First Post from parent with adult daughter with BPD

[Victor4]

My daughter is 28, I'll call her Olivia, was diagnosed with bpd years ago.  She has been living on her own, near Lake Tahoe, about 4 hours from the Bay Area, where I live.  She is working full-time, in a grocery store, with a low-ish salary.  Her mom and I (we were divorced when my daughter was 7, I am remarried, my ex-wife and I are on pretty good terms and both pitch in on our daughter's issues) supplement her income by paying her rent and other expenses.  Olivia can be charming and playful, but has much anger inside, and it is fierce when it comes out.  I've read the BPD manuals, and mostly know the drills: no shaming, support her for her victories, don't get caught up in her vitriol, set limits, avoid judgments, don't walk on eggshells, find the love, find the common ground.  I try to make our interactions happen with phone calls rather than texting, so we can really relate, person to person. (It often works, tho she at heart is a texter.)  At points of dispute or intense disagreement, we often use reflective listening, which she is good at, and it takes down the temperature.  (I recommend it highly!) All that to the good.  But when she is in her lashing out mode (often), it becomes near impossible to relate cordially.  MY PROBLEM: I get caught up in her victim mentality, her unhappiness, her blaming everyone but herself for whatever difficulties that are currently befalling her.  And my feeling of ineffectiveness to help her change her behaviors for a more positive life.  And then it brings ME down.  In short, I am frustrated at how little, it seems, I can help her improve her life.  But the real reason I came to this group is to help me distance myself from her web of doom.  Its effect on me: I can't sleep, or be productive, or let myself have joy, or live my own life as well as I'd like.   It is maddening and I want, I need, some equalibrium.  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 Victor,

I think I can relate to your story.  I have a BPD stepdaughter who is about your daughter's age.  Like your daughter, in many respects she has made progress at carving out a semi-independent, young adult's life for herself, and yet she's still very dependent on her dad and me for support, including emotional support, constant reassurance, significant financial aid and logistical help (e.g. every time she needs help moving to a new residence, which is often).  She's had a ton of therapy, and she has been adept at using her skills sometimes, but then she experiences setbacks and lashes out.  The push/pull, love/hate, high/low, in/out, success/failure, hope/despair, communicating/estrangement patterns are volatile, and they are giving her dad and me emotional whiplash sometimes.  Just a few minutes ago, my husband said something like, It's been almost a decade of this, I can't take it anymore.  And this was in reaction to GOOD news from his daughter.  It's just that she's conditioned us not to get our hopes up, because with every little success, it seems that a failure or setback is not too far behind.  It's extremely tiring being constantly on the defensive, walking on eggshells, hoping for the best but underneath it all, girding ourselves for the worst.  I still cringe at every late-night phone call, half-expecting it's a call from police about a disaster.  Honestly it has created a lot of stress in our marriage, too.

Here's the thing though.  I think you can help your daughter by staying as calm and loving as possible.  The more volatile she is, the more she needs to sense your reassuring, loving calmness.  If you find yourself getting riled up, my advice is to stay silent, and maybe exit the conversation if you have to.  When our loved ones with BPD (and BPD traits) get riled up, they are overtaken by emotions, and they just can't process any rational arguments.  I think silence and time work better.  They need time and space to calm down.

Now, I completely understand that even if you're pretending to be calm, you can't help but feel distressed.  You could be feeling a combination of worry, despair, frustration, distraction, sadness, mourning, resentment, dread, anger, guilt, financial strain--a whole slew of negative emotions.  You're not alone in this.  Often I come to this site to help me process my thoughts about what's going on, and maybe find an outlet in a community that understands, because nobody else wants to hear it, let alone comprehend all this.  Sometimes behaviors seem too bizarre to be true.

Anyway, I thought I'd share a couple of happenings that might give you a little hope.  Like your daughter, my BPD stepdaughter has a victim mentality and a very negative outlook on just about everything.  She blames everyone but herself for her problems, because taking responsibility is just too HARD.  However, she's getting older now--deep down she's starting to realize that she has to be the one who takes charge of her own life--not her dad, not me, not her mom, not her siblings, not her ex-friends.  But her default mode is to blame her parents, who up until now have swooped in and accepted responsibility for fixing her problems, out of love combined with fear, obligation and guilt.  Even if she acted disrespectfully and hatefully, fixing her problems seemed better than the alternatives, which might be homelessness or death!  But what if, we as parents decide that we aren't the ones who are going to swoop in and solve all her problems?  What if we say No to things that she should be doing for herself?  Here are two real-life scenarios that happened to my stepdaughter:

1.  My stepdaughter desperately wanted to leave our home and live in her own apartment.  Her dad said he'd cover the rent up to a budgeted amount.  She searched and found a suitable place, but it didn't accept pets.  Naturally, she asked her dad and me to take her pet, hoping we'd agree.  But we said no (I'm allergic and couldn't stand housing the pet any longer, and I didn't want the responsibility of taking care of someone else's pet).  Well, we thought she'd throw a fit.  She did seem to break down for a few days.  But when we refused to be the solution to her pet problem, she was forced to take responsibility and solve HER problem!  Sure enough, a couple weeks later, she found an even better living situation that would allow her to keep her pet.  You see, she needed us to get out of her way, stop solving all her problems and allow her the space to be more resourceful.  My husband co-signed her lease and agreed to pay her rent for a year, while she finished up her studies (an impressive accomplishment!) and made a little money with part-time work. 

OK, not everything was perfect, my stepdaughter eventually decided to leave that living situation a few months early because of conflicts with her roommates.  She landed back at our house.  One step forward, one backward.  She lived with us a few more months, and the deal was that she'd work diligently to find full-time work.  Unfortunately, she spent way more time on sleeping, travel and vacation activities.  In essence, she reverted to living like a 16-year-old on summer vacation with zero responsibilities.  Then, without having any job lined up, she tried to sign a lease for a new apartment on her own, not understanding that the landlord would reject her because she had no job or stable income.  The rejection hit her really hard.  Perhaps it's no surprise that her job search completely stalled, and her mood became unbearable.  Nobody was happy in my home, and arguments would flare up given all the tension.  And then:

2.  Tensions in my home exploded, leading to a heated argument where my husband declared that his BPD daughter should find another living situation.  She decided to leave the home on the spot.  She packed up some of her things and stormed off, leaving her pet for us to care for.  Her dad was really worried that she might spend some nights on the street.  I thought, surely she wouldn't do that--it was much more likely that she'd sleep on a friend's couch, or check into a hotel, as her dad gave her a lot of spending money.  She did not communicate with us for a few weeks, and the silence was painful, though my husband had some communication via her therapist.  I viewed this period as a "time out."  Then a couple of great things happened, showing us how resourceful she can be.  First, we learned that she was house-sitting for a few weeks.  As tensions cooled, she started texting her dad again, mostly about the care of her pet, but we knew she was OK.  Then, she showed us how she could be resourceful once again.  She found an apartment and signed a lease all on her own!  That must mean that she found work in the last month and had enough pay stubs to prove she could afford the rent.  Or maybe she sub-let from a friend.  I think the details of the new housing situation are much less important than the fact that she took charge of her life, maybe for the first time in earnest, rather than expect her dad and me to be the solution to her housing problem.  You see, she can be resourceful if we get out of the way by refusing to be the easy solution for her!  By nudging her out of the nest, I think she's discovering she has some wings after all.  Now, I'm realistic and don't expect everything will be perfect.  But this is a major step in the right direction in my opinion.  I think it will boost her self-esteem significantly.  She was always complaining about how people treated her like a child, and I think that was pure projection of her insecurities about feeling childish.  Signing a lease on her own must feel like she's a full-fledged adult.

Now, I'm not necessarily advocating throwing people out in the street if they're not capable of fending for themselves.  But I do believe there's a difference between supporting and enabling.  That extends to supporting cordial, respectful relationships vs. enabling abusive, negative interactions and feeling taking advantage of.  That could be part of your frustration.  Look, if your daughter is living on her own and can hold down a job, even if it's a modest one, she is doing pretty well in my opinion.  She's young, she's moving in the right direction.  Most everyone has to start at the bottom rung of the job ladder, that's normal.  I think you have reason to be proud.  If she lashes out at you, it's probably a sign that she's stressed out, or something didn't go the way she wanted.  Maybe she needs a little time to calm down and a chance to show you that she is capable of working out some of her problems.  Does that sound reasonable?

[js friend]

Hi Victor,

We want our pwbpd to come to us as their parents for advice and guidance and we dont want them to stop see us as people the can turn to but the more interest you show in your dd's victim mentality the more she will come to you and as you are experiencing you are left dealing with the aftermath(sleep issues, lack of productivity, anxiety etc) meanwhile your dd is happily getting on with her life oblivious to what you are left experiencing.

Everywhere my udd went there was a problem with someone or something and  I would literally spend hours giving what I thought was good advice (which she never took btw) so I became a boring listener. The minute the conversation became about who or what had wronged her I would apply the grey rock technique.

So for example rather than sit down and give udd my full attention I would carry on with my housework while I listened and keep any answers short and neutral or redirect udd into finding her own solutions, but as udd has never been reflective of her behaviour she would often complain about the same things over and over again.

It felt a bit cruel at first to use grey rock with her but it established a boundary and that boundary was used to protect me from hearing about the endless dramas that were often of udd's own making.