We are hoping to gain insight

[Tibor]

I learned about this site in the Mason/Kreger "Eggshell" book.

My daughter is the center of my/and mom's concern as she manifests/displays many of the characteristics currently described in BPD literature. I am currently her local support person as I live one hour from her home.Her Mom is actively involved as well but lives 2 K away and is acting CEO of a major corporation. Mom, despite her schedule makes time to visit for a week at a time and has daily phone/text/email contact.

Our daughter  is highly educated and highly intelligent. She attends weekly treatment with specialists and is actively working on strategies to deal with negative thought spirals, etc. She struggles with abandonment issues, and frequently and suddenly goes into negative thought spirals. She will take responsibility for anything/everything that goes wrong and will never take responsibility for all the wonderful things she accomplishes. Two years ago she ended a bad marriage and that event seems to have been the starting point for her current struggles.

Mom and I understand that we cannot change our daughter. That is her mountain to climb. Our interest is in being effective support persons so that we can nurture the person our daughter is today.

We are hoping to gain insight from this site on how to support both our daughter and ourselves.

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

[FaithHopeLove]

Hello Tibor
I am glad you found us. Welcome to the group. Eggshells is a great book. Many of us, myself included, have read it. I am sorry to hear that your daughter is struggling with what appears to be BPD. It sounds like you and her mother are giving her great support though and that is really important. This is a great place to get reliable information. What do you want to learn about first? Perhaps we can help you find the information you need
hugs
Faith

[Tibor]

Hi Faith,

Thank you for the encouragement! Always appreciated/greatly valued.

I think it would be helpful to better understand how to respond to my daughter when she gets into a negative thought spiral. I have learned that silence and trying to be verbally supportive can both be unproductive. I am also getting better at seeing onset behavior related to this dynamic. The S.E.T. style responses seem to be helpful and I lately have seen her do more internal intervention based on work with professionals. However, it is always painful to watch a love one trash themselves...especially when her negative-only reasoning is not close to reality.

My priorities may be off on this, but yes I think that would be my first thing to learn  about. This part of her struggle is often daily and I have to believe there is something I can do to assist (help her help herself) my daughter on this.

Thanks for asking,

Tibor

[FaithHopeLove]

I see you are really on top of things. SET is great. Maybe the next thing to focus on is Validation When my son is spiraling it is the only thing that helps. He still spirals but at least he feels heard. See what you think.

[Tibor]

Faith,

Thank you. Very helpful suggestion and thank you for the resource connection. 

Tibor