Advice needed

[Bevorock]

I am hoping to get some guidance

I am a single dad and have raised my 3 kids alone. Their mother has BPD and has had a toxic relationship with my kids for years. My daughter in particular struggled with her and I had full custody and they chose not to see her for years and at best it was episodic.   My daughter seemed to be doing ok and was pretty happy. At 16 she began cutting herself pretty severely. As I found out later she was confiding that to her mother. presumably to establish a relationship or sympathy.  I had to take her to a clinic in Houston per her desire and her therapist recommendation. She went for 3 weeks and literally turned on me shortly after I admitted her.  I decided to let he live with her mom because in all honesty that is what she told me she wanted and I thought it would last about 2 days. It didn't.

She has since dropped out of school and now she is 19 so I can't do anything anymore. What surprises me is that she has zero accurate memory of what actually happened.  We were so close and I did what I thought she needed and what her therapist told me to do. They moved to California. My ex has not spoken to my oldest son in 8 years and has abandoned my youngest son, In spite of that, they are great. I am sure my daughter has BPD as well. What I don't understand is why she has turned this thing into my fault and hates me. She never has had a real friend group consistently and perhaps I should have known there was something deeper. But I have always had her in therapy and as I said I thought she was doing ok in spite of the challenges she had with her mom.

She has now resorted to just trying to hurt me and obviously I am already heart broken.  I did everything for her and was there for everything in her life when her mom was in a different city living her own life. Now it appears they are best friends and it's toxic. Her behavior is a mirror image of her mom

Why try to hurt me and why take it out on me. I know she may never come back and that has almost killed me but it didn't. Now to be honest I am not sure if I want her back. My last text to her was to set boundaries and tell her I am always her. Her response was a text of her in an inappropriate outfit with 2 men all over her

What did I do wrong

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,

You've come to the right place.  I hope we can help you.  I'm so sorry for the developments with your daughter; the parents here can relate.

You ask, what did you do wrong?  The answer is, you didn't do anything wrong.  I repeat:  this is NOT your fault, no matter how much your daughter blames you and tries to convince you otherwise.  In fact, I think you went above and beyond to do the right things:  you got your daughter therapy, you followed her doctor's recommendations.  You provided a safe home, rather than constantly expose your kids to your ex's erratic behavior.  Alas, when the kids grow up, they can typically choose where they want to live.  It's little surprise to me that your daughter is the one with the troubles right now, because I think that kids tend to model themselves after the behavior of the same-sex parent.  Not always, but often.  That's not to say that there's no genetic predisposition to conditions like BPD, but I think there's a combination of nature and nurture, genes and environment.

The situation with your daughter echoes what happened to my BPD stepdaughter.  She is a child of divorced parents, where her dad is the reliable one, and her mom is a high-conflict person.  I don't know her mom very well, but from the little I've seen, I can say that she is chaotic, histrionic, messy, and has no problem lying.  Her dad is a classic "provider" type, operating with a lot of "divorced dad guilt."  But he really did take care of the kids--giving them a nice home, supporting their activities, cooking meals when he had parenting time, doing all the driving--whereas their mom appeared not to pull her weight.  Maybe he didn't tend to his BPD daughter's emotional needs enough when she grew up--I don't really know because I didn't marry him until his kids were college-age.  But I did see how much he did for them, and they could never, ever say he wasn't there for them.  What I know is he worked his tail off to give them a nice life, and he never disparaged their mom in front of them, ever.

I'd invite you to take a look through the parent section of the site.  I bet you'll see some themes that resonate.

My guess is that your daughter will reach out to you again.  My advice?  Your daughter needs calm, reasonable, happy Dad, not guilt-ridden, worried, stressed-out dad.  Your sons need Happy Dad too.  That means, you need to take care of yourself, first and foremost.

Honestly, if your daughter is acting out, has dropped out of school, isn't working and isn't in therapy, then my opinion is she shouldn't be allowed back in your home.  If you are providing for your dear daughter in any way--money, insurance, housing--then please do not allow her to be NEETT.  That's my shorthand for Not in Employment, Education, Training or Therapy.  She's free to choose to be NEETT--she's an adult after all--but not if you are supporting her in any way.  That's because being NEETT isn't the "real world".  If you enable NEETT, then things only get worse.  Trust me on that.

All the best to you.