My 43 Year Old Daughter

[Onda22]

In reading over the following, it is very long. I do not have family to help and I cannot expect friends to understand.
I have recently been living with my 43 year old daughter in her Housing Commission Home. This has occurred due to financial strain in both our lives. This morning, I walked past her bedroom and said good morning and she replied in a tone that suggested she was far from ok. When I asked what was wrong, she replied, in a dark tone, not to worry about it! Hence, I walk on eggshells and succumb to a sense of what might happen next.
I then decided to look on line for ways to cope with a child with BPD and found this site. Reading what everyone has said resonated.
My daughter was born with some physical disabilities and had a few operations in her early life. She struggled academically, but more importantly, making and keeping friends. People constantly disappointed her or did not agree with her ideas. Her adolescence was difficult. Her father left when she was just 14. She had adored him and this left a big hole in her life. He dismisses her behaviours as my bad parenting and says he cannot deal with neurodivergent people. He has, over the last 30 or so years, made some effort to have her stay with him and his various partners. When she threatened to set his house on fire, he gave up. Understandable, I suppose.
When she was 4 she had been diagnosed with ADD and given Ritalin. This helped until she refused to take it.
When she was about 18 years old, a much older doctor diagnosed her with bipolar disorder and she was medicated. It was not that she had mood swings, but rather continuous negative behaviours and interactions with others. No one matches her expectations. Over the years I have read about BPD and can see that the traits are similar to those displayed by my daughter. She will not listen when I suggest seeing someone about a reevaluation of her condition.
Her sister and Brother live far from us. They spent years seeing her ruin family life, many times that should have been happy and fun, particularly birthdays and Christmas.
She had a relationship and had two children with this man. She left the relationship when the boys were 3 nd 5. She still has close contact with him. Their eldest son has Autism and extremely violent episodes. Both boys lived with their father and the younger brother lived in fear from 8 until 14 years old. The eldest was taken into care at this time and now lives in a community home with a carer on call. He is 20 this year.
There was a period of about a year when we lost contact. We had been living together. I was full-time teaching and she was home doing nothing! I tried to get her to help with the cleaning, washing, anything to get her motivated, but she lived in a mess. She also smokes, still smokes (despite the price of tobacco) and would not walk to the closest place to buy her cigarettes. I had to drive her. I know it sounds like I was pandering to her moods, but I did not want to create tension. I constantly walked on egg-shells at home. One day she hit me a couple of times over the head. Not to hard, but scary. I felt like I was in jail.
One evening, I had had some wine and gone to bed. She came to my room and demanded that I drive her to the shops for cigarettes. I explained that I had had wine and didn't want to lose my licence. She was angry and went out and came back with a knife. I managed to get dressed and take the dog and myself out. I called the police.
Last resort, but I had had it. They came while I was outside. She was holding a bag of peas to her face and said I had hit her. They took her to a psychiatric centre for assessment and I took out an AVO. I did not see her for a year until she needed help finding a place to live.
Family Support felt that her eldest son might benefit from living with his mother. While they waited for a home, they went from motel to motel. The son created havoc each time and they had to leave. One night at about 12am I received a phone call from my daughter. They had ended up at a police station near me and had been put out onto the street with nowhere to go.
I collected them and they stayed wth me for 6 weeks until a house was found.
The situation with them living together was difficult and my daughter was exposed to violent outbursts. The last, when he chased her into the street and attempted to strangle her. Luckily, neighbours helped and called the police.
My daughter lived on her own until before last Christmas when I moved in for the holidays. I had tried to help her over the 3 years she lived in the house alone, to look after her house (I lived and worked an hour away), coming down on weekends cleaning and cooking, spending. Her son's father is also close and mows her lawns and comes to see her.
She has created a relationship with someone she saw years ago. This person talks to her in her head. She does not see him.
She talks about being hit with a belt by her father - this did not happen.
She sits on the lounge all day, going to the kitchen for food, only to return to the couch.
She feels she has been bullied about her looks all her life (she does have a big nose, but so do I and her brother) and is using that as an excuse not to eat well, exercise or shower.
I am now in the position I was before. Cooking, picking up after her, staying out of her way when she is edgy and generally keeping things going.
I am not a saint. I've made huge mistakes financially and in choosing a new partner (my daughter ended up living with us, which was difficult). I didn't deal well when her father left and I know at that time I wasn't a good parent to my three children. But I'm trying to learn from all my mistakes and help my daughter find some positivity.
If you do read this, then thankyou.

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 Onda,

You've come to the right place.  I'm sorry that things have been so rough for you.  Many parents here feel some mix of grief, exhaustion, resentment, fear and stress.  The stress is physical, emotional and financial--a triple whammy.  When living with someone with untreated BPD, it indeed can feel like walking on eggshells all the time, and we become a shell of our former selves.  We're living in a FOG of fear, obligation and guilt, and we can't quite see through it.

First off, this is not your fault.  You didn't give your daughter BPD, no matter how much she blames you and how hard she tries to convince you otherwise.  She's just blaming you as an excuse, as a deflection from taking responsibility for herself.  She has a victim attitude, correct?  I think the victim mindset is the worst part of BPD, because it renders your daughter powerless over her own life.  She's so busy blaming others (especially you) for all her problems that she can't see that SHE is RESPONSIBLE for her own life and her own happiness.  Not you, not her troubled childhood.  Unfortunately, she's stuck in a rut because she expects everyone else to change, not herself.  Like you wrote, her expectations of others are unrealistic, impossible to meet, and so your daughter is constantly disappointed, constantly enraged, constantly ruminating in a messy pit of self-pity.

It's bad enough that your daughter sits around all day doing nothing but smoke.  But it's worse when she's a "spoiler" of happy moments like holidays and family get-togethers.  It's typical for pwBPD to have meltdowns during holidays and special events.  I think it's because she can't stand to see other people be happy, because it's in stark contrast to her own misery.  In addition, she can't stand not being the center of attention.  Finally, she's insanely jealous, especially of siblings, because they seem to have such an easy time "adulting," while she struggles so much.  Seeing them is a reminder of how dysfunctional her own life really is.

So what do you do?  First off, I think you focus on self-care.  Maybe you get some therapy.  Maybe you try to get some sleep.  Maybe you take walks in fresh air.  Maybe you pray.  Maybe you pursue a tranquil hobby like drawing, singing or playing an instrument.  Maybe you start the day stretching, followed by a hot cup of coffee.  When I'm really stressed, I'll take a warm bath at the end of the day by candlelight, and then I read a little bit before going to bed early.

It's interesting that you're living at your daughter's place.  That means at some point, you might decide to leave.  To me that sounds a lot easier than asking your daughter to leave your own home.  It also sounds to me that living in close quarters with your daughter every day isn't doing you any good.  Could you find some other living arrangement?  Perhaps you could live temporarily with another of your children until you get back on your feet.

Look, your daughter is 43.  You aren't responsible for her anymore, she is.  It sounds to me like her current situation is working for her:  she does exactly what she wants, which is smoke and sit around all day.  She doesn't care about cleaning up--only you care.  Would it be so bad if she were left alone to live how she pleases?  If you weren't on top of each other all day, would that work better for you?  I know you want her to get some help so that your daughter can feel better, but your daughter is demonstrating that the status quo works just fine for her.  I guess I'd say, respect her choice.  But you shouldn't have to be her maid and cook anymore.  She's perfectly capable of cleaning up and getting food herself, correct?  I think you should stop doing things for her that she can do herself, otherwise you are actually enabling dysfunction.

In the meantime, you might try some boundaries.  One might be that when your daughter talks about an abusive childhood, your response is not to engage with her.  You might say:  We can't change the past, let's talk about something else.  If she doesn't change the subject, you leave the room.

You might read on this site some thoughts about validation.  The general tip is to validate feelings (I'm sorry you feel bullied), but not lies.  If you validate lies or apologize for things which didn't happen, the pwBPD can take that as an invitation to act out and blame you even more.  In my own experience, the pwBPD in my family had a tendency to "test" stories of abuse which were egregious lies.  I think in that particular instance, it was better to nip it in the bud:  "That didn't happen and you know it."

Finally, I think you deserve to have a life.  You shouldn't beat yourself up too much about the past--it sounds like you've been beaten down enough already.  You probably did your best with the skills and resources you had at the time, with circumstances that probably weren't in your favor.  I would hope you give yourself a little grace.  You could start by forgiving yourself and your daughter.  Tomorrow is a new day, try to make it a good one.  What's one baby step that you can take which would make tomorrow a good day?  Write it down tonight, and be sure to do it tomorrow.

I hope that perspective helps a little.

[ForeverDad]

When she was about 18 years old, a much older doctor diagnosed her with bipolar disorder and she was medicated. It was not that she had mood swings, but rather continuous negative behaviours and interactions with others. No one matches her expectations. Over the years I have read about BPD and can see that the traits are similar to those displayed by my daughter. She will not listen when I suggest seeing someone about a reevaluation of her condition.

Here's some historical background.  Decades ago Borderline PD was considered untreatable and therefore not covered by insurance.  So when a professional came across a patient with suspected BPD, they would diagnose Bipolar since it had similar symptoms yet did have insurance coverage.  However, they really are different.

Bipolar is caused by a chemical imbalance and meds do help.  But Borderline PD is more of an emotional dysregulation issue where the person's perceptions are self-oriented and often unconnected to facts and reality overall.  While meds do help moderate the behavior, the best approach involves therapy.  Dialectical or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (DBT or CBT) is effective but it can take years to improve life and even that depends upon the patients continuing therapy and diligently applying it in life and perceptions.

Since many with BPD are in such Denial and prone to Blame Shifting that even mention of a diagnostic label is generally best to be avoided.  Many therapists are known to provide therapy without naming a specific condition or therapy.  It would be wise of us to do similarly.