How do I handle this?

[feelingbroken]

My daughter is 35 and was diagnosed with BPD in her teens.  She is a married professional, highly functional, married to another professional.  Their relationship is good, but my relationship with her has always been stormy.  She is now 5 months pregnant, and the BPD seems to be worsening.
She seems to misinterpret and overreact to anything I say.  Recently, I sent her and her sister an email announcing my intention to retire and explaining why.  She fired a letter back at me, very critical of my choice of e mail rather than calling her.  She also said that she thought that I had never enjoyed being with my children and would probably be the same way with my coming grandchild.  She said that she hoped that in my retirement, I could develop some better communication skills, although I "probably wasn't interested in doing that."
I have never been so hurt in my life.  I have not responded to her, and need help in how to approach her now.  We are scheduled to visit them (they live 1600 miles away from us) soon, so I feel the need to smooth this over quickly.

Please help me.

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

[Huat]

I so wish my daughter was 1600 miles away but she lives within walking distance and this is very similar to how she will communicate with me.  There have been a number of estrangements over her 40 year history with (undiagnosed but highly probably) BPD.  She has alienated us with her children to whom we had to be surrogate parents because of her tumultuous relationships with each of their fathers.  All the time, it has been right in our face.

My suggestion to you would be to say something like, "I'm sorry you feel that way"... .then get on with life.  Take the wind out of her sails.  Go over some of the "Tools" at the right to help you along.  Your darned right it hurts and, for reasons known only to her, she is wanting to hurt.  The biggest mistake you can make is letting her know she hits a target.

Don't be a victim, Feelingbroken, because you will play right into her hands and open yourself up for more of the same.  Long distance relationships sometimes work for the better... .and there is a grandchild on the way.   Work on keeping as calm as you can be when the barbs come your way.  They will only be a problem if you let them be a problem.

[Mutt]

Hi feelingbroken,



I'd like to welcome you to bpdfamily. I'm sorry that you're going through this. BPD behaviors are more apparent during periods where the person is going through a lot of stress. BPD is also an emotional dysregulation disorder, where the person cannot regulate their emotions or self sooth, it takes a pwBPD much longer to return to their emotional baseline of happiness. I can just imagine how pregnancy effects a woman's hormones, your daughter' is going through right now, it could ne that she feels out of control inside so she'll try to over control her environment to stabilize her feelings.

Also a pwBPD are hyper sensitive to rejection and are constantly on the look out for rejection, real or perceived. This is just my personal opinion but I seldom use my phone unless I have to, i'll send a message on Facebook messenger, text or email. This is just my guess, I think that she could have thought that you didn't want to talk to her on the phone and maybe she thought that you were avoiding her. It's extreme for you and I, but to person with BPD it's hurtful, pwBPD hate being rejected.

If I were in your shoes for this incident, i'd let it pass and not say anything because a pwBPD cycle though moods rapidly and are so into each mood state that they forget what it's like being in another state. Certainly we can help, there's a ton of tools and reading materials here on the site that works with a pwBPD and you can transfer those tools to other r/s's in life.