The smallest things give hope

[skooz]

Little moment of hope with my 21 yo daughter with BPD:  I was talking with her while she was home for her lunch hour and I very gently and cautiously called her out on something she had done that was very insensitive and inconsiderate. She apologized and blushed!  The blush meant more than the apology; she can be quite manipulative and knows how to pull my strings and she can certainly fake saying the "right" things.  But the blush was not fake-able  and it said to me "I know I did something wrong and I am sincere."

I have really been needing to see some clue that her conscience was there, that her heart was still soft/responsive in some way... .  and boom, a blush comes along to tell me what I had no other way of knowing, that she does feel appropriate remorse sometimes for stuff she says and does.

Bless her heart.  Dang I love that girl!

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

[Turkish]

It sounds like that while asserting your values (boundaries) that you touched a validation target 

PwBPD think that their feelings and emotions are worthless; ergo, they are worthless as people.  Shame.

Can you share,  specifically, what you said that elicited her receptiveness?

[Feeling Better]

Hi skooz

Thank you for sharing such a lovely story, I can tell how much it means to you. It is only one small thing but when something like this happens, to us parents it is a massive step in the right direction. And yes, it does take something like that to help us realise that the person we love is still there. Keep sharing skooz x

[bluek9]

Skooz,

    Hi, thanks for sharing your precious moment. I call those my nuggets of gold. It's so spectacular when they come around, we need to celebrate each one. In my life with my BPDD (35) they use to be rare. Now they come often as we are learning to interact on a new level. Keep going, you did something right...

[skooz]

Turkish, my daughter has a cat she calls her "therapy cat."  She is living between home and boyfriend's house, not committing to either residence, and she has taken to lugging the cat back and forth.  The cat has begun peeing and pooping on the carpet in our house because he is stressed! (He is an "only cat" at BF's house and one of three here.) So I talked to her about how I didn't think the back and forth was good for the cat, that he was showing signs of stress, and she was noncommittal.

So last week she loaded him up permanently to take him to her BF's house.  She snuck the litterbox and everything out because she knew that my husband and I were not on board with how she was treating the poor cat. (I found this out later from one of the sisters). So the cat just sort of disappeared, as did DD.  When she was home for lunch this week, I just said "do you have Miles (cat) with you at BF's?" and she said "yes."  I said "I have been worried about him and I didn't know where he was."  (just a "my feelings" statement of fact, unemotional).  She said "aw, I'm sorry mom" and blushed.

I told her it was OK as long as she and the cat were both OK, but that another time it would be nice if she told me what was going on because "you know I worry sometimes."  She responded with "yeah, I will."

I guess all I really did was own all of the emotion in the situation myself and state it all very matter-of-factly.  I avoid blaming or being accusatory.

[skooz]

THanks to all for understanding how these little things can mean so much!