Daughter estranged from sisters and rejecting me, her mother

[Mom of Daughters]

After stumbling across an article about BPD, it occurred to me that the description seemed to fit my daughter.  I have since done more reading and I am convinced.  However, she has not been diagnosed and I know that she would not accept my suggestion that she seek therapy.  There have been many family conflict issues over the last 27 years and the majority of them have originated from her actions.  I now understand that her fears of rejection have been the basis for many of these.  However, what does our family do at this point?  Her sisters are tired of dealing with her and have their own family issues they struggle with.  There has been another instance this year and now my BPD daughter and another daughter are not speaking.  I know that she is taking her anger out on me and I do not know what to do. 

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

[incadove]

Hi Mom of Daughters

It sounds like you already have reached a sort of loving detachment where you are looking for solutions and not taking things personally, that took me a long time to figure out!  It can be very painful when the family is divided and when daughter lashes out.

I don't know your daughter, but I think there is a lot you can do by learning the skills and tools here even if she will not go into therapy.  The videos and books I found to be very helpful.

In a concrete way, sometimes I find combining a boundary with a loving expression or gift is helpful.  Like, give your angry daughter something spontaneously that she will like, but also enact a consequence when she does something not acceptable to you.  Setting a small goal for a change can help frame things in a positive way.

You didn't specify how she is taking her anger out on you, are there some specific actions you would like her to stop?  Are there some expressions of anger you are willing to listen to and some you are not?

Good luck and I really think that by learning and understanding its likely you can improve the situation or at least make it less painful for you and your family.

 

[Mom of Daughters]

Thank you.  I think some days I might be where I need to be.  But I know I am not fully there yet.  I actually received a nice message from my daughter after I spent some time with my granddaughter.  Thankfully, my daughter is not attempting to poison my relationship with my grandchildren.  The problem is mostly the deteriorating relationship with my BPD daughter and one of her sisters and I am in the middle.  Because of their issue, as well as other normal family situations, my BPD daughter has not been involved in family activities (not that we have had many).  I tend to avoid group family activities because of the tension and conflicts that always happen.  I try to call my BPD daughter regularly and see her and her family as often as I can.  But recently, she just started ignoring my messages and refusing to see me and I had no idea.  Nothing new had happened.  But then when she finally messaged one response, she brought up earlier things that she was still upset about and I didn't realize they were still bothering her.  I am going to continue reading so I can learn how to respond to her.

[Feeling Better]

Hi Mom of daughters

Your post resonated with me. I put myself in the middle when my uBPD son had an argument with his sister. I thought I was doing the right thing at the time but it backfired on me big time. He was being really aggressive towards my daughter and was right in her face, it was frightening to witness and I was scared for my daughter, my natural instinct was to protect her. This was perceived as 'taking sides' by my son and so started a long drawn out drama. Like you family get togethers became really awkward and I used to dread them, but then my son started avoiding them and that didn't feel right either. He told me more than once that I had sacrificed my relationship with him for my relationship with my daughter and consequently both myself and my daughter were painted black.

 It is so hard being in the middle when something like this happens and my heart goes out to you, I know how painful it can be, you are trying your hardest to please both your daughters and to maintain the stability in your family. You are doing the right thing by reading as much as you can. My thoughts are with you x