how to deal with the therapy resistance?

[Frazzledmomma]

my 14yo D has multiple diagnoses, BPD not officially, though she presents as textbook. After a recent hospitalization (suicide attempt), she left a note and her journal revealing she had been sexually assaulted at school in 6th grade by a classmate. She had stuffed this down for 3 years, had been in and out of hospital since that time, paralyzed by anxiety, VERY resistant to progress in therapy. Now that we know this bombshell it makes the severity of her symptoms over the past 3 clearer.

Problem is -- her diagnoses and many issues pre-date that horrible event, but they have amped up over time (and throw puberty into the mix to add to the fun!). She projects all her problems on my husband -- he is blamed for all her trauma (unwarranted), and she points her anger and him and me for staying (she was not abused at home in any way)

Her therapist wanted both DPT and individual therapy--it's been a disaster. We're a month home from hospital and she has essentially quit therapy altogether (she was never bought in -- she knows what to say to get discharged).  Her therapist (at a pretty prestigious center) was shell shocked at our last session when she saw the degree of her anger, defiance, etc. when leveled at me. Before she always controlled the narrative in session (I wasn't present), and she never gets to any real issues, just complaints.

My husband and I are at a loss. We have hit our threshold of tolerance for living in a constant state of her emotional chaos, but she is dug in to NOT doing anything to change. States she likes this tortuous life. No one believes her. She is not a great candidate for residential treatment-- that is likely to make things worse.

Anyone got suggestions on how to get through that shell of resistance to learn some skills? Even if dealing with the trauma is too hard, she at least has to learn some skills to manage daily living. Her maturity waffles from a 3 year old emotionally to a 40 year old intellectually. It's pretty clear she's a lot smarter than most of her former therapists. But our lives are living hell.
 

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

[Lollypop]

Hi frazzledmomma

I’ve just seen that you didn’t get any response and I thought I’d jump in. I’ve been away for a while and didn’t see.

First of all, welcome - I’m so very glad you found us. Have you taken any time to look around - top right hand side of this page is where you’ll find helpful information and tips?

You raise a very good question. My DS26 has rigid thinking and there’s no moving him on certain things. He was like this as a child - I won’t go into the long story. I managed him but as he got older it got more difficult. I felt incredibly frustrating and I grasped for help - sadly, dx didn’t come until he was 24. Chaos? Oh boy, plenty.

Ignoring the age difference though, the same resistance is there in both my DS and your daughter.

What I did was focus on our core relationship, not the problems. It may seem contradictory but what happened is that my DS started to relax, he started to know that he could live (feel safe) without me making any comment like “you should, you must”.  I learnt how to interact better and this definitely helped the atmosphere in the house. Basically, I stepped back and got me some skills (top right of this page).

I have an orchid that needs to be delicately nurtured in just the right environment. This might sound crazy but this helped me understand - i needed to slowly, gentle, non judgmental - we all make mistakes and that’s how we learn. I used to criticise and now I don’t. By having a better relationship my son now listens - before he couldn’t hear me through his high emotions because I was making it worse with my approach.

This is me and not you. We are unique in our problems and how we decide to approach them. My DS does not seek treatment but he’s an adult.

Is your daughter in school. How are things going today?

LP