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Author Topic: 27 year old pregnant daughter just diagnosed BPD  (Read 533 times)
atmywitsendtoo

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« on: April 13, 2017, 05:35:41 AM »

Hi everyone,

As with all parents with adult BPD children I have a long story of a series of difficulties and struggles and I do not know where to start.

I am very distressed by present circumstances.

After a childhood of being kicked out of school programs and camp, and being rejected over and over again by peers and adults due to unacceptable behavior. After years of assessments and conflicting diagnoses, W seemed to be doing relatively well.

After high school things were becoming unbearable at home so we send W to live and volunteer on an organic self-sustaining farm in the boonies 3000 miles away from home. We thought she needed input from others - not just her parents - to come to understand what was and was not acceptable behavior.  She had been into drugs and drinking and stealing to support this lifestyle and she wanted out of all of that. She wanted to change, so she wanted to get away from her no good group of friends and get a fresh start somewhere else. She went and worked hard on the farm and lived by herself in a little attic room in a farmhouse.

After about 1 year of that she got restless and wanted to meet people her age so she got a job at a fast food place in the closest small town and another job working as a maid for a large resort hotel. She did this for about six months and then she got restless again. She decided that she wanted to move to a more populated area where she could go to school. She moved to a town on the outskirts of the nearest big city and enrolled in community college. This was her third try at college. She flunked out and gave up twice before, but we were hopeful because she seemed changed after her time on the farm. She enrolled in school, got a job and was promptly fired which devastated her and she had no idea why she had been fired because the boss just came up with some excuse but I am sure she did something inappropriate that warned them off of her because that is her M.O. She then got another job working for a national grocery chain and she thrived in this job. She worked hard and earned raises and was called in to cover shifts and it all seemed to be going well. This went on for about one year, then she decided she wanted to come home to us. She had flunked out of school again and what we didn't know at the time was that she had become involved with one of her old high school friends via Facebook and visits back home. So we agreed to let her come home. Luckily the grocery chain she was working for liked her and they transferred her to a store near us.

Things seemed fine at first. She was either at work or at her boyfriend's house most of the time and we rarely saw her. The boyfriend was nothing to write home about. He had no real source of income, he had no driver's license, he had warrants out for his arrest due to unpaid tickets and he lived with his extended family; his parents, sisters nieces and nephews all crammed with my daughter into one house.

His father was a landscaper and he helped his father most days but his father refused to pay him because as the father saw it his son was working for room and board, Then there was a blow-up. As far as I can tell my daughter got into an intense disagreement with her boyfriend's mother and sister because my daughter had tried to lay down some rules in someone else's home - more inappropriate behavior.

We have an apartment above our garage where our daughter had been living. The boyfriend's family wanted her out of their house. At this point she let us know that the boyfriend had two young children - something she had been hiding from us until then - and she was very upset to have to leave their house and leave the children she had bonded with. The children were also upset that she had to leave their house. She asked if she her boyfriend and his children could move into the apartment above the garage and live with her there. We said yes and it was not until they moved in that we discovered he had two dogs as well. I have always brought home strays and we like to say our daughter brought home a stray family.

Things were good at first. The house was alive with people young and old not to mention the menagerie of pets. We were all eating dinner at the table together and it felt like a family. While the boyfriend was no prize he was likable enough and my husband and I bonded with his children.

So my daughter was working full-time, she was the only one who could drive so she was driving everyone around to work and to school and she was cooking meals for the kids and she was very, very busy. The busier she got the more stressed she got and the more stressed she got the worse her behavior became. She started to be extremely controlling telling my husband and I what to do and not just parenting but bossing the children around in an unpleasant way. Dinners became very tense as she insisted that both kids finish every speck of food on their plates.

She started punishing them for nothing. She took them to a playground but would not allow them to play because they had pushed past another child and did not say excuse me (If I had a nickle for all the times she did not say excuse me I would be wealthy). One of the children took some scissors and cut a piece of hair off his head and she sent him to bed at 6pm without dinner for doing that. (She has shaved her eyebrows off at that age and all we did was laugh).

If I said anything about her being too harsh with the children she shushed me and said I was being an "instigator". I did not know what she meant by this, but I just knew that if I tried to say anything about her being too harsh with the children she became very angry with me. Then twice I witnessed her cursing one of the children out for no good reason - not that there is ever a good reason to curse a child out  - and when I told her in no uncertain terms that this was not acceptable she would just roll her eyes and become mad at me.

We talked to the boyfriend about her behavior with the kids when she was not around and expressed our concern. They worked out a deal so that when she felt the need to punish one of them she would call him and discuss it with him first so they would be on the same page about what should and should not be punished. Then one night I heard him yelling at her. This was unusual. He came home from work to find one of his sons being punished for no good reason and she had not discussed this with him beforehand. When I spoke with him about what was going on he told me that my daughter in a moment of anger said that one of the children had to go. This hurt him and shocked me deeply. This seemed like an irrational thing for her to have said. Where did she think the boy would go? Did she not understand that if the boy went the boyfriend would go too?

They were fighting more and more. My daughter seemed constantly angry, often at me or her boyfriend or the children. One morning I got a call because she wreaked her car. It was totaled. My husband and her boyfriend pieced it together for her over the course of a few months and she was annoyed because it took them so long to do it. When it was done she did not say thank you. All she said was that it smelled awful.

I told her she was angry all the time and this was not right, nobody can live angry all the time. She said disparaging things about her boyfriend. I told her that if she did not respect him she should not be with him. I asked her why she was with someone who just made her angry all the time. Then amid all of this anger and tension she announced that she was pregnant and she was going to have the baby. They announced the pregnancy to their friends and his family and acted the happy couple as much as they could. We talked to them both about their options, but the only option they would consider was having and keeping the baby.

Then seemingly out of the blue my daughter was fired from a job she held for three years. Of course there was nothing she had done to cause this to happen. Nothing is ever her fault. She was fired because she told them she was pregnant and she came in with a note from a doctor with restrictions saying she could not lift over 10lbs, etc. Then a few days later boom! She said something to her boyfriend that he could not forgive - something having to do with the children - and he left her.

Now she is pregnant and has nobody to go through the pregnancy and birth with. She will be having the baby in September. A baby she is in no position to support and the boyfriend is in no position to support, and she naively seems to think it will all be fine because she can go on welfare and that will take care of that.

She says she wants to stay home with the baby for a while and then go back to school (for the 4th time)and I ask her how she is going to pay for that and she says there are all sorts of scholarships and grants out there for single mothers like she is completely unaware that Bernie Sanders did not get elected.

So my husband and I are both very stressed about the situation and I cannot talk to him about it. If I talk to him about it it stresses him even more and then he cannot sleep at night - so I feel very isolated in my distress.

I suggested that my daughter and her boyfriend and even the kids could use some counseling and she was open to this. The Dr. wanted to start by just seeing her by herself and after just a few weeks with her he met with us to get some history and he told us that preliminary he is pretty sure she is BPD. She is seeing the therapist, she just started DBT and she is attending parenting classes. While this all seems hopeful the one thing I know to be true about her is that things can go well for a while but then sooner or later her life falls apart. I am always waiting for the next shoe to drop, for the next bad thing to happen and it takes a toll.

She blames me for everything. She is aware that she has problems but she blames me for that. She says that her problems were caused by me dragging her from one doctor to another and putting her on medication when she was a child. She thinks I made up all her symptoms and her trauma was caused by me projecting disorders on her that she did not have and medicating her for no reason. No matter how much I tell her that I was alerted to her bizarre and inappropriate behavior time and time again by teachers, camp counselors and other adults, she does not recognize that I didn't make anything up and I had a legitimate reason for seeking help for her.

This is so frustrating because when she was growing up I quit my job and devoted myself to helping her. I studied every possible disorder. I had her thoroughly evaluated and treated by the best doctors I could find, and I spent a fortune doing this but to my daughter this was not me being devoted to her. It was all my own peculiar folly that damaged her. Her twisted thinking is unspeakably frustrating and  - given her track record with her boyfriend's children -  I am afraid for her child.

Thank you for listening and for any feedback offered.
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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
livednlearned
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« Reply #1 on: April 14, 2017, 03:32:40 PM »

Hi atmywitsend,

You have been through a lot! I'm so sorry for what brings you here.

I can only imagine how stressful this is for you and your husband. There are many parents on this board who become grandparents and worry about how the emotional instability will affect everyone involved.

There are communication skills that can help when a BPD sufferer is dysregulated. It won't stop them from having such intense mood instability, but it can help prevent things from getting worse.

One is to avoid JADE arguments (justify, argue, defend, explain). You don't agree with your daughter about why she has BPD, so no need to discuss it. Instead, you can validate how she feels (acknowledge and accept, not agree). This seems like a simple skill, tho in practice it can be harder to do. In particular, we don't validate the invalid.

For example, if she says her BPD was caused by being dragged to doctor after doctor, you can validate that she feels such distress. You don't have to validate her version of reality. Best to only do this when you are feeling genuine Smiling (click to insert in post) That's probably the hardest part, and the reason why self-care is so important.

Is your daughter's BF going to counseling? Where will he live?

If your D lives with you and the baby, will you have any house rules?

I'm glad you found the site, and hope you'll let us know how you're doing. This is not an easy journey to walk alone. We're here to walk with you.

 

LnL



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atmywitsendtoo

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« Reply #2 on: April 15, 2017, 06:24:37 PM »

Hi LNL,

Thank you for your reply to my post!

I read a bit on this site about not invalidating what the BPD person has to say or how they feel, but that is very counter intuitive.

As I understand it someone with BPD can have poor reasoning skills and can perceive things in a distorted way. It is due to what I think are rationalizations, poor reasoning and distorted perceptions that cause my daughter to think that all I did to try to help her is what caused her to have problems.

Since i now know that symptoms of BPD are what is causing my daughter to interpret my devoted and relentless care and advocacy for her as the root of all her ills, I can take it less personally.

She told me about about her line of reasoning before she was diagnosed with BPD and I was furious with her for devaluing and resenting my persistent attempts to help no matter the financial or emotional toll it took on me which was in fact reflection of my love and devotion for her.

Now I know it is her illness that has caused her to have these warped thoughts so I am over being furious. I am just very sad that a mental illness can have such a profound effect on ones thoughts and perceptions. i guess I should not be surprised that mental illness affects reasoning and thinking, but it never occurred to me that she was this irrational before this recent diagnosis coupled with her recent disclosure to me about the reason she has always been so very angry with me.

Understanding the cause of her misconceptions is one thing, but I am having a very herd time wrapping my brain around the thought of validating them.

To avoid conflict I do not speak with her about the subject anymore. But, if the subject were to be raised say in therapy I do not know how I could agree with her about it. I could say something like "I am sorry going to all those doctors was rough on you; it was rough on me too". but I would not be able to say "Yes, you are right. I traumatized you by taking you to all of those doctors because I mistakenly thought that you needed their help and this mistake and the resulting trauma it caused is at the root of your problems". I do not see the point in validating something that is not true. Isn't the goal after all to ultimately get my daughter to see and accept reality instead of her distorted perceptions?

Another thing that I find very hard to swallow about this diagnosis is the common belief that it is at least in part caused by childhood trauma. My daughter never experienced any childhood trauma and as I write this I know that most readers will not believe it. Being blamed not only by my daughter but by the mental health community as well for being at least part of the cause of my daughter's illness is very frustrating.

Just as Bruno Bettleheim's once popular theory of the Refrigerator Mother:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refrigerator_mother_theory
as the cause of autism has been debunked, I believe one day using the criteria of the existence of childhood trauma to diagnose BPD will be debunked as well.

My daughter's behavior was off from the word go and it was 100% inherited. Bipolar disorder runs in my family and I am pretty sure that my husband's grandmother and sister were and are both somewhere on the BPD spectrum. I tend toward depression, but I have been successfully treated for years.

Because my daughter inherited this disorder I am very concerned about what her child might inherit. 

My daughter's boyfriend is going to parenting classes with her which she tells me seem to turn into counseling sessions because the cause of their break-up was a difference in they way they each parented his children. I believe that these "parenting classes" will evolve into full on couples counseling.

Yes, our daughter will be living with us and the problem about rules is that my daughter is extremely controlling and she seems to think that is is OK for her to dictate rules to everyone else. This is why she was asked to leave her boyfriend's family home. She started dictating rules in someone else's home. My daughter have very set ideas about how to raise children some of which are way out of line thus the break-up with her boyfriend. The problem will be that the house will be chalk full of my daughter's rules many of which nobody will want to follow; so maybe our rule should be that my daughter is not allowed to unilaterally impost rules she makes up on others.

Parenting my daughter has been the hardest never-ending task of my life, so I am grateful for information and guidance offered here.

Thanks for reading!
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livednlearned
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« Reply #3 on: April 16, 2017, 09:30:03 AM »

To avoid conflict I do not speak with her about the subject anymore.

That sounds wise Smiling (click to insert in post)

But, if the subject were to be raised say in therapy I do not know how I could agree with her about it. I could say something like "I am sorry going to all those doctors was rough on you; it was rough on me too". but I would not be able to say "Yes, you are right. I traumatized you by taking you to all of those doctors because I mistakenly thought that you needed their help and this mistake and the resulting trauma it caused is at the root of your problems". I do not see the point in validating something that is not true.

Validation is about validating the feelings. "I can see how much distress and sadness you feel about seeing doctors when you were young."

This is not an admission that going to doctors caused her to develop BPD.

Isn't the goal after all to ultimately get my daughter to see and accept reality instead of her distorted perceptions?

It will likely take her a lot of work to get to that place, to even realize that her thoughts are distorted. There are many baby steps to take. She probably cannot listen to anything or anyone when she feels that no one is listening to how she feels -- people with BPD seems to be in a chronic state of feeling isolated and misunderstood. There is also another skill called SET (support, empathy, truth). Sometimes, it helps to linger on support and empathy, then wait for the emotional dsyregulation to cool off before discussing the truth.

Excerpt
Another thing that I find very hard to swallow about this diagnosis is the common belief that it is at least in part caused by childhood trauma. My daughter never experienced any childhood trauma and as I write this I know that most readers will not believe it. Being blamed not only by my daughter but by the mental health community as well for being at least part of the cause of my daughter's illness is very frustrating.

I find that frustrating, too. There are other parents on the board whose children were not traumatized, and who went on to develop BPD. Some kids have sensitive genotypes, or have bipolar and are predisposed to developing BPD traits. The skills to parent a BPD child are counter-intuitive and have to be learned.

Because my daughter inherited this disorder I am very concerned about what her child might inherit.


I understand. You may become the stabilizing force in your grandchild's life, changing the script to prevent the development of BPD  Smiling (click to insert in post)

Yes, our daughter will be living with us and the problem about rules is that my daughter is extremely controlling and she seems to think that is is OK for her to dictate rules to everyone else.

Does there appear to be any OCD? My son's father was bipolar/BPD and had a lot of the same traits you describe.

maybe our rule should be that my daughter is not allowed to unilaterally impost rules she makes up on others.


Rules do not usually work so well with BPD sufferers, unfortunately. And trying to impose rules often frustrates and exhausts us, followed by a dose of disappointment as the pwBPD tramples the rules. Boundaries that you can assert are much more likely to work, tho they will not control what she does, only how you protect yourself from her behaviors. For example, your boundary may be that you will not be yelled at. If so, then you need a way to assert that boundary. It might be that you walk away, or close the door, or go for a walk. Boundaries get very difficult when there is a grandchild involved. Your boundary may be that you will not bear witness to any beatings. If so, then you need a way to assert that boundary. You may tell her that any corporal discipline will be reported -- it depends on what your values are and what you are and are not willing to tolerate in your own home.

None of this is easy, as I'm sure you know.

Excerpt
Parenting my daughter has been the hardest never-ending task of my life, so I am grateful for information and guidance offered here.

Amen to that  Smiling (click to insert in post)

Learning to skillfully live with a BPD sufferer can really turn a world inside out.

Do you have specific things you do to take care of yourself? I admit that self-care is now something I do almost religiously, so that I have the strength to support my BPD loved one.
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atmywitsendtoo

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« Reply #4 on: April 18, 2017, 12:29:21 AM »

Hi again,

Thank you for the explanation about validation but it seems like it would be very tricky to talk about her feelings about being dragged from doctor to doctor without her bringing up the harm she thinks this caused her. I can certainly try though.

There is a bit of good news. She seems to be very open to the therapy she is involved in right now. She seems to be taking in what her therapists are telling her and she likes and respects them very much and that is so important because there are so many bad therapists out there.

Once upon a time in my marriage I finally got my husband to see a psychiatrist to hopefully treat his anxiety and chronic anger. My husband went once. He told me that the psychiatrist advised him to have an affair.  To my husband's credit he would not go back, but he will never try it again either. That is what bad mental health practitioners can do. They can cause more harm that good.

Anyway, about my daughter. We went for a walk yesterday and she started raising questions about what mental health issues she may have inherited from each side of the family. I told her what I know and I kept this to myself but I was overjoyed because her questions mean that she is considering reasons for her condition other than me being a monster of a mother.

She might be OCD as well. I mostly think that diagnoses are artificial constructs that just barely reflect reality because many people do not fit neatly into any defined illnesses. Rather they have some symptoms of one illness and some symptoms of other illnesses and when this happens doctors choose a diagnoses that they think closely describes the person but they add NOS to the diagnosis for "not otherwise specified", meaning  the patient does not fall neatly into any one category, but has a little of this and a little of that. When I was taking my daughter for all those evaluations the doc who specialized in ADHD said she had ADHD, the doc who specialized in Bipolar Disorder said she was bipolar, the Autism Clinic at UCLA said she was on the spectrum, and so on. If they had a hammer all they saw were nails. She was a chameleon of a patient so I just figured she was one of those a little of this and a little of that people with a very difficult or impossible to define disorder.  I just took all the conflicting diagnoses with a grain of salt and I never thought she was one thing or another, just a very troubled girl that had a great deal of difficulty succeeding in this world.

As for taking care of myself; when I was going through the thick of it when she was a preteen and younger I made myself literally sick over the whole thing. I was constantly struggling with very poor teachers and the school district. I wrote letter after letter to teachers and administrators. I educated myself about special education law. I called IEP meetings often and and I tried to educate her teachers, camp counselors, etc. about how to deal with her constructively. It seemed like the rest of the world had much more difficulty with her than we did. We instinctively knew not to address issues with her while she was upset so a cooling off period was always used at home, but getting them to allow her to cool off at school or at camp before confronting her was not happening. They kept kicking her out of activities or tried to, but in some instances I was able to stop them. It was my understanding that she needed to learn how to behave by being involved with others out in the world. Everything told me that she would only learn social skills by being in social situations and learning what others felt was and was not acceptable. I certainly did not think she would gain social skills by being home schooled as the school district was pressuring me to do. At that time BPD was not in my mind so I had no idea how her distorted thinking would not allow her to gain social skills simply by being in social situations. I ended up writing a complaint to the Office of Civil Rights because the district provided me no recourse when they decided they would not allow her to participate in chorale.  I ended up winning the dispute with the district but that win came years later when it could not do any good for my daughter. So while I was going through all of that I felt physically awful. It was like I had fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue or something akin to that, but all the doctors I went to told me I was fine and it was all in my head. It turns out they were right. I suffered for years with somatic symptoms such as joint aches and pains, migraines, stomach problems, disordered sleep, and foggy thinking and I believe it was all caused by chronic stress. I would go to my psychiatrist and tell him of my ills and tell him all the doctors said it was all in my head so I thought that meant that he should be the one to address these symptoms, but he had no idea what to do.

I eventually got better. My daughter went to a high school for the arts that was more tolerant of people being different and so all the feuding with teachers and the district subsided. I became determined to cure myself and so I educated myself about supplements and relaxation techniques. When I was in the thick of it with my daughter I could not relax as all ever. I was hyper-vigilant.  So many bad things happened one right after another that even when nothing bad was happening I would just wait and scan the horizon for the next trial coming to test me. I quit my job to look after her. I could do nothing but fight for her or wait for the next fight because if I went and did something else and let my guard down I would not be prepared for the next fight. So when both my daughter and I were ready I backed off and I focused on myself. I took supplements up the wazoo. I meditated. I listened to "therapeutic" music called Samonas. I tried self-hypnosis. I worked on falling to sleep by listening to CDs of thunderstorms, rain, jungle sounds and the like. I exercised. It took a long time but I eventually regained balance in my life. I was able to relax again and I stopped feeling sick. After 10 years at home with her I went back to work and I let her fight some of her own battles.

Now, 10 years after going back to work, I keep myself very busy. I work full-time, I have an online bead shop, I make jewelry, and I recently started a neighborhood political action group. So I would say that I am mostly focused on my own interests now and I feel younger than I did 15 years ago.

I will work on establishing boundaries once I figure out what they should be.

Thank you for reading and for your good advice!
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atmywitsendtoo

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« Reply #5 on: April 22, 2017, 01:28:24 AM »

My daughter takes me on roller coaster rides. When she wants something from me she is nice to me. If there is nothing that she wants from me at the moment she is terribly rude, dismissive, hostile and sometimes abusive. If you read this thread you can see that I had a few good days with my daughter after she started therapy and I became very hopeful, but now she is back to her nasty and entitled behavior and I just cannot take it. My husband and I have bent over backwards to support her in every way but sue abuses us and takes advantage and acts like she has absolutely no obligation to us. She is 27 and pregnant and she expects to live with us with her baby and now she has asked if her boyfriend and his children can move back in as they lived with us for a while before they broke up, but now they are getting along better and she wants them to move back in with us. We have not said yes or no to this but have told her we will think about it.

My house is a mess and when my daughter asked if her boyfriend and his two boys could live with us the first time - before they broke up - I said yes if she promised to help me clean up and organize the house to make it more child friendly. She said that yes she would help me with the house, but she never did help and the house remains cluttered and disordered.

Now that she is in her second trimester and she wants her boyfriend and his children to move back in I said that if she wanted that to happen she had to help me clean up the house first. This made her very angry and she refused to talk to me about it and she started meditating because me bringing the subject up upset her and she has been practicing mindfulness and meditation as part of her therapy. So there she was now using techniques she learned in therapy to rain on my parade. I let the subject go because she shut me out by beginning to meditate.

A few days have gone by since then and I thought I might have better luck if I raised the subject another day. I have since tried to broach the subject with her a couple of times and both times she dismissed me with a wave of her hand and walked away from me so the conversation could not continue.

Today she learned the sex of the baby and tomorrow she is having a gender reveal event at some place that does ultrasound in the mall. Sounds strange to me but whatever floats your boat. Tonight I asked her what time the event was again and she told me to go look on Facebook where she had messaged me that information a few days ago. Then I asked her where the place was in the mall and again she told me to go and look at what she sent me on facebook. I felt it was very rude of her not to just answer my questions but rather insist that I go look up the information in my facebook messages. This rudeness combined with her refusal to even talk to me about helping me clean the house coupled with her arrogant and entitled attitude that she can just move a family she created into our home with my husband and I and not be beholding to us in any way, not even enough to clean the house in lieu of rent, has sent me around the bend. 

So I lost me temper. Because she refuses to speak with me about the subject I sent her a long facebook message (that she probably is working hard not to read) telling her that if she does not change her entitled and rude behavior quickly I will start thinking seriously about asking her to find some other place to live.

To throw my 27 yer old pregnant daughter out when she has nowhere to go is nothing I would ever think of doing as it is cruel and heartless, but I just did it. I just cannot stand it any more. I just want peace and quite and predictability for my husband and myself. I just feel we do not deserve to have our lives overtaken by my daughter and the volatile family she created without so much as a please or thank you let alone making a significant contribution to keeping the house up.

She is now on welfare and she is just sitting around sunning herself, visiting her friends, living off the fat of the land and I have never been so disgusted. She does not lift a finger and now i have done the unthinkable and on top of that I really do not want to go to her gender reveal event tomorrow, but I probably will go just for the sake of appearances. my husband feels the same way about attending.  Maybe if I don't go she will notice and take me seriously; probably not as she is oblivious to anyone's feelings but her own.

I feel like this is killing me and my husband cannot sleep at night. We do not deserve this.
 
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« Reply #6 on: April 23, 2017, 07:25:49 AM »

Hi atmywitsend

I'm so sorry you are going through this with your DD, and it's a rollercoaster with the pregnancy taking centre stage and recent diagnosis.  I can completely understand why you reacted as you did, it's frustrating when our BPDs don't 'hear' what we are saying, unable to acknowledge our needs and our truths and respond in a hostile and hurtful way as you describe driving us round the bend.  You clearly love your DD have proactively and compassionately supported her from a very young age, searching for answers, and I want to send you hope with the recent BPD diagnosis it can get better, you know what your dealing with, its small gentle steps and requires us changing our approach and educating ourselves, as lesson 2 says if your current approach is not working change it. We can change our approach through learning about underlying reasons for their behaviour, what's driving those behaviours that drive us batty and are scary. If you've not read this I highly recommend it provides great insight, helps overwhelmed loved ones understand why their spouse, adult child, or other family member acts they way they do and shows how to respond constructively. Manning understands what it means to care deeply about someone who is afflicted with this serious illness and offers practical tools to help in the day to struggles.
https://bpdfamily.com/book-reviews/loving-someone-borderline-personality-disorder

Our self care is paramount, akin to putting on your oxygen mask before your childs - here is a workshop where members discuss and share what this means for them, I hope it's helpful for you. Self care for you and your husband, I'm sorry he is suffering too.
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=112473.0

My DD is 28, lives at home and is about to complete 12 months of DBT. It's brilliant your DD has accepted her diagnosis and embraced DBT, with the babys birth she's likely to need validation and support to continue attending, doing the best she can for her and her baby.

Has your DD responded to your facebook message?

Small steps.

WDx









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« Reply #7 on: April 25, 2017, 10:19:58 PM »

Hi WD,

Funny you should mention the book Loving Someone with Bipolar Personality Disorder. I just received 5 books in the mail today that I ordered about BPD and that is one of them. I am starting out with the thinnest book just to get some basic info: I Hate You Don't Leave Me, and I will get to the others as I go along.

Through the years she has had so many different diagnosis that I accumulated a library of books about different conditions. A few years back I hired someone to help me deep clean and reorganize my house. As she was going through my book shelves she said "you sure do have a lot if books about disorders!" I thought that was funny and told her that I pride myself on being knowledgeable about disorders... .Now in a few weeks at my work     - I work in social services - they are having a required "Mental Health First Aide" training and I really don't want to go because I am pretty sure I already know the basics they will cover and I really dislike attending meetings or trainings that I get nothing out of while I get backed up in the rest of my job because I take time out for these unproductive events. I kind of wanted to tell them "been there, done that", but I couldn't really say that I did not think I needed the training without letting them in on my personal business.

How did my daughter react to my Facebook message to her? She reacted the way she usually reacts. She ignored me by not reading the message right away. This was just another way to put me off and not listen to me or take me seriously. So over the next few days I said to her a couple of times that I thought it would be a good idea for her to bring up her reaction to me asking her to help clean the house in her therapy.

A few days later she went to therapy and I received a phone call while she was there. She was phoning me to ask me when I was going to take time off work to clean the house. I asked her why she wanted to know and if she was planning on helping me and she said yes she was planning to help me and she wanted to make sure that I was going to set aside time to tackle the house soon otherwise if I waited too long she would become too big to be of much help in the hotter weather that is just around the bend. So I am not sure exactly when she read my message to her initially, but I am glad that I sent it to her on Facebook because I imagine she was able to read the message to her therapist during therapy so her therapist could help her understand and appropriately reply to the message which she did. Yeah!

Now I just have to come to terms with the unfortunate reality that I am going to use my vacation time to clean my house. That is a little hard to swallow but I got myself into this mess (literally) so maybe this unglamorous use of my vacation time will teach me to be less cluttered... .maybe.

Thank you for reading and for your reply!
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« Reply #8 on: May 07, 2017, 07:49:33 AM »

Hi there atmywitsendtoo

I'm wondering how you are? How did the housekeeping go for you and your DD?

WDx
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« Reply #9 on: May 20, 2017, 01:52:57 AM »

One step forward, two steps back. We got a lot of the house cleared out but there is still lots left to do. Unfortunately my daughter's idea of helping me clean was to stand around and tell me what to do. It was really frustrating to try to get  something done with her help because she is very bossy and she always feels like she has to run the show. I had to tell her to just clean and to stop telling me what to do. In the end she was not much help getting it clean, but now that it is in better shape she is doing a good job of maintaining it by doing a little cleaning every day.

Today was awful. My daughter wrecked her can AGAIN today. She was unscathed, but the car was totaled. She had totaled the same car about eight months ago. My husband (her father) and her boyfriend volunteered to put the mangled car back together which really should have been junked (If a repair shop would have done it would have cost more than the car was worth). They guys worked on her car as much as they could when they were off work and when our rainy winter permitted, but my daughter was ungrateful and was annoyed it was taking so long. When it was finally done instead of thanking my husband and her boyfriend she just said the car smelled funny. I asked her if she had thanked her father and she said yes. I then asked my husband if she had thanked him and he said no. I told her to thank him and she did so after I made that comment, but it didn't really come from an sense of appreciation. She just did it because I reminded her it was something she was supposed to do.

Well, when my husband saw that she totaled her car again today I have never seen him so upset with her. He holds things in so his upset did not consist of yelling or arguing it was just tension in the air that was practically suffocating. My husband works hard and has little time off. He had put so much of his precious free time into fixing that car for her and now here it was totaled again, all his work ruined. And our daughter did not even apologize to him for having ruined his good work. She just takes and takes and takes and takes it all for granted.

My husband is so done with her right now he will not consider fixing that car again or getting another one and he says she just has to take the bus. Easy for him to say because it is me that she will be hitting up for rides all the time. The day after tomorrow she has to go to her therapy and later the same day she had to go to a childbirth class which is way too far away to catch a bus to. It is really, really hard to live in the Los Angeles area without a car because everything if flat and spread out. Everything is a ride away and public transportation here is poor.

Her father thinks that she is such a bad driver that she should not have a car let alone be driving around with a baby as a passenger. When she wrecked her car today she was eating while she was driving and she rear-ended someone at a red light. The first time she totaled this car she said it was not her fault because someone behind her had side swiped her and pushed her car off the road onto the sidewalk where part of a wrought iron fence in front of a house went through the passenger side window like a javelin. Again she was unscathed, but it was lucky there was no one in the passenger seat. Anyone in the passenger seat would not have survived.

It just never ends with her.

It that a thing? Is it common that BPD people are very bad and even dangerous drivers?

Thanks for listening WD!
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« Reply #10 on: May 20, 2017, 10:07:59 PM »

Hi atmywitsendtoo,

First I would just like to say that I am so sorry for everything that your and your husband have gone through and continue to go through with your daughter.  Thank god she is okay after totalling her car and I hope the person she rear ended is okay too.

And yes, getting into multiple car accidents is most definitely a thing with BPD.  I was shocked when I read your post as it is eerily similar to what we have also been through with my daughter, 20, and her car.  She also had two "write-off" accidents within 8 months! Her first accident was literally 5 minutes after she picked up her first car.  We had helped her find a decent used vehicle, but then she dumped us like a hot potato, wanted no help or advice from us, her and her boyfriend who she'd met on the internet and known for about two weeks were going to handle it all.  She was totally ignoring any attempt on my part to contact her at this point.  So, she picked up her car in such a panic to get back to her bf that she didn't even get the free detailing done on the car that the dealer was offering - it would have held her up a couple of hours... .  She was texting her boyfriend (she denies this, but her cell is in my name and I can access her records!) and rear-ended someone.  Thankfully, no one was hurt, but her car was totalled.  The panicked phone call from her boyfriend at the time (thank god he at least did that as she was telling him she was going to self-harm, was hysterical) was something that I will never forget!  All of her immediate family - me and her younger sister, her brother and her father rushed to the accident scene from various locations to support her... .even though at this point she was in touch with none of us.  Like your husband, my husband also had my daughter's car fixed despite the body shop saying it was not worth fixing.  The wreckers that we were going to sell it to said since the engine was fine and structure was okay, they could repair the other damage for $4000, so with discussion from my daughter, we went ahead with that.  We felt sorry for her... .it was her first car.  She, too, did not show any appreciation for all the work and time her dad put into this.  The description of your husband could be me describing mine... .eerie. 

So that was August... .fast forward to March... and another horrible phone call.  She was basically estranged from us at the time... .phone rings and it is dd, crying, screaming, hysterical (would never wish such phone call on anyone).  She had rolled her car... .luckily no one seriously hurt.  We rushed to the hospital (40 minutes away) - she was initially crying and apologized for "all the trouble" she has caused us.  She was supposed to come home with us, as per discussion with the doctor, but when we left the hospital, she insisted on being taken to her loser bf place.  They live in a garage at his mother's home.  He had abandoned my daughter at the hospital and was in his hovel smoking pot when we took her there... .and laughed when I told him the doctor's instructions for watching her. 

This time there was no fixing the car.  My husband again handled dealing with disposal etc.  Cleaning out her car was brutal on him.  The back seat was literally filled with garbage - he pulled out three huge garbage bags of garbage -  fast food containers, rotting food, etc.  Mixed in with this was clothes, trinkets from her childhood, souvenirs from family holidays, her driver's licence, money, food staples, photographs, stuffed animals, etc.   It was heartbreaking for him.  I have never seen him so devastated and at a total loss.  To see her childhood memories and treasures mixed in with garbage.  It was like when he saw that, he realized how ill she really is and felt totally hopeless to do anything to help. 

I have a cousin in the car business and he said he can get her a decent, safe car for less than $1000, but we are loathe for her to get another car at this point.  This is twice that she has literally escaped death in bad accidents. She is still living with her absolutely awful boyfriend out in the middle of nowhere and without a car she can't get anywhere.  She is very likely missing appointments and a job is impossible with no transportation, but she has options to move back into town and, in my mind, helping her get another car is just enabling and asking for trouble.  If we did, and god-forbid, she had another accident where she or someone else died, I could never forgive myself.  If she figures out how to get one on her own (doubtful) that is one thing, but with her track record and erratic behaviour, it is out of the question for us to be involved in helping her get another vehicle.

Excerpt
It just never ends with her.

I don't know how many times that I have also said that line.  I am so very sorry for the heartache you and your husband are going through.  I'm sorry that I don't really have anything to say to help.  I just want you to know that you are not alone.  Sending you many hugs. 
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« Reply #11 on: May 21, 2017, 01:54:10 AM »

Hi amywitsend & Mm

I'm really sad to read about the accidents as that is a lot to deal with. The whole dramas of vehicles has been on threads before. I'm sorry you've both had to go through all of this and also poor husbands and partners too.

Binderdundat.

I'm not going to share my long saga of a story with car accidents as it's so very similar. What too is very similar is our reactions in the saga. Clearing out car (actually heartbreaking), "helping" replace it or fix it.

This time our I gave my DS lifts for 6 months so he could work (work he found himself by the way).  I gave him a months notice when I knew he had enough to get a half decent car. Unsurprisingly, the car was not his priority.

This is the point of my change. I had the guts to see this one through because I was suffering the consequences of my own actions. I didn't want to drive him around any more.

All by himself; He found a car, bought it, had a small accident within the first week, organised a repair and he's still driving it 9 months later with no further accidents. No car, he knows he walks to work.

Yes, it's full of rubbish and yes it smells of weed. It's an absolute disgrace but it's his car, not mine. He gets stopped once then he'll suffer the consequences.

We all learn by our mistakes.  Knowing where the responsibility lay was (and I still struggle with this) has been my problem. My DS didn't start to learn until he suffered the consequences. Neither did I.

To behave like an adult, they need to be treated like one. Respectfully.

LP
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« Reply #12 on: May 21, 2017, 07:03:29 AM »

Reckless driving is a symptom of BPD.  But careless driving is also a symptom of ADD.  I am a terrible driver, so many near misses, but never an accident.  I am lucky that I work close to home and on long trips my husband drives. I would also say that I have some BPD traits.  DBT helped me a lot with parenting and it continues to be a journey.  I wish your daughter all the best and I hope that continues with love and self care.  If she likes Facebook she should follow "Soul Mama". It has a lot of beautiful and inspirational quotes that will take her out of controlling, punishment mode.  This is a mode that I sometimes found myself in with my daughter.

Anyway, I think that living with a typical 27 year old daughter would be taxing.  It might also take your daughter back into a "daughter" role and not an independent adult role. It seems very reasonable to set a limit for when she should leave if you are not getting along.  Also "cleaning together" would be hard for many couples!

Somehow I feel that your influence on your daughter has the potential to be awesome if you are not fighting over things that would be pretty normal to fight over (living and cleaning together!).  I wonder if setting some boundaries would be helpful.  Do you need to see so much of her if she is in the apartment above your garage? Does it have its own kitchen?  What would it be like if a stranger were living in that apartment?  Just some ideas.  I find time and space to be very healing.
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« Reply #13 on: May 29, 2017, 12:09:15 AM »

Hi Mm and everyone else,

Yes the similarities are eerie! I have always known that there was something wrong with my daughter from the time she was a tot, but it was not until recently that my husband has come to realize that there really is something wrong with her. Before her recent dramas my husband always thought it was my relationship with my daughter that was off track and did not see her as being any more flawed that me or anyone else. Recent events have helped him understand that she has real and severe problems but his reaction to this realization is that he has developed an overwhelming distaste for her because he now sees that she is selfish, thinks about nobody but herself, uses people, manipulates, sees only her own skewed point of view etc. All traits that make him keenly dislike her. Little empathy from him, just mostly anger because - being an engineer - he does not get people really well and he, like her, is seeing things as black and white. Someone is either good or bad but not a little of both, so he has more anger than empathy for her. I hopes this changes with time. My husband could not even be in the same room with her after she wrecked her car the second time, but now after some time has passed he brought himself to start looking at the car to see if it is fixable this weekend. In the meantime I am giving her way too many rides.

Also similarly my daughter has absolutely the worst taste in men. She brings home to her mother exactly the opposite of what anyone in their right mind would consider bringing home to their mother. Lest go down the list. Have a job? nope. Have a history of holding down a job? Nope. Have tattoos? Yep. Have a substance abuse problem? Yep. Speaks proper English rather than street slang? Nope. Saves and spends money wisely? Nope. Has any money? Nope. Takes my daughter's money?
Yep. Engages in productive interests and activities? Nope. Comes from a stable family? Nope. Has a stable history with girlfriends? Nope. Has children from another relationship? Yep. Educated? nope. Values education? Nope. Drives drunk? Yep. and the list goes on and on. She did have a boyfriend who was an accountant once but she dropped him quick as can be.

Now she is pregnant and is so estranged from the boyfriend that there is going to be an ugly battle for visitation. This week she heard that his mother moved a crib into their home so they can have the baby visit and sleep over. No way in hell will my daughter let that happen. I keep trying to tell her that she has to get used to the idea that he is going to be an involved father and his family will be her daughter's family so they will eventually be spending time with the baby. My daughter's plan is that she is not going to put his name on the birth certificate so he will not be able to take the baby to his home until he proves paternity and gets a court order that spells out visitation. Since he does not have any money to hire a lawyer my daughter thinks it will take him a while to establish visitation. The whole thing is going to get very ugly and will be filled with drama.

The latest trauma/drama is that tonight my daughter got very upset with me and cursed me out because I told her she was having a false memory. This is not the first time I have disagreed with her about things that have happened in the past but this time I called it for what it was and she blew up. We were talking about her childhood and she made a remark about me always blaming her for a kitchen fire that I started when she was about 7 years old. I was trying to make french fries and was heating some oil. The oil caught on fire and stupidly I threw water on the fire which made it kind of explode. The house filled with smoke and I called 911. A big fire truck came and the firemen entered the house letting all three dogs out. Nothing caught on fire. There was just a bunch of smoke but no fire or smoke damage. It could have been bad but I was lucky and to me it turned into a funny self depreciating story about what an idiot I can be. I called my husband and told him what had happened and he teased me about my bone headed move of throwing water on an oil fire for years. Tonight my daughter said that I had always blamed her for that fire. I said that I had never blamed her for that fire. I asked her how I could have blamed her for that fire when I started it by throwing water on burning oil and she said that I just always blamed her. I kept saying that I had never once blamed her and I said if I blamed you how did I say the fire started? How did I say you started the fire? She just kept saying that I blamed her for it but I gave no specifics. I told her she was having a false memory and then she flew off the handle and cussed me out telling me that I was suffering from dementia. We were in the car when this happened. Just to be sure when we got home I asked my husband if he remembers me ever blaming her for that fire and he said no, of course not, but I did not confront her with this corroboration. Just keeping a mental note to tell her doctor that she has false memories. In my daughter's mind I am the villain and so this false memory just fits in with that.

Is having false memories common with BPD?

Thank you all for reading and for all your thoughtful replies!
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