we don't meet with the family counselor (who is also her personal counselor), that I won't be putting down the money for the cosmetology program. Does this sound reasonable? Again, I am literally unable to have any conversation with her that doesn't blow up, let alone one about serious matters that require her to be accountable for her choices and actions. If I believed that she was going to take this program seriously and follow through with it to the end, I'd gladly pay for it regardless of the interpersonal issues, but I think my concerns are valid, particularly her heading into this completely unmedicated. I figure if she'd sooner not start school than meet with the family therapist, then my concerns are correct and I should just save my money. Even if Thursday's appointment is cancelled, she will still have 3 more weeks before the down payment is actually due in. Please let me know your thoughts. There's a lot of wisdom and experience out there. 

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 Win,

I think you should trust your gut on this one, and, as painful as it is, understand that your daughter isn't ready to take on such a big commitment like full-time education when she hasn't been functioning very well recently.  That doesn't mean she'll never be ready, but if she's not able to handle basic commitments now (e.g. therapy, prescribed medications, part-time work, healthy social relationships) without falling apart, she probably won't be able to handle bigger ones.  That she's self-medicating with marijuana (probably daily), is following a nocturnal schedule and has her priorities mixed up are additional red flags.

My family had to learn the hard way.  My diagnosed BPD stepdaughter begged for payment of college tuition, over and over again.  But I think we were setting her up to fail.  If she spent the prior four to six months sleeping all day, using pot, living like a slob, working only a couple of days at a job before quitting or getting fired, skipping expensive therapy sessions, having frequent, inappropriate outbursts, and acting delusional/paranoid at times, was it reasonable to think that she would suddenly flip a magic switch, pull herself together and perform in a stressful educational environment?  I think this wishful thinking was totally unrealistic.  But her dad couldn't bear to tell her no.  And so he'd pay the tuition and rent her an apartment on campus, and she'd go back to college, only to drop out when the first assignment or tests were due, flushing tuition and housing payments down the drain.  She'd return home in an even worse state than before, while blaming her roommates and family for the catastrophe.  The hit to her already abysmal self-confidence was heartbreaking.  Plus, I couldn't help but feel angry and resentful at her and her dad.

My advice to you would be to proceed in baby steps.  Maybe sticking with therapy is your daughter's primary goal right now.  If she sticks to it for a while, she could add another realistic goal, such as taking medications as prescribed and cutting out the marijuana if it's not prescribed.  After demonstrating success with that, she could work towards sticking with an easy part-time job (maybe dog-walking or food delivery) for a couple of months.  Then she might be ready to add another responsibility, such as an online class, or perhaps working part-time at a salon (shampooing?), getting her some exposure and connections in an area of interest for her.  Only after she demonstrates success with living a relatively healthy lifestyle and keeping her commitments would you consider enrollment in a full-time, paid educational program.  Ideally, she'd have some skin in the game and help pay for a part of it, so that she feels the financial pain should she quit early.

I think that since your daughter is young, there's hope that she could turn things around for herself and make a lot of progress pretty quickly.  But in my opinion, it's the direction of progress that is more important than speed.  The key is to keep her on track, that is, working towards a goal of becoming a healthy, independent adult.  Does that make sense?

I'll add that my BPD stepdaughter eventually warmed to the notion of getting therapy from "professionals."  The deal with her became, in order to get continued support from her dad and me, she had to do whatever the doctors ordered.  In fact, that deal became an inflection point.  On the one hand, it meant that we weren't directly saying that she was mentally ill, but merely that she could get some professional support to help her recover from suicide attempts and from what she described as past abuses.  In addition, it alleviated her parents from coming up with solutions.  On the other hand, my stepdaughter could put her trust in the professionals, who deal with patients just like her all the time!  And in a bizarre way, getting professional help enabled my stepdaughter to feel validated, in that she felt she experienced past traumas.  For a few months, my stepdaughter's number one priority became doing whatever the doctors recommended.  If they recommended a treatment program, she couldn't opt out, because that meant she'd lose parental support.  Once she dedicated herself to therapy and prescribed medications (while cutting out the marijuana), she really turned around her life in the matter of a few months.  Now, I'm not saying her journey was perfect--she's still hampered by unstable emotions, rocky relationships and unrealistic expectations of other people.  She has suffered some setbacks, too.  But generally speaking, she is heading in the right direction, and she has been doing better.  If she were tested for BPD today, I bet she probably wouldn't qualify, as she wouldn't have enough of the symptoms.

I'll wrap up by adding that somewhere, I read that therapy for BPD typically focuses on building individual skills and emotional regulation before tackling relationships.  I think that has generally been the case for my BPD stepdaughter.  I think she needs to build up her identity and confidence as a successful adult (with completed education and a stable job) BEFORE she can hope to repair familial relationships or could consider entering an intense romantic relationship.  I guess I'm saying that it doesn't appear to be very healthy to dive headfirst into an intense romantic relationship that consumes 100% of her attention, and prevents her from working on herself first.  In other words, I think it's important to have her priorities straight.  And that can be a real struggle.  An example is that my stepdaughter is obsessed with getting cosmetic surgery and has asked countless times for the money to get it.  But to date, her dad has said no to this request, as her priority right now needs to be to get and keep a full-time job with subsidized health insurance.

All my best to you.

[zachira]

My heart goes out to you doing everything you can to help your daughter while trying not to enable her behaviors along with the ongoing pain and sorrow of being abused by her. Smoking pot destroys a person's ability to be motivated to do nearly anything constructive along with the dysregulated emotions of BPD being a huge contributing factor to your daughter not really succeeding at anything right now. Probably the most important thing you can do for your daughter right now is to take care of yourself so you are more able to set the necessary boundaries with her so she will be more likely to become more capable of taking care of herself.

The most successful treatment for drug addiction uses motivational interviewing (MI) which deals directly with the person's level of motivation to take action including having no motivation whatsoever. MI places the responsibility for making changes on the shoulders of the person needing to change and is now used as an intervention for both physical and mental health behavior changes. Anybody can learn motivational interviewing, and you could try some of the techniques with your daughter.

As far as canceling the family therapy session,  let your daughter be the one to make that decision.

Keep us posted on how you are doing and how we can help.

[In4thewin]

Thank you both for your responses. I'm just at a loss as to what I should do (always), because for years, at every crossroad my daughter makes choices that set set her up for failure in one way or another. I've always been hoping for the best even when there are clear signs that things won't go well. I wasn't thinking that 3-4 months of an IOP would "cure" her, but it's extremely disheartening that after 4 months and near the end of the program (they already extended her by a month), she is still so out of control and boldly tells me that she's not going on any meds and will continue to smoke pot. She doesn't care about medical research, and she expects me to just keep going along with this insanity. I can't do it anymore.

She called me earlier today after two days of mutual silence when I was on an online therapy session. I didn't answer because I'm firm in my decision to only meet/talk to her with a therapist in between. I realize that there will be times when some basic communication will be necessary in between sessions, but that can be accomplished with short texts. When getting her call today, I just texted saying I was in a therapy session and to text me. No response. Thereafter, I texted asking what time our online family session is tomorrow, and she responded--- so I know it hasn't been cancelled. That's hopeful, but she has previously told me that after this program ends (soon), she's not doing any family therapy with me--- which isn't an option given my boundaries and how I'm planning to proceed with her. I don't mean to sound cold, but I've truly hit a wall with this ongoing situation and if I don't make some changes, she will have no reason to make any herself.

At this point, I'd appreciate some continued guidance on how I should approach the family session tomorrow. It will be the first time I interact with this therapist. The most time sensitive issues that I think she needs to know and my daughter needs to be aware of are:

1.  My daughter and I can't be in each other's presence without raging and abuses occurring, and therefore I am pulling back indefinitely on all "live" contact, except when a therapist is present.

2. I have strong concerns about my daughter's ability and willingness to successfully complete the cosmetology program based on her emotional instability, not being properly medicated, and her general lifestyle---- and therefore I am no longer open to paying for the program until and unless I see changes in her behavior and  lifestyle that will make me confident in making the investment.

My daughter doesn't do well with ultimatums, but given ongoing circumstances I don't believe that anything is going to change for the better unless I stand my ground when it comes to reasonable expectations and then carry through with them. What she's going to view as ultimatums are really just healthy and necessary boundaries though. Please let me know if you see it differently. This cosmetology program enters a new class of students every three months as the prior class advances to their hands on training, so at this point, if my daughter really wants to go and can be successful, she has more than enough time to prove that by the time that the December class starts. I'm not expecting anything close to perfection but I'm thinking I'd really be doing both of us an injustice by enrolling her for September given the past, current and evolving circumstances.

[Tried and tired]

I’m so. Sorry for you and I really do appreciate you sharing your story because I have really felt lost and alone dealing with being so disliked by my daughter in law most of the time and seeing my son struggle with her saying crappy things about me to him , I have been reading everything I can to try and say things in the correct manner to her so she doesn’t explode and distance me  , and as good as things get they always end in a abrupt nasty text or actually unending texts that tell me how horrible I am and how I don’t respect her boundaries but I’m pretty sure we also can have boundaries and should be able to communicate without her texting crappy messages that don’t say anything but how I am projecting negative images of myself to her ( which I don’t exactly understand because I wouldn’t even think of doing that if one could ) she also quit taking medication almost 3 years ago and I can’t see anything changing until she goes to someone and realizes that she can’t do this without help , I talked to my son and he said she has agreed to go to someone regarding their relationship so hopefully a therapist can help get her to a better understanding of what is needed to help them have a healthy relationship, ( meaning her getting better with professional help) I am glad that your daughter agrees to get help at all I think getting them to get help is definitely the hardest thing because it’s the most necessary step to even begin I hope you have success and are able to have some peace with yourself and your family it’s very obvious that you love her and have had such patience, it’s very hard to watch someone you love go through something we can’t control, it was so much easier when they were little ! I didn’t know what hindsight meant until I went through the things I wish I had known ❤️

[In4thewin]

Tried and tired, my heart goes out to you, and I know the regret of hindsight and not understanding things that I do now. I'm haunted by times and situations when had I understood  what was progressing and how it should really be dealt with, I sincerely feel that my daughter's issues would have been able to be curbed if not totally eradicated. Whether is was the "toughen up butter cup" approach in middle school when she was sending me every message that something was going wrong, to then responding by sending her so-called residential treatment for 10 months that really turned out to be harmful "troubled teen industry" places that only worsened things. I screwed up big time, and boy do we both pay for it. Now she's a legal adult and I have no ability to get her the help she really needs even though I now understand. Total regret and shame. But with that said, I did do the best I knew how under very challenging circumstances and I'm here to support her back to good mental health, but I can't do that if she's neither ready to receive the help she needs and our relationship is so broken that I can't be the level of support that I could be because of ongoing abuses that I just can't bare anymore. I can't take care of my own mental health by continually being exposed to toxicity, and if I'm not well again then I won't be able to help her when she really wants it. Unfortunately, I need to let go and maintain some boundaries even though it's very hard to do because I love her so much and just want a normal relationship with her.... which sadly for both of us may never happen.