First Post: I'm Stepmom, we have full custody of 4, his ex is uHPD

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

I just found this site and I've skimmed through some of the stickied posts - I will be reading them carefully soon because they look like the kind of stuff I have been looking for.

I'm here for help dealing with the healing for 4 kids who no longer have contact with their uHPD mother. I came into their lives 7 years ago. By about a year and a half after I met them they were in our home 85% or more of the time, even though the original custody order was 50-50. Four years ago during a custody battle that was triggered by our move out of state, DH won full custody and we moved across the country from his uHPDxw. In that 4 years the kids have only seen her for brief (a few hours) visits under my supervision - she has only come to see them a single time and we facilitated that (she still only saw them for windows of a few hours each day and always with me present, the total visit was only 4-5 days long). The stepkids have not had to spend any unsupervised time with her since they were 15SD, 12SS, 9SD, and 7SS. She calls them once or twice a year. They are now SD19 (not at home but relationship is still close), SS16, SD14, and SS11. We have known that DH xw has HPD since sometime in the first year after we met, but it is only in the last couple years that we have come to start to understand what that means for the kids, long term. We naively thought that if we got them out of the toxic/dangerous/abusive exposure, they would (eventually)... .I don't know, recover?

In a lot of ways they have. They are all wonderful people, and they do well in school both academically and socially. They are engaged in extracurricular activities, they are relatively well behaved kids who do chores and follow rules. They each decided on their own timeline (more than 5 years ago) and without any prompting or even encouragement that I was actually their "real" mom, and honestly, that is how they act to the best of their emotional capabilities. They call me mom (again, their choice), they refer to me at school/with friends as mom, etc.

So what am I doing here? As they each get older, it's clear that there's lasting damage that we really want to try to help them acknowledge and work through. Their birth mother was everything except for physically abusive (severe mental/emotional abuse, neglect, food insecurity, endangerment) and they saw a lot of violent and sexually inappropriate things in the 3 years between when DH kicked her out and when he got full custody, primarily from the stream of dangerous men with substance abuse issues she had living with her. Before he kicked her out, there was a lot of abuse/neglect/endangerment that is somewhat of a question mark, as DH worked pretty insane hours for many years to trying to keep up with her truly magnificent money-disappearing skills and we found out after the fact that she often left them alone for many hours at a time, sometimes most of a day (starting when the oldest was 10 years old... .which would make the youngest one 2 years) with no way to contact her or any other adult.

The youngest SS11 has been diagnosed with disordered attachment issues and PTSD. SD19 struggles with depression and self harmed when she was younger, but she seems to have gotten to the other side of the self harm and it's just the depression now. SD14 has been diagnosed with depression/anxiety, and we have had to deal with some self harm and some suicidal ideation/threats/one underdeveloped attempt. SS16 hasn't been formally diagnosed with anything, but is in counseling for some disordered/insecure/troubled thinking and behaviors. The oldest and the youngest were GC's (oldest was treated as her mother's BFF and the youngest was her perfect baby) and the middle two SG's.

They are all voracious readers and the oldest 3 I think would benefit from books if anyone has recommendations. I would let the oldest two for sure and probably SD14 read material aimed at the adult children of HPD/BPD mothers/parents. The 11 year old would read something if I could find something, but wouldn't be able to follow books intended for adults yet. I would need something targeted at YA level readers/maturity for him.

I'm also open to literally anything that others who have dealt with raising kids who have suffered from an HPD parent long after any sort of regular exposure to the pwHPD is over.

I'll answer questions, but for now I will leave it there. I could write books, I can certainly elaborate on signs of "lasting damage" that I am talking about.

[oppti]

I just found this site and I've skimmed through some of the stickied posts - I will be reading them carefully soon because they look like the kind of stuff I have been looking for.

I'm here for help dealing with the healing for 4 kids who no longer have contact with their uHPD mother. I came into their lives 7 years ago. By about a year and a half after I met them they were in our home 85% or more of the time, even though the original custody order was 50-50. Four years ago during a custody battle that was triggered by our move out of state, DH won full custody and we moved across the country from his uHPDxw. In that 4 years the kids have only seen her for brief (a few hours) visits under my supervision - she has only come to see them a single time and we facilitated that (she still only saw them for windows of a few hours each day and always with me present, the total visit was only 4-5 days long). The stepkids have not had to spend any unsupervised time with her since they were 15SD, 12SS, 9SD, and 7SS. She calls them once or twice a year. They are now SD19 (not at home but relationship is still close), SS16, SD14, and SS11. We have known that DH xw has HPD since sometime in the first year after we met, but it is only in the last couple years that we have come to start to understand what that means for the kids, long term. We naively thought that if we got them out of the toxic/dangerous/abusive exposure, they would (eventually)... .I don't know, recover?

In a lot of ways they have. They are all wonderful people, and they do well in school both academically and socially. They are engaged in extracurricular activities, they are relatively well behaved kids who do chores and follow rules. They each decided on their own timeline (more than 5 years ago) and without any prompting or even encouragement that I was actually their "real" mom, and honestly, that is how they act to the best of their emotional capabilities. They call me mom (again, their choice), they refer to me at school/with friends as mom, etc.

So what am I doing here? As they each get older, it's clear that there's lasting damage that we really want to try to help them acknowledge and work through. Their birth mother was everything except for physically abusive (severe mental/emotional abuse, neglect, food insecurity, endangerment) and they saw a lot of violent and sexually inappropriate things in the 3 years between when DH kicked her out and when he got full custody, primarily from the stream of dangerous men with substance abuse issues she had living with her. Before he kicked her out, there was a lot of abuse/neglect/endangerment that is somewhat of a question mark, as DH worked pretty insane hours for many years to trying to keep up with her truly magnificent money-disappearing skills and we found out after the fact that she often left them alone for many hours at a time, sometimes most of a day (starting when the oldest was 10 years old... .which would make the youngest one 2 years) with no way to contact her or any other adult.

The youngest SS11 has been diagnosed with disordered attachment issues and PTSD. SD19 struggles with depression and self harmed when she was younger, but she seems to have gotten to the other side of the self harm and it's just the depression now. SD14 has been diagnosed with depression/anxiety, and we have had to deal with some self harm and some suicidal ideation/threats/one underdeveloped attempt. SS16 hasn't been formally diagnosed with anything, but is in counseling for some disordered/insecure/troubled thinking and behaviors. The oldest and the youngest were GC's (oldest was treated as her mother's BFF and the youngest was her perfect baby) and the middle two SG's.

They are all voracious readers and the oldest 3 I think would benefit from books if anyone has recommendations. I would let the oldest two for sure and probably SD14 read material aimed at the adult children of HPD/BPD mothers/parents. The 11 year old would read something if I could find something, but wouldn't be able to follow books intended for adults yet. I would need something targeted at YA level readers/maturity for him.

I'm also open to literally anything that others who have dealt with raising kids who have suffered from an HPD parent long after any sort of regular exposure to the pwHPD is over.

I'll answer questions, but for now I will leave it there. I could write books, I can certainly elaborate on signs of "lasting damage" that I am talking about.

[livednlearned]

How wonderful that they landed with someone who loves them 

I have to imagine, too, that the custody battle was stressful to bear witness to, and obviously you didn't let that nuttery deter you from this life. 

My situation is slightly different, but I totally understand the questions you are asking. Do the kids need more help than what they're receiving. How bad are things, really? and What if anything can you do?

I have an ex N/BPD/bipolar spouse who is no longer in S16's life. There was verbal, physical, emotional abuse and alcoholism. I left when my son was 9, and he is still struggling. He's been diagnosed with anxiety/depression, OCD, ADHD/ADD combined type, and sees a psychiatrist one a week, and takes prozac and adderal.

I recommend talking to a child psychologist and asking for some feedback on how to do what you're thinking of doing -- not because it could backfire, but because there may be ways that create a lot of safety. What my son's psychiatrist said to me (when I asked him if EMDR would help S16) is that if we open doors, we have to be prepared for what walks through.

Talking to a child psychologist can help prepare US for what role we should play. My situation is a bit trickier because I can't be my son's therapist over trauma he experienced with his dad. That triangle is too complicated for him -- he really needs a trusted, neutral professional to help him.

So, for the kids who are seeing therapists, maybe you discuss with them that you are thinking about books, or to at least know that the books are going to start rolling in, and the kids might shut down or be triggered, depending on where they are at in their healing, as well as their own genetic wiring for sensitivity.

I wonder, too, if it might help to pose this question on the Coping and Healing board? To see what adult survivors of BPD parents found helpful as they made sense of their experience.

I'll be curious to hear what others say. This is a topic that's close to my heart, too.

LnL

[oppti]

Thanks for your response!

The custody battle wasn't just something I had to bear witness to - I was a critical participant. Shortly after I moved in with my now-husband, I took over communication with his ex, because for whatever reason she would respond to my texts with some proximity of sanity, whereas regardless of what he said to her she came completely unhinged.

On stepparenting boards they warn against doing this, but honestly, I am so grateful that it happened that way. If I hadn't gotten to know/interact with her myself, I could never have fully believed the things that my husband and then later his kids would tell me about her.

I showed up with a binder full of years worth of our text interactions, disproving dozens of lies she had told during her testimony.

I will definitely try the Coping and Healing board, that's an excellent idea. The younger two haven't gotten in with their counselors yet (we moved - they were both in counseling prior to the move), but the older SS16 has been seeing a counselor we found as sort of a crisis stabilization measure who has turned out to be amazing. Younger SS11 will be seeing him too, and SD14 will see another counselor at the same practice. I've been encouraging oldest SD19 to see a counselor, she is still covered under our health insurance.

As far as where they are all at, the oldest 3 came to the understanding in their own way/on their own timeline that their mother was not capable of *being* a mother. They know that she wasn't able to be a mother because she couldn't choose them or their needs over her drinking/drug use, over her unending rotation of boyfriends - or even over her hair and nail appointments when she couldn't keep the heat on or food in the house. But they are still struggling with trying to understand WHY she couldn't make the right choices - why she couldn't choose them. I want them to understand it's not their fault, and there isn't anything they could have done to make her better, to help her or validate her enough, to make her be the mom they deserved to have.

The youngest? All I have is the biggest sigh. He isn't clear on anything. He remembers awful things but has never used counseling as a place to talk about them - it comes out in random, excruciatingly awkward bursts seemingly out of nowhere. For a long time we let him, at some point it was still so frequent even though so much time had passed that he was hurting the other kids by talking about it so we had to tell him that it wasn't ok to talk about those things with or around his siblings.

I feel like she messed him up the worst. She treated him like a baby, called him baby names, and allowed and encouraged age-inappropriate physical contact from him up until we got him out of unsupervised contact with her. At age 11 he *still* wants to be able to act and be treated like a baby. Though we have talked and talked and talked to him, I don't feel like he understands any of it. He has a lot of "memories" that aren't real. He tells the truth and lies totally interchangeably and for no discernable reason. In addition to disorganized attachment issues, he has boundary issues that are disruptive and challenging.

I guess I just need to vent too. 

[livednlearned]

Oof, that's a lot to go through.

Are you a saint?  

 

I think a lot of this stuff is lifelong, too. I've looked at the intro/sample pages to Surviving a BPD Parent and remember something about how healing is not linear. That is definitely true for me, and definitely true for my son. He went through a traumatic event with his dad, and afterward he would vomit up these disturbing experiences, then seem to me like he felt relieved, but wouldn't talk about them with his therapist, and then he hit middle school and became very depressed and anxious.

It seems to me like every developmental milestone rehashes the trauma and it has to be reprocessed in a new way.

Same with my SD20, who is likely BPD (diagnosed bipolar). She is in the cocoon of school right now, and my guess is that she will hit the pavement when she starts work as a teacher. Her sister SD23 was like that when she came to live with us and start graduate school. The adjustments that are hard on healthy kids seems to hit them harder. It feels like they regress back to toddler or preschool ages until things level out a bit, so I now prepare myself for their transitions, at least emotionally and mentally.

Does your SS11 have friendships? Some of what you describe sounds like SS19. He is in a world of his own making, and his lying has made it hard for him to make and keep friends.

One other thing I recently learned (based on new research describing this upcoming generation) is that teens are putting off adulthood for a lot longer than previous generations. In a book called iGen, the author speculates that smartphones and social media have played a profound role in this, and I can see it so clearly even between SD23, who is a Millenial, and SD20, who is more iGen.

It actually helped me understand S16 a little better, too. Some of the issues that were troubling me in his behaviors are happening across the board, apparently. These habits impact him a little more because he has trauma and genetics working against him, but he is also coping in ways that are very similar to his peers.

And I just want to say I admire you for getting involved. It sounds like you listened to your instincts and waded in where you were needed, and that had real impact. We all have different circumstances, and BPD or HPD presents in different ways so there is not always a clear path through any of this. Your kids may need a long time to fully heal, and at the same time it is heartening to know that they have your strength and support as an example of what's possible.

LnL

[oppti]

Am I a saint? That is a super big no. I am so not a saint.

I fell for a guy. My kids and his kids like, insta-bonded. I underestimated the sheer amount of insanity and drama and damage that his ex was capable of, as I had never even heard of HPD/BPD at that point. Once I started to understand, his kids had already started to come to me to get what they had never had, and I had begun to love them.

It's been hard. My biggest fear was always that I wouldn't ever be able to love my stepkids as much as I love my biological ones. I was afraid of the wrong thing. My heart can't tell the difference, they are all my kids. The problem is, this causes me to treat my stepkids like my biokids, and that's not fair to my stepkids because they all suffer from some lasting effects of disorganized attachment, PTSD, unhealthy defense and coping mechanisms that were critical to surviving a really messed up situation but end up being the most messed up things in a "normal" situation. My expectations for my bio kids are reasonable - I am not a perfect mom, but they all were able to form very secure attachment from day one and even when I mess up I am always there for them and have always been on their side and they know it. The expectations are less reasonable when applied to 4 kids who didn't have any of the advantages that biokids did.

You're not wrong about the reprocessing. In this house it seems like puberty is the #1 main event for we are going to manifest every possible unhealthy response to trauma all over again and have to figure out a totally new understanding and a brand new coping toolbox.

In super good news SS11 is getting in this Saturday with the counselor we love that has been making serious headway with SS16, and we are hoping to hear back about another counselor at the same practice for SD14 hopefully at the same time as they boys' appointments. Also SD19 called last night and she is getting stronger, and healthier, and working her way through the independant adult phase or reprocessing like an absolute boss, after what was a pretty rough 1st year out of the house. We are going to help her find a covered counselor where she lives this week because she is ready to continue her coping journey and get some help with her depression/anxiety issues (which are amazingly not as severe as I would have thought). Honestly, with all she has been through as the oldest and the first GC, I am amazed that she is not BPD/Bipolar/PTSD.  If anybody has earned going batdoodleshonks crazy it's her, but instead she is this wonderful, accepting, beautiful human being full of kindness and love and good intentions.

It is so nice to talk to a parent who gets what I am talking about though, it is so hard to explain the kids to people who haven't ever had to deal with a pwBPD. Because they ARE wonderful, just like yours are, but that does not mean they don't have some troubling lingering issues that it is SOO important to get addressed and taken seriously. They suffer so much, and they end up frustrated, and we parents end up frustrated... .and then it feels sometimes like *nobody* understands. Like, the closest I have ever found IRL to people who get some of their issues are foster parents (the super good kind, not the kind that take kids cause they want the money).

SS11 is able to make friends, but not close ones. He has a very hard time with the logistics of... .well, anything, but literally it takes him *months* to bring us another parent's phone number so that we can even try to give him permission to get together with a friend. Unfortunately we live out in the country so he can't just wander over and play with neighbor kids, there has to be *some* amount of planning and coordination. We have only been living here for just under a year, so while he talks about friends at school and when we take him to HS football games he always runs around with all of the other kids in his grade, he hasn't gotten together with anyone a single time outside of school here. (He had finally started hanging out with a couple friends outside of school before we moved... .I was hoping after that long, painful process of learning how we get to that point it wouldn't take just as long the second time around). Apparently he even has a girlfriend (?) but he can't bring home a single other kid's phone number.

*sigh*

[livednlearned]

It is so nice to talk to a parent who gets what I am talking about though, it is so hard to explain the kids to people who haven't ever had to deal with a pwBPD.

This.

I feel like this is what is helping me manage my own anxiety.

Hearing other parents experience the same thing makes me feel less burdened by my own worries. I am amazed how important it has been to walk with other parents through this maze of trauma healing.

The most important takeaway when I talk to parents who understand is that we have to meet our kids where they are. And at the same time, we have to focus one step ahead, to guide them. I know that's true for healthy kids, but it seems so much more true for kids with trauma. And it feels like I have to remind myself of that every day.

Also, it just occurred to me. One of the things that deeply changed my life was learning DBT (dialectical behavior therapy) skills. Or maybe you could call them DBT-lite. Some of the skills came naturally, and others I had to practice practice practice, and am still learning. You can learn the skills in books like Loving Someone with BPD or Overcoming BPD, and there are also DBT Skills for Families groups through NAMI and NEA-BPDs support groups. They are on this site, too.

DBT was initially developed for people with BPD but they are essentially relationship and communication skills that work with anyone.

You sound like the emotional leader in your family, and already have the compassion and empathy necessary to work these skills, so you have a head start. They may not be as necessary with the older kids, but maybe SS11?

When I got together with SO, I knew I would have a role in his kids' lives, but I underestimated how important that role would be. I am not their therapist (same for S16), but I am therapeutic for them, in a more or less skilled way, in response to their trauma.