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CC43
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« Reply #7 on: June 20, 2026, 03:21:40 PM » |
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Hi Fooling,
I hear the exhaustion and resentment in your post. My guess is that your daughter probably mistreated you before, and you wouldn't have let her back in your house if it weren't for your innocent grandchild.
It sounds to me like you deserve a break. I've felt that way a few times with my adult BPD stepdaughter, who has rebounded back to my house several times. For each rebound, we established house rules, and generally speaking she would start off OK, but eventually she reverted to her usual ways, sleeping the days away, not working on herself and being nasty and passive-aggressive.
Unfortunately, my BPD stepdaughter doesn't treat living in our house for free as a temporary situation to stabilize, work on herself and get back on her feet, at least not in the long term. Rather, she treats it like a vacation. How so? Well, though she's a full-fledged adult, I think her brain is still functioning like a teen's most of the time, and she envisages living in the parental home as a carefree summer vacation when she was 13, with no responsibilities. But since she's not 13, and her peers aren't either, lying around at home all day in front of screens just isn't as fun anymore. Moreover, she takes a "vacation" in the literal sense, that of vacating her real life. It might start out as a "transitional" period to relax and recharge, but over time, it's really a reflection of her avoidant response to adult stresses. She basically parks herself on the sidelines of her life, avoiding work, school, volunteering, etc. She's lying down, 22-23 hours a day. Deep down she knows that's not an adult's life, but she just can't muster up the emotional resources to do anything about it. Then she starts brooding and blaming: my life sucks, it's your fault, you're horrible, you owe me. She cycles between periods of passive-aggressiveness and outright hostility. She's entitled, demands money, doesn't help and doesn't care. "I don't care" is probably her most repeated sentence, followed by "Leave me alone" and "I'm an adult, I can do whatever I want." The last time she was here, she stayed with us through the entire summer but then was kicked out in late September or early October.
I don't want my BPD stepdaughter to live with me again, because I don't think it's good for her, her dad or me. No matter what we do and what rules are in place, cohabitation doesn't seem to work. My opinion is that it actually makes things worse to let her back in our home. Why? Because it entails a "vacation" from the "real world," and adults shouldn't be on vacation from the real world when it's facilitated by someone else. Plus, I think that it's just too hard for a kid to live in a parental home and not adopt childlike habits and resurrect the usual grievances. Living with parents is a constant reminder of childhood, and let me guess, your daughter thinks she had a terrible childhood, right?
As for the horrible things your daughter might say in angry outbursts, well, that's BPD and probably mostly projection. My BPD stepdaughter has accused me of the most ludicrous things, which I thought sounded like calling me a poo-poo face, and I actually had to stifle laughter. I thought, you've lived with me for years, and that's the best insult you've got? Maybe that just goes to show that she doesn't know me at all, because she doesn't care one iota--she's too busy ruminating about her purported "traumas" and recasting history to fit her victim narrative. On top of that, she can't come up with any valid complaints about me. She doesn't see the sacrifices we've made for her benefit--in time, money, emotional support, physical labor, administrative support--because she hasn't really lived in the "real world" as an independent adult. She's still so entitled, like the 13-year-old little girl attitude she has around our house. Except she has an adult's body, pocketbook and authority to make decisions.
Having said that, I think my stepdaughter does better when she's living in the "real world." I think by now she's actually learned that she has to work for some money, and she can't go around blowing her top and expecting to keep any friends. She can't live like a slob with roommates, and she can't be *itchy to them either, because they'll ask her to leave. She's been evicted enough times to have learned that lesson (or so I hope). Her main issue right now is probably realizing that adulting is so HARD, requiring so much work and "fake" niceness. She still has considerable difficulties with interpersonal relationships (per her long-time therapist). But in my opinion, she has been doing better, because she's had stable employment and a stable living situation for several months now. I think that part of the reason is that the "real world" doesn't condone the outrageous BPD behaviors that might be tolerated, even rewarded, in the parental home. Sometimes I think that pwBPD treat parents worse than anyone else in the world, because only parents are willing to put up with so much, out of love. Spouses and partners might love a pwBPD, yet separation and divorce are options if behavior is out of control. But there's no divorcing a kid.
I know this might be hard to hear, but in my home, the worse my BPD stepdaughter acted, the more money, help and concessions she got. For a long time, it was a bizarro world of mixed-up incentives. Maybe these mixed-up incentives are partly at play in your home. And I think that is precisely when resentment starts to build. Resentment is the feeling of unjust treatment, indignation from injury. If you are feeling resentment, I think it's time to pull back from over-functioning for your daughter and focus more on yourself.
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