The less I do and the more I pull away, the better things get.-Part 1

[Leaf56]

Okay, first of all I want to say, Flossy, stop looking at your daughter's Instagram. It doesn't matter what she says or what the purpose of her posting it is, if you can't look at it without having a reaction then you can't look at it. Just let it go with everything else. It's another life. And congrats on taking care of you!

Rev, you made me with your comment about how when you started reading here that you felt guilty for not paying for your daughter's cell phone anymore. Yeah, that's how bad things can get. We can't even see our distortions anymore until suddenly we can.

And Saucey, I wanted to explain my reaction to that podcast about the town in Belgium called Geel where they have a tradition of hosting mentally ill patients because research has shown that mentally ill people recover better in an environment that is not family and where the people don't have anything invested in them getting better. But the thing that struck me most about that podcast was that most of the stories told of patients who'd been living with these families for 5, 10, 15, 20 or more years. So, while their symptoms may have somewhat abated (or not because actually the idea is that the hosts are just supposed to keep them in line and accept them for who they are) they aren't actually getting better and they aren't leaving and able to return to the lives they've left, so really it's just a different type of sanatorium and not remarkable in any way. AND the hosts are paid. So it's presented as this utopia-like setting where everyone is so wonderful and accepting, but it's actually not that. It's just another type of warehouse in an idyllic setting. And it's sad that neither the podcast hosts nor Ellen Baxter seems to have any understanding of that. Their empathy and rose-colored glasses are completely obfuscating reality. HOWEVER, the one important thing that some of the research that came out of that, the stuff that George Brown brought to light, IS of use. The part about noticing that mentally ill patients who are released from hospital have a much higher chance of relapse if they are released to their families as opposed to some other situation. I think the law of expressed emotions that came out of that George Brown stuff, work that Linehan has probably based a lot of her cockamamie ideas on, is also fatally flawed. They posited that the reason the mentally ill patient can't recover is that he/she is put back in an environment that contains criticism, hostility, and emotional overinvolvement, then they define those things in the most ridiculous terms. Of course families exist that actually are critical, hostile, and overinvolved, and I'm sure that that causes problems, but then they take those things and say, well, these very slight almost unobservable behaviors on the part of the parents will also cause the patient to not be able to make progress. But what I'm saying is that they've got it backwards. The parents (and I'm not talking about actually abusive or negative or hostile parents, I'm talking about your run of the mill caring parent) ARE FINE. What we're dealing with is a patient that is so exquisitely sensitive that NO PERSON could realistically be expected to accommodate their "demands" and no parent SHOULD try to accommodate those "demands," or feel bad for not having done so, and doing so JUST EXACERBATES THE PROBLEM. So when the podcast host then brings the whole show 'round to her and her BPD sister, you get a whole load of crappy nonsense, complete with "oh, poor dear suffering sister, we just didn't KNOW, and we're so sorry and guilty, please flog us" yadda yadda yadda. That was the EXACT wrong takeaway from that whole thing and why I found that podcast to be so very dangerous. I hope that makes sense to someone. I wish I could take more time to explain it but if even one person understands then it will have been worth it. What I'm trying to say AGAIN, is that the psychological community has this all wrong and should not be listened to. I don't have all the answers either, but I KNOW they are wrong and we here, our little group, if we think really hard about the trends we are reading here, can at least cast off this nonsense that is currently in fashion and forge a different path.

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

[Flossy]

Exactly, Leaf. I understand your stance and totally agree.

PS I Will stop looking at my daughters Instagram. It's bullPLEASE READ, a trap, not real and I don't care. But, I did give myself permission to indulge as it made me so angry that it reinforced how her mindset is full of ****.

As that is also playing a game, I will let it go now and do something I enjoy every time I am tempted.

I hope you are gathering all of your posts into one folder for your future book.

[Leaf56]

Flossy, I'll hold you to that Insta-promise, lady!

I was just looking at another thread and saw another poster there saying some great stuff so I looked up some of his older posts and saw this:

"95% of all post-2001 BPD material is derived from the DBT practices developed by Marsha Linehan - which have been shown to be efficacious in the majority of cases (though not all, as I'm probably known for lamenting - as a critic of DBT)...and Marsha Linehan herself has Borderline Personality Disorder.  So it's a cure created by the sick...it definitely tries to absolve people wavering between neurosis and psychosis with violent, manipulative and appalling actions from responsibility, focusing instead on validating their feelings and their "perceived reality" even when it's not legitimate.

Basically I'm saying that it's understandable you feel that way; more and more it may seem we're not only "giving BPDs a pass for attempted murder, child abuse, domestic assault, pedophilia, elder abuse, perjury and many other crimes", but we're actually less able to intervene on their own behalf as well since Mental Illness has, since 2012, become something to celebrate and by which to identify ones self-schema...which is particularly disastrous for pwBPDs obviously.

There is value in DBT from all reports, but often we forget to weigh it against the harm it does on a grander scale when we pretend that these behaviors are anything other than reprehensible and often criminal. But we err on the side of the French proverb, to understand everything is to forgive everything. Because we can trace the root of their problem, we thus say it's not their fault. I do it myself too often."

PearlsBefore, have we met yet? If not, why not? Can you please join this thread? I can't imagine why you're staying off it.

[Leaf56]

Oh, and geez, Flossy, forget me, PearlsBefore is the one who should be writing the book. Go read all his posts on this board now starting from the beginning. Maybe we could collaborate!

[PearlsBefore]

*casually reading new posts on website*

*amused to see own name mentioned*

I'll read through this whole four pages tonight and post a more thorough response, but yeah...here's me. Feel free to PM if there's any way I can help with stuff or you want more private advice.

[lafleur]

I've enjoyed reading these posts.  Largely because my BPD is 17 and I'm dealing with both the present and wondering what happens in the next 6 months.  Although my youth was mostly misspent and full of delinquency, somewhere along the way I learned responsibility, work ethic, organization, but probably most importantly to understand which environments make me comfortable.  I believe my BPD has the first three traits naturally.  But can't recognize the latter.   I still see her thrive under the right conditions.  She can't do adults, or busy areas, and shuts down when too much attention is paid.  But set her at a task under relative calm surroundings and she does it with  surgical precision.  I think many adult BPDs are probably still looking for the right environment that matches their personality and skill sets where they can be successful.  No expert, but I suspect that's where a family's strengths can come to play.  To help identify the BPD's assets and help steer in that direction.  Easier said than done, I'm sure.

[PearlsBefore]

So yeah, I have some overlap with Leaf's opinions on DB|T as being "really just Zen Buddhism as a variation of CBT", it's not accurate but it's a close-enough sh**post paraphrase to sum up its deficiency...having literally been created by a doctor who has Borderline herself, it has no firm values, it doesn't try to make the patient "better" because there is no "good" or "bad" in DBT...there's just the ethereal mystical "emotional reality" and how to live within it and let it feel validated.

In fact if there's one word that underlines everything Linehan advises, it's validation - and in fairness it helps calm the storm in 80-90% of cases...so how can it be a bad thing? It's not, unless it becomes its own raison d'etre...because ultimately there remains the fact it's an unhealthy person regardless of whether or not they're acting out...in clinical terms, we've suppressed the symptoms without curing the disease. It's like taking a cough suppressant - it doesn't actually fix what ails you. So you'll have a higher-functioning pwBPD - but in some instances that will actually empower them to be MORE destructive and debauched. If I could snap my fingers and make my chief pwBPD into a kindergarten teacher with a stable income and only half as many fits of rage...I wouldn't do it, for the sake of the children she'd harm.

The counterpoint to the "Stop supporting them, make them grow up and stand on their own" is that it it appears to typically not work. At least be intellectually honest, it's not outright "tough love, they'll learn to stand on their own" - they're going to be failures if you withdraw your support...and failures if you support them. So ultimately it comes down to defining YOU, not defining them. I don't give the homeless man $3 because I think it'll turn around his life, ultimately I do it because I want to be the type of person who does it. The most common exception to this mantra though is when they have addiction issues, because an addict will smoke $40 or $400 of product this month simply depending how much money is on hand...so your cash actively hurts them. I've seen "the needle and the damage done", even when they quit...those braincells are never coming back.

One complication that I haven't seen addressed in the thread is the equally-unpalatable fact that often/usually the parent/s bear some "blame" for the BPD - either through the child having been subject to an early, often sexual, trauma that splintered their sense of "self", or through genetics. Obviously there are BPD people on this forum, who have BPD children...and you start to wander into the dangerous territory of a BPD wondering whether they should engage in splitting, or abandon a loved one they fear is abandoning them, etc...and it becomes a minefield. Obviously the higher-functioning ones are legitimately trying to help the lower-functioning ones find their footing, but might lose sight of the fact there's an exponential difficulty to the cases as you go down through generations. At risk of oversimplifying, theoretically imagine Child-A is molested by an otherwise healthy parent - Child-A develops BPD but can manage it, marries and has Child B of their own. But imagine either adult-A or their spouse now harms Child-B...now there's more entrenched mental illness, because there are two environmental factors at play. B grows up damaged, but still manages to marry someone albeit to a schizophrenic...now Child-C that results is going to have genetic predisposition to issues, and be raised by two people with exponential-mental-health-issues themselves...by the time Child-C gets pregnant by some stranger in a hotelroom, Child-D doesn't have a chance, never marries, never holds down a job...and C is thinking "what a loser".  It's a tragedy that spans generations - and often we forget that our own thinking is compromised.

I think Flossy is more correct than she'll ever realise in believing that if a pwBPD was put in those circumstances they would change, but be overwhelmed upon returning to society and re-adopt their unhealthiest habits as they are "rewarded" for it.

Rev's handling of the cellphone situation seems perfect, I'm hoping it works out long-term.

I'm concerned because there's a potential clash between Lollypop's references to "free room and board" and Leaf's theory to the (I've never heard of this but am definitely going to look into it more!) village where it's recognised the Mentally Ill might thrive best if away from their families (a little like guiltymom's story about deliberately paying to move her child three hours away from her; I have a relative who did that and it appears to be working for her - though of course not very well for the child). I sympathise with a2sj about the receiving calls from your pwBPD while they're high or drunk and just phoning to chew you out, or the nearly-pornographic details of their sex work designed to...make you jealous? upset? Definitely the textbook moment for establishing boundaries as harshly as necessary. Since a2sj asked about alternatives in BPD management, I'll mention GPM as I recently attended a webinar on it as an alternative to the oversaturated DBT - https://online-learning.harvard.edu/course/general-psychiatric-management-bpd?delta=0 - you can see Gunderson talk a bit about it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNi5jh7CHNM

Honestly, I'd love to see separate threads created and maintained just for sharing MBT, GPM and TFP management techniques and resources to help raise awareness of the alternatives to DBT...would certainly contribute what little I'm able to all such threads. Not as a "help me with tonight's situation" kind of post, but sharing reading material, thoughts on webinars, experiences with psychs associated with those styles, etc.

[Leaf56]

Well, shoot, I WAS hoping for more overlap, but who knows? Maybe we can get there in time.

Pearls: "...DBT as being "really just Zen Buddhism as a variation of CBT", it's not accurate but it's a close-enough sh**post paraphrase to sum up its deficiency..."

Just FYI, Linehan herself describes DBT this way. She says that she basically just ripped off her knowledge and practice of Zen and that it's really all DBT is.

Pearls: "In fact if there's one word that underlines everything Linehan advises, it's validation - and in fairness it helps calm the storm in 80-90% of cases...so how can it be a bad thing?"

If you want to live forever with a tantruming adult child, I guess it's not a bad thing. I refuse to do that.

Pearls: "The counterpoint to the "Stop supporting them, make them grow up and stand on their own" is that it it appears to typically not work."

So far it's working well for my situation. Do you have any evidence that it doesn't? I haven't seen any yet.

Pearls: "At least be intellectually honest, it's not outright "tough love, they'll learn to stand on their own" - they're going to be failures if you withdraw your support...and failures if you support them."

Can you prove that?

Pearls: "So ultimately it comes down to defining YOU, not defining them. I don't give the homeless man $3 because I think it'll turn around his life, ultimately I do it because I want to be the type of person who does it."

I absolutely could care less what it says about me if the other person succeeds because I DID NOT help. If I'm concerned about how it defines me, then I'm not concerned about the other person. I have to put the other person first.

Pearls: "One complication that I haven't seen addressed in the thread is the equally-unpalatable fact that often/usually the parent/s bear some "blame" for the BPD - either through the child having been subject to an early, often sexual, trauma that splintered their sense of "self", or through genetics."

Just because there are some people who develop BPD who experienced early trauma does not prove causation. I believe there is no relationship between childhood experience/parenting and the development of BPD. I believe that there is a possible genetic link, but I've seen enough examples to also doubt that. I firmly believe that tolerating the behavior is what leads to its continuation.

Edited to add that I have seen no instances on this board that helping leads to progress on the part of the adult BPD child. I've seen lots of just the opposite. I think helping helps us to not feel guilty but does nothing for our adult child.

[Leaf56]

Lafleur, yeah, I spent his lifetime providing and steering him into the right environments. Didn't help.

[Flossy]

Leaf
I'm still thinking "Is there a well established, financial and emotionally stable, nurturing, interesting, older female with the desire and intellect to 'manage" someone in a role similar to a baseball team manager. Structured as a marriage. With practical, honest guidelines it might suit both parties."

Someone who wants a project, a partner, a lover and someone to share interests with?

I think he needs to advertise. Morally and ethically, it goes against all I believe in, but it has worked out well for my daughter. Though I don't have her any longer, she is happy, safe and thriving. It's the only positive I can find, but it is a definite positive in the greater scheme of things.

[Leaf56]

Flossy, I think we discussed this before, and yes this would be my dream scenario and I DO think it would work EXCEPT for the fact that he’s only interested in young women (his age or younger) who are very pretty and very fit and thin and interesting/artistic. He says he could never even bring himself to cuddle with a woman he’s not sexually attracted to. So yeah, good luck finding a woman who fits that bill who’s willing to take him on. Maybe a person with inherited money who’s just as immature as he is and who wants an enmeshed relationship. I suppose there are probably a few who fit that description around the NYC area. Maybe there’s a Hot Single Debutantes dating site somewhere.

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

[a2sj]

PearlsBefore   Thanks for the info.

I stopped answering the calls a few years ago. Now I either get a string of text messages or voice mails that swing from praises to personal attacks, often in the same sentence. It struck me as cliche or performance art that I have seen too often before. She knows where to get help if she wants and can obviously afford it.

I finally got around to watching the psychological dark comedy-drama miniseries Maniac from 2018. One of the main characters is diagnosed with BPD. The way she receives treatment is what we might actually have available several decades from now. Access the traumatic memories and either erase them or modify them plus balancing out the brain chemistry or modifying the DNA of the affected neurons.

There are some moonshot projects for brain research but they have been moving along slowly
https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/   
https://braininitiative.nih.gov/

In the past ten years gene editing has actually become a thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR_gene_editing

And we are getting closer to mapping the complete human genome after 31 years
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01506-w

I just wish that we develop some actual cures or highly effective treatments before the end of this century. Too late for us and our children but maybe our grand or great grand children won't have to suffer with mental illness.

[Leaf56]

a2sj, I really appreciate your thoughtful input on potential future treatment. I think about this a lot. You talked about a TV show character and the way the character there receives treatment by accessing and erasing traumatic memories in her brain. The problem is that when it comes to BPD, there don't have to be traumatic memories for it to manifest. In my son's and sister's cases, they both had childhoods devoid of trauma or even any kind of disruption or event that could have been the cause of BPD. Because of this, I do not believe BPD stems from anything that happens in childhood and believe that the fact that the two might coexist is coincidental. I don't think that that any mental health problems are *caused* by upbringing, as long as a child is raised in a generally loving home without neglect or abuse and experiences no outside major trauma (see Judith Rich Harris's The Nurture Assumption and Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, there is simply not enough evidence). No, it's something else. Is it genetic? I long thought that yes it is, but lately I've become slightly less sure. Is it possibly a result of the influence of mitochondrial DNA instead? Could it be the influence of bacteria the fetus is exposed to in the womb, the way T gondii bacteria has been shown to possibly cause schizophrenia to later develop in children of women who were exposed to cat feces during pregnancy? Could it be prolonged lack of oxygen during birth? Could it be that children are born with a predisposition to being highly sensitive and then adapt to those sensitivities by developing a personality disorder and that other children born with identical sensitivities will not develop a personality disorder? And just like we don't know yet what causes mental health problems, we don't seem to know what causes almost any problem with our physicality. We have a lot of information about certain health problems, but not enough to prevent any of it for sure. A person who eats extremely low cholesterol his whole life, keeps a low BMI, is very cardiovascularly fit, and has low blood pressure can still drop dead of a heart attack at age 35. Sometimes its genetic, but sometimes it's not or we simply don't know.

So keeping that in mind, can we excuse those who develop a personality disorder for behaving in egregious ways just because they became horrible people because they had sensitivities as children when others with the same sensitivities did not become horrible people? Do we excuse murderers who are not diagnosed with BPD for doing horrible things? At what point do we differentiate between why a criminal becomes a criminal and no longer hold them responsible for their actions. It could be argued that every criminal commits their crimes because of a genetic disposition to commit crimes. Do we not then hold them responsible? If a person with BPD attempts murder on her spouse, do we not hold her responsible despite her diagnosis? There have been big pushes to let folks off for being "criminally insane" at various points in history. Which way you fall on that dilemma depends on your personal belief system. I fall firmly on the side of holding everyone responsible despite mental health status. If a person's mental health status compromises them and makes them more prone to committing murder, I'd rather that that person be removed from society than have a chance to commit murder. Maybe they can be treated, maybe not, but I think murder should mean you're gonna be removed from society. Because I think any murder shows mental illness and therefore the distinction between a murderer who committed their crime because they were "mentally ill" or one who committed their crime because they decided to is moot. They both committed the crime, therefore they should both be punished the same way. So, following that logic, I think that if your loved one treats you horribly, whether they have a mental illness or not, they should both be treated the same way. In other words, I don't think mental health should matter when it comes to the response to it. I don't think we need to or should be coddling anyone who won't behave, whether we perceive that they have the ability to or not.

I also wish we could figure this out for real, but in the meantime, this is my stance.

[Leaf56]

Okay, that said, let's get back to the topic of this thread. I started this thread because, as I've said before, I came here looking for some information on how to successfully deal with my son's issues. I read others' posts for a day, then immediately noticed that there were no success stories on this board. Not only that, I noticed that some people had been actively and expensively seeking success for 20-30 plus years. I also saw a lot of guilt and self-blame by parents who are clearly caring and who I'm sure on the whole did nothing to cause their child's BPD through their actions. But I did notice the one thing that all the failure had in common: the continuation of making attempts to help. So this supported a hypothesis that I had already started to develop a couple months prior to coming to this board, which was that the problem WAS my continued attempts to solve the problem. I started to pull back from helping in May. I got here in July and cemented my stance and have just kept pulling back. The acting out has now ceased (but of course I'm not holding my breath). For instance, he went from saying, "But I caaan't schedule my own doctor appointments [for a medical not mental problem]! I literally caaaaaan't!" in September to scheduling and finding a way to get to (he doesn't drive) them on his own. I haven't received a single objectionable phone call or text for several weeks. He begged for me to pay his doctor co-pays, I said, "No get a job," and he applied for some jobs. I think he's been basically incredulous that I'm really not doing this stuff for him anymore, and yes I'm sure he's now shifting to his dad, but since drawing the line, he now knows that no matter what he does, he's not going to get a response or money out of me. It very well could just be a calm between episodes, but I wanted to report back on progress. It's extremely painful to do this, but it is only getting better.

Inasmuch as we are responsible for the perpetuation of our children's shenanigans, I believe it's because we harbor so much guilt that we continue to be involved when it's obvious that adult children, especially those over 21, can and should be responsible for themselves.

[ChrystalJoy]

I would like to thank all of you for your candid response to this post as it has helped me immensely. Over the past 10 years I have opened my heart to my daughter so many times and she is great for awhile and tells me how great a mom I am and how she loves me more than anyone in the world. But then it turns on a dime and I become the worst mom in the world and she never wants to speak to me. She is currently living with an alcoholic and is 9 months pregnant with no support system. I just threw her a beautiful baby shower that my friends attended (she doesn't have friends) and the theatrics at the party were horrible. Her boyfriend was "detoxing" in the basement and she cried on the floor for 3 hours while guests were arriving. Then she walked out in time to open gifts and smiled and hugged everyone. After the party I was accused of causing her stress and only doing the shower for show. I have been blocked from her life and she says I will never know my grandchild. I am so hurt and am tired of the stress and heart ache. I don't want anything more to do with her and that makes me feel so guilty. I am also so scared for my grandson as he is getting born into a truly scary home. These posts have helped me feel like I am ok to expect love and respect.

[Leaf56]

ChrystalJoy, welcome to my thread. I'm glad that the responses here are giving you some insight and food for thought that I hope can help you in your situation.

[a2sj]

I started a new discussion thread "Please post your success stories in dealing with BPD".
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=351126.0

Has anyone had success in dealing with a son, daughter or son/daughter In-law with BPD? If so please share your story. We would like to hear about it at the above thread.

[Leaf56]

Just FYI, I already tried asking for success stories. This is what I got:
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=350050.0

[livednlearned]

I'm step mom to SD24. She's not my first BPD rodeo so when I met and married SD24's dad there wasn't a lot of bandwidth left (or frankly skills on my part) to help navigate her particular version of BPD.

This summarizes what worked, first for me and now for H:

The less I do and the more I pull away, the better things get. It continues to be extremely hard, and I often find myself feeling positively sick with anxiety over whether what I'm doing is the right thing, but so far positive things are continuing to happen so I remain cautiously optimistic.

This worked for our blended family although there is that razor's edge of constant disaster always in the wings.

I went first and set an example, a real solo journey that was pretty lonely initially.

First I had to know what calm and peaceful felt like so I did some work on my self to get clear on that. Turns out I like that feeling.

I liked how it felt to be grounded, calm, centered. I got better at identifying common SD24 patterns that set me up to feel stressed. "If this happens, and then that happens, I feel bad." I had to do some in-the-weeds, hands-on work with a therapist to figure out how to outmaneuver specific patterns that worked (with my own limitations) and how BPD manifests in our family dynamic. That took a minute.

Non-verbal boundaries worked best. I had to find phrases to help me get out of specific situations designed to enlist my sympathies or maternal instincts or even validation. I wish it wasn't this way, but validation isn't something I do anymore with SD24. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, or maybe in combination with my facial expressions or body language or demeanor it just made me a big target. I remain pleasant, I feel compassion, I am kind. I don't validate anymore. I save that for H. He really needs it.

I stopped asking H if S24 was ok, how she was doing, what was the plan. If he talked about her, I listened but no longer ask follow-up questions. By example, I pulled him into this calm feeling and turns out he likes it, too. I became almost like an SD24-free zone and he started to implement boundaries to extend this feeling of calm, and he did it on his own.

We moved 3000 miles away and he set boundaries with SD24 about texts/calls at work. A first. Then he implemented some non-verbal boundaries, like putting his phone on silent when his head hits the pillow. He puts boundaries around when he's free to talk. They talk daily.

I am jaded about SD24 stories and always look for any underlying motive to get (the wrong kinds of) attention. She quit her job last week and there is a string of SI and talk of self-harm. I figure we could trace a direct line from her therapist saying to SD24 that she's doing well, they can go to once a month, to SD24 stirring up a pot of drama.

SD24's psychiatrist has said she isn't bipolar (her first dx) and recommended she taper off medication, and now there is a constant stream of somatic distress. I figure it's an extinction burst with her professionals and it's splattering everyone.

Last month H and I went on a trip and H drove, so he asked me to respond to SD24's text and calls and my lord. It made me realize he has become relatively immune to what is essentially chronic, intense, nonstop distress. When hook - bait doesn't work, immediately there is something else. He doesn't ignore her and less and less he allows himself to get hooked.

A few days he said what some others here have said, "If she takes her life, I can't stop her. I'm a good father, I've been there for her, she has been given this, that, etcetera and more. She has a psychiatrist, a therapist, family members, she has to decide if she wants to be here and then make that happen. I'll be sad if she kills herself, but my life will go on."

There's so much grief when we look in our rear-view mirror.

H works in health care and there's a therapist connected to his office who says that many, many people talk of SI and a much, much smaller percentage who follow through. We console ourselves with that knowledge. H's main response now is to redirect back to professional help and I believe, because it's shining too much light on her accountability for herself, that she is talking of SI and self-harm less. If SI talk puts responsibility on her, and that isn't what she wants to hear, then she will do it less. That's my take. Being the victim is her jam.

I'm now at: boundaries are a radical act of self-love.

Maybe I wasn't ready for validation, or maybe I'm too maternal or an easy mark. It's like SD24 did an inventory of weaknesses. I try to not invalidate and that's as good as it gets.

Does this not helping seem to be helping? So far, I think so.

H has come a long ways and has some ways to go. Will we ever really know whether this is effective? A therapist once said to me that the best we could hope for with SD24 is functional competence on and off. Maybe that's true, I don't know.

It really, truly is her life and in families with BPD, we really have to feel the sharp edges of boundaries to fully get there. In the Family Connections work, I feel like the emphasis was on rebuilding trust and learning validation skills, and what a lot of families seemed to need was how to have boundaries with people who don't have and might never have them.   

[Leaf56]

Well, livednlearned, you may not be good at validating your SD (as well you shouldn't be, of course), but you did a good job of validating my approach here, and I really appreciate it!

[livednlearned]

I was thinking overnight about the validation part.

It isn't that it doesn't work, because it does. SD24 is much less emotionally reactive when she is being validated. At a minimum, we learned it was important to not invalidate her (bit easier).

It's more like validation created a closeness that SD24 then had to blow up. Validation led to a counter punch, at least with me.

The push/pull was exhausting. It made me feel like a sucker when the punch came, and it always came. I felt mad at myself. I felt stupid and betrayed. I think SD24 seeks out a one-down position in order to feel better about herself. Validating her was like setting myself up to get punched. Sometimes, depending on the topic, she would go into a full-scale dysregulation.

My mistake was thinking the feelings that came with validation had a permanence to them. I believed her responses to my validations were a sign of trust between us.

Because her feelings are so labile, and she doesn't trust (herself, most of all), it's like she is compelled to test or sabotage me because validation introduces vulnerability and trust, feelings she cannot tolerate.

I don't know if that makes sense to others. I'm still trying to work it out.  

Recently we had a family gathering with many of H's relatives. I am inscrutably kind and polite with SD24 and my boundaries are watertight, and yet I noticed she spent a disproportionate amount of time seeking me out.

Sometimes I think she's testing boundaries.
Other times I think she finds relief in those boundaries, even when she's testing them.

I think me having boundaries lets her have boundaries, even if it's only with me, and even if it's only a temporary relief.

The best thing that happened was working out acceptable boundary language with my therapist so that I could come away from interactions feeling at peace with how I handled things.

I also think the centered feeling is critical to this. Without it, I think SD24 would be more reactive when she didn't get validation from me. I tell myself she can feel that the boundaries have an anchor.

It's probably easier in some ways that I'm a step parent and not her parent, although I do see H modeling some of this. He gets hooked regularly but has fallback boundaries, so there's still some yo-yoing.

Light as a fairy, as Lollypop taught me here.  

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

[a2sj]

A scientist performs a frog jumping experiment. He places a healthy frog down on a line in front of a measuring tape. He claps his hands very loudly to trigger the frog to jump. He sees that the frog jumps 10 feet and records this in his notes.

He cuts one leg off the frog, claps loudly again and records that the frog jumps 7 feet with three legs.

He cuts another leg off the frog.  Claps again loudly and records that the frog jumped 5 feet with two legs.

He cuts yet another leg off frog. Claps again loudly and records that the frog jumped 2 foot with one leg.

Cuts the fourth and last leg off the frog. Claps again loudly and notices that the frog no longer jumps.

His Conclusion: Frogs go deaf when all their legs are cut off.

Lesson: Beware of confirmation bias. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

[Leaf56]

a2sj, I'm wondering if you might instead say, "I think you might be practicing confirmation bias" and include an example of how you think the person is doing so, otherwise it feels a bit passive aggressive.

livedandlearned, oh dear. Welp, I feel for you. I could say a whole lot, but really, at the moment you seem to be doing all you can really do considering the very complicated circumstances. I hope you can get her moved out and paying for herself ASAP.

[a2sj]

Nah, that might be considered insensitive, judgemental and/or confrontational. 

[Leaf56]

Ok, but if you’d like to discuss confirmation bias, I’m happy to. And I’m happy to debate. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I think my best when I’m challenged and always appreciate an honest effort to change my mind

[Leaf56]

Update: I experienced what I think was an extinction burst (just learned that term here last week from reading old threads) from my S25 a couple of days ago after a longish period of quiet. He's been trying to engage me in a possibly imaginary physical problem for four months. Much of his dysregulation is focused on it now. If the physical ailment is real and permanent, it would greatly affect his chosen career, and so he's been playing that up big time, even though the past two years of massive dysregulation have come about because he wanted to *quit* his chosen career right before he was about to embark on it (self-sabotage). Of course he knows that the real or imagined physical ailment is something that he can also use to try to engage me. When it first started in July, I bought into the alarm, jumped in, and found the best experts and made the appointments, but I quickly realized (mostly because I'd just started reading here) that it was a trap (queue the Admiral Akbar scene from Star Wars). Since then he's launched a few attempts to engage me via varying methods, but since I wouldn't bite it had mostly died down. Since I didn't engage a couple of days ago and all's been quiet since, I'm hoping it was an extinction burst after all.

[Flossy]

I would say it was an extinction burst. He upped the drama since you started to disengage.

I suggest you start to write on your calendar on the date he does something to engage you. Also, start to identify the methods he uses and note them on the date that he uses them. You will see a pattern.

It is likely he has 3, maybe 4 methods he uses to engage and manipulate you and he will rotate those methods. Not necessarily in the same sequence.

My ex husband (narcissist, not BPD)but as I think they use similar tactics, I think it's relevant...Used 3 methods to engage and manipulate me.

1. Mr Nice Guy
2. Money
3. Guilt

He would rotate them. I would keep this list beside the landline phone and if he rang, I would identify which one he was using as he spoke to me.

I imagine your son would rotate between "Baby boy" reminding you of your relationship & Your Worst Fear (Guilt tripping) - eg: what if I become homeless and someone kills me & Promises - eg: If you do this for me I will do ...

You will know after the first time you analyse it. I used to analyse letters, phone calls and face to face meetings. When I no longer reacted to any of his methods, he gave up. He was too lazy to even develop new methods to try.

I apologise for the poor examples and explanation. I am tired today. But it might help a fraction regardless. Best wishes. F.

[Leaf56]

Thanks, Flossy, and of course you're always a help to me! Keeping a calendar is a good idea because it will allow me to have a visual of the pattern and to see if he's varying his techniques based on his latest call.

You said: "I imagine your son would rotate between:
1) 'Baby boy,' reminding you of your relationship
2) Your Worst Fear (Guilt tripping) - eg: what if I become homeless and someone kills me
3) Promises - eg: If you do this for me I will do...

He jettisoned Promises over the summer when I was no longer indicating interest in his doing anything at all/had no expectations anymore. But he still engages in an adjunct of Promises, which I will call offering hope of some kind that he thinks I want to hear. He hasn't entirely computed that I'm also no longer interested in this.

He hasn't tried full-on guilt tripping in quite a while, again because he knows it won't work, and he knows if he veers into that territory I will hang up immediately.

So of these three he keeps mostly to "baby boy" mode by literally talking like a child, saying "I miss my mom," in a quiet childlike voice, telling me he wants to snuggle, saying he never wants to grow up. Unfortunately for him, this mode makes my skin crawl, and I've told him that in so many words.

Of the ones he had been trying before , he also knows that any kind of aggressive talk will result in an immediate hang-up, so he hasn't done that in the longest time of these modes.

[Flossy]

It's great that you have recognised his patterns already.

 I did Nursing so I find it helps me to detach when I approach things from a Clinical point of view and record them in that manner.

It also helps me to see the changes in my self over time when I look back at my notes or chart.

PS The baby voice would make my skin crawl too.

I can't bear to watch a movie with a BPD female in it. I can't stand the 'waif" expression they turn on or the "Succubus" expression.

 It makes me literally nauseous.
Continued here: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=351670.msg13158415#msg13158415