Step daughters' mother has BPD

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

Hello,
I am the step mom to a beautiful seven year old girl (let's call her Stella).  September of 2015 Stella was removed by MCFD from the care of her biological mother and placed full time with my partner (biological father) and myself.  Since April of 2016 Stella has seen her bio-mom (let's call her Fiona) for a total time of 16 hours. Fiona has BPD and is an alcoholic, if you were to ask her why she has not seen her daughter more frequently she would have a plethora of excuses, starting with, it's everybody else's fault and there is nothing wrong with her. Recently her calls have been more consistent - though she was expected to call for 2 hours in the first agreement she does call for 30min twice a week.
Here's the challenge that we have been facing lately; When Stella asks Fiona if she is getting help/getting better/when she will next see her, Fiona tells her that there is nothing wrong with her, everything is fine and she is working on things.  After being shut down by her Fiona, Stella then peppers us for questions.  We do not want to demonize Fiona to Stella.  So far we have been able to get by in saying that Fiona has an illness in her brain that she doesn't realize is there... .  what are we supposed to tell her?  How can we answer the really hard questions? (Stella has had weekly counselling since being taken from Fiona)

Concerned step mom

[Sparkie82]

Hello,
I am the step mom to a beautiful seven year old girl (let's call her Stella).  September of 2015 Stella was removed by MCFD from the care of her biological mother and placed full time with my partner (biological father) and myself.  Since April of 2016 Stella has seen her bio-mom (let's call her Fiona) for a total time of 16 hours. Fiona has BPD and is an alcoholic, if you were to ask her why she has not seen her daughter more frequently she would have a plethora of excuses, starting with, it's everybody else's fault and there is nothing wrong with her. Recently her calls have been more consistent - though she was expected to call for 2 hours in the first agreement she does call for 30min twice a week.
Here's the challenge that we have been facing lately; When Stella asks Fiona if she is getting help/getting better/when she will next see her, Fiona tells her that there is nothing wrong with her, everything is fine and she is working on things.  After being shut down by her Fiona, Stella then peppers us for questions.  We do not want to demonize Fiona to Stella.  So far we have been able to get by in saying that Fiona has an illness in her brain that she doesn't realize is there... .  what are we supposed to tell her?  How can we answer the really hard questions? (Stella has had weekly counselling since being taken from Fiona)

Concerned step mom

[livednlearned]

Hi Sparkie82,

Typically things have to be pretty bad for a child to be removed from the bio parent. I can only imagine what D7 witnessed to lead to her removal

Your response sounds really good and age-appropriate. Not surprisingly, because D7's relationship with her mom is so important, she will probably work through this stuff over and over, especially at new developmental milestones.

Have you tried validation with her? Kids with BPD parents often get put in role-reversals, where they end up the emotional caretakers for their parents, instead of the other way around, which is deeply invalidating. Validating their emotions can heal some of this.

How does she seem to feel when she asks the hard questions? Helping her process those feelings and know that she is not emotionally isolated can go a long way to helping her heal. Often we get focused on the rational answers when it's really the feelings that need attention.

"Why can't mom call me if she is feeling better?"
":)oes it hurt that mom won't call more? I would feel sad, too, if my mom was feeling better but I didn't get to talk to her as much as I wanted."

A lot of times, you don't have to demonize the BPD parent because the child knows on some level that there is something deeply wrong. When you validate their feelings, it can help them learn to trust how they feel -- living with a BPD parent tends to override this trust and they learn to second-guess everything in order to get on the same page with their BPD parent's distorted cognition.
 

[bunny4523]

That's great insight and advise livednlearned.

I would look into a therapist that might be able to help you zero in on some issues that your step daughter has experienced so that those feelings can be validated.  So many books about having a mom with BPD and what the kids go through.  There are ways to correct it or redirect so they don't suffer the long term effects of their childhood experiences.

Like with my step daughter, she told us that her mom gets jealous if she wants to call us or come to our house. Her mom will get mad and yell and say "why don't you just go live with them then."   We just validated her and told her there is nothing wrong with her wanting to call us or come over on mom's week and nothing wrong with her wanting to go see her mom on our weeks.  We live close enough to one another that we should be able to be flexible with that and we understand how she misses mom/dad when she is with the other parent.  Then we just gently explained that this is an adult issue that we adults need to work on to make mommy more comfortable with it and promised her we would keep trying.

She seemed to feel reassured and it took the pressure off of her.  She talks about the differences she sees.  Like she says to me that I don't get mad, I just talk.  I stay calm and always know what to say.  She has told me I'm really good with people even when I don't like what they are doing.  Warms my heart but my point is that they do see and feel the difference.  They do recognize the emotional instability... .I have also been there when her mom starts a yelling match at dad.  I have pulled her aside and told her to let mom and dad deal with this, you and I are going to go get some ice cream and I walk her away.  These are not issues that a 9 year old should feel like she has to fix or feel in the middle of.  Then when it's over, I let her know, "see they figured it out." At first she didn't want to leave because she felt the need to protect her parents from each other.  Now she almost grins and comes running to me.  Luckily there is a 3rd adult in the situation that can protect her... .her mom's boyfriend is like a puppet.  He just stands there... .or sits there... .weird he won't get involved.  It's kind of hard for my husband to remove his daughter from it when mom just runs after him.  So we divide and conquer, he deals with his ex and I distract the little one.    
Fun stuff right?  

Bunny

 

[bravhart1]

My 8yr old SD has not seen or heard from BPDm for 17 months. She does not understand the why most of all. I tell her mom has "broken thinking" and she has to fix it before she can be around children. I tell her that if mom had a broken leg and could not go for a walk with her she wouldn't be mad at mom for having a broken leg, and she must try to understand that she has to accept that mom has broken thinking and can't talk with her until she is healed. It seems to help.

But validation is super important too. Mostly just letting her vent sometimes about how long mom is taking in getting better is helpful. It's very hard to watch, but as the steps we can only just be there for the kids, the parents have to figure it out for themselves.