grandchild affected by her mother's BPD

[alcotts]

My daughter has BPD. She is 46 years old. She is diagnosed and her step-father (who I have been with for 27 years) is a psychiatrist.  She has a child who is now 12 years old.  I feel we have struggled with her BPD forever.  Our problem is trying to keep our relationship with our grand-child going in as healthy a way as possible.  We love her so much and think we have managed to keep as happy a bond as is possible.  We do not pretend to ourselves that she is undamaged but believe that she has a strong character and a loveable personality.
We do not live in the same place but have had her stay with us for all her holidays and much more and she lived with us for a year, 4 years ago mainly because her schooling was so disrupted.
In some ways I am so glad she is almost 13 years old now and will hopefully begin to move into her own life during the next few years.  Her father (they were not married) tried to maintain a relationship but it became impossible for him and he realised in the end that it was doing more harm than good to his daughter. He has always financially assisted.
My daughter has consistently rejected therapy of any kind.  She does not acknowledge that she has any problems that are not caused by "the world", circumstances beyond her control, other people, her family, etc.  She is high-functioning in the sense that she has a University Degree, and has trained in a variety of skills. She is able to make friends and have relationships but not to keep them. She is able to get jobs but not to keep them.  She has constant money problems and her behaviour in this regard is often on the border of criminality. I don't need to go on !   The worst is constantly using her child as a blackmail tool against us.  To this day I cannot get used to or bear her abuse of us and anyone and everyone who has tried to help her.  If it had not been for my grandchild I would definitely have felt I could not maintain the relationship with my daughter. But obviously this is not an option.
I know there isn't anything that anyone can do that has not been tried already but sometimes I just want to let off steam, I just want to moan and complain and feel sorry for myself, instead of for her or everyone around her !
We really have tried and done everything we can to help and many other people have too.   

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

[wendydarling]

Hello allcots

Welcome to bpdfamily, I'm glad you've joined us, this is a safe space to let off steam and have a good old vent and moan. We've many grandparents in similar situations working through how to maintain a relationship when grandchildren are involved and used to manipulate situations is heart breaking.

What kind of abusive behaviour are you dealing with?

Welcome again 

WDx