Grown BPD daughter imposing extended silent treatments

[Hopefu11]

I could use advice on the sort of personal limits (boundaries) we can realistically request, and what "consequences" we might use to incentivize my high-performance BPD adult daughter to respect any boundary we request. All suggestions I've seen involve some form of disconnecting.

But disconnecting--the Silent Treatment--is my daughter's go-to strategy for family blowups, instigated mostly by her. The most recent has persisted since Sept. 6, on her younger sister and me.

We don't beg. I suggested that the sisters engage in mutual discussion, no apology required upfront (both sisters wanted one) but welcome during the conversation, not to win but to compromise, understand each other's viewpoint, reconcile or agree to disagree, and move on. Her sister quickly accepted and reached out, with no response. Instead, BPD daughter extended the silent treatment to me--for bias favoring her sister (her most basic trigger).

If/when she reconnects, I'd ask first for us to talk about the conflict. If I get that, I'd ask as a personal limit to resume normal family relations--don't impose the silent treatment in response to family disputes. Is this request too ambitious? And what consequences could help reinforce such a request with someone who favors disconnecting?  She likely to respond by reimposing the silent treatment...

Meanwhile, should I reach out to her again or wait for her? She's also ignored her father's sweet attempt to do that. She's likely waiting for me to apologize. But IMO that would reinforce this behavior.  It's so hard to know what to do. It's so sad.

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 Hopeful,

You've come to the right place.  Many people here are familiar with extended silent treatments.  With adult BPD children, the silent treatment can sometimes morph into estrangement, which can be both worrying and tremendously sad.

Your post brings up a couple of topics that I'd like to comment on.  First is the concept of boundaries.  You ask how to go about "requesting" a new boundary, as well as how to "incentivize" your BPD daughter to follow it.  Here, we know that pwBPD don't like boundaries, not one bit.  When confronted with a new boundary, pwBPD might react with an "extintion burst," an amping up of behaviors (yelling, accusations, violence) that historically got them what they wanted (attention, concessions, money).  Anyway, I'd invite you to think about boundaries in a completely different way.  The boundary is for YOU, to protect YOU from your daughter's negative or destructive behaviors.  The distinction is very important, because the reality is, you have no control over your daughter's behavior, especially as she is now an adult, and she makes all her own choices.  The person you control is YOU, and your reaction to your daughter's behavior.

I'd ask, which of your daughter's behaviors has been especially difficult for you?  Since you mentioned a recent blowup, maybe you start there.  If during a typical blowup, your daughter texts obscenities, makes false accusations or whatever, your boundary could be:  I will not engage in a conversation if she's screaming at me or being disrespectful.  That means, you don't dignify a disrespectful text with a reply; you delete it like spam, because it is spam.  You engage only if she's being respectful and reasonably calm.  If an altercation happens in person, you react by quietly leaving the room so that you can calm down, and in the process you give your daughter a "time out" to calm down too.  You don't "announce" your boundary, you don't explain it, you just do it.  If she follows you around, looking to continue the fight, then you say something non-accusatory like, "I'm getting some air" and leave again.  That way, you protect yourself from toxic arguments, and you give your daughter an adult time out, too.  Once again, the boundary is about you, to protect you.  If you're driving together in a car and she starts in on you, unhinged, then you can't really get away to protect yourself.  In that case, my recommendation is to "gray rock," and sit as still and silent as a gray rock.  That way, you don't add emotional fuel to the fire of her ire.  Chances are, if you don't engage, she might calm down.

Then you wrote, "I suggested that the sisters engage in mutual discussion, no apology required upfront . . . "  Now I know you're the parent, you want your daughters to get along, and you want to fix the relationship, right?  I get it, I really do.  But I think that since your daughters are both adults, I'd recommend staying out of it completely.  It seems to me that getting into a triangle like this is bound to backfire.  You might read about the Karpman triangle and the Victim-Rescuer-Persecutor dynamics elsewhere on these boards.

Anyway, I get the sense that you're a doer and a fixer.  So am I.  We approach most issues in life by analyzing first, devising a plan and then working tirelessly at it until it's fixed.  Unfortunately, BPD isn't something we can control, let alone fix.  We can't make her feel better, no matter how much we'd like to.  There's no magic wand we can wave to make her ill feelings disappear, to erase all her grievances.  It's entirely up to her.  But what we do control is ourselves.  For starters, we can model for her what a healthy adult's life looks like.  That includes taking care of ourselves, our home, our finances, our marriage, our friendships, our general health and wellness.  If we take care of ourselves, we'll be Happy Mom, not Sad Mom blinded by a FOG of fear, obligation and guilt.  Happy Mom is ready to engage with respectful discussions, she's forgiving and optimistic.  Happy Mom treats others as she expects to be treated--with respect, kindness and empathy.  But Happy Mom doesn't engage when her daughter is being mean, because Happy Mom doesn't deserve meanness.  She waits patiently for her daughter to calm down.  Besides, when BPD daughter is riled up, she's not listening to anything you have to say anyway.  That's because her emotions have literally hijacked her brain.

My approach with my adult BPD stepdaughter is to respect her choices.  If she doesn't want contact, then I don't contact her.  However I don't outright exclude her, either--she's welcome at holidays, and I'll send her a short text here and there, such as to wish her a happy birthday.  Mostly I just wait patiently until she's ready for contact again.  It's up to her.  In the meantime, if she's out there, making it on her own, taking responsibility for her life, then I'm happy for her.