Advice for Parents

[squirrel20]

Our daughter has BPD. It’s too much to explain how destructive she has been for 10 years...it’s complete crazy making.

Her biggest issue is going after people and projecting on to them. I am her biggest target. She destroyed our relationship with many family members badmouthing dad and I. It’s been 10 years of trying to figure out what is wrong with her. She also targeted her former mother in law causing major problems in their household as well.


She was doing well during the 5 year relationship. Huge Catholic wedding last year. Within a month, she started a new job and met some guy at the hospital, cheated on her new spouse and quickly divorced. It was out of left field for us and we started to learn about many behaviors from her now ex-husband. They live out of state.

We did not support her behavior and she started her usual blaming of us: we are toxic, we are passive-aggressive, Mom is harassing me. She ran back to family members that tolerate her behavior (because dad’s side seriously lacks boundaries) and we are even more alienated than we were.

New boyfriend has now dumped her. We hear through the grapevine that she and “processed and worked through this” and is wanting to reconnect with us.

I want to be ready with better tools to deal with her. I plan to set some strict boundaries. But how can we demand them of a 27 year old. I’d also like some advice on the suicide mentions she has made and how serious to take them. She herself is a psychiatrist nurse.

Any advice is welcome.

 

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

[Swimmy55]

Welcome , we are glad to hear from you,
Many BPDs do have suicidal ideation.   Here is a link that may be helpful from this site
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=79032.0
1. I would ask her straight out about her suicidal thoughts and if she has a plan of harming herself .  Don't think that you are putting it into her head by bringing it up- it is already there . Providing an opening for her to talk could help.  Unfortunately, suicidal ideation is common.  If she has a plan,  that would kick it up to seeking outside help for her.  In my case , my  then 11 year old had  this and I called our county's crisis team to come out to talk with him.    
2. Self sabotage is also common with BPD( crashing up her marriage) .  This also could tie into her feeling suicidal because of shame of being out of control.
3. By all means have boundaries.  You are just as important as your daughter. True , you have no control on if she follows  them , but that is what  consequences are for. They could be whatever you feel is appropriate/ can stick to.  For example, if she calls up screaming at you, your boundary can be in order to talk, she must refrain from  verbal abuse or else you will hang up and will call back at a later time when things have calmed down.

Have a look around this forum, click onto different names and their posts/ stories will come up.  Please write back to us and keep us posted.

[Summerdaze12]

Welcome, and yes, many things our loved ones say or do make no sense at all. My adult daughter has pretty much alienated all of her siblings and no longer has her close friends that she had through out her high school and college years.

What I have found that has been very helpful is reading and re-reading as much as I could on validating her, and what to say when she is very dysregulated. I went as far as copying and pasting some of the key phrases so that when she called, I was ready.  I also learned to say " I can hear that you are very upset, and I want to know more, however, I need you to stop yelling, or we will have to continue this conversation later."  I only repeat that once, and then if she continues to escalate, I usually say something along the lines of  " I can hear that you are very upset, however, you are still yelling, so I will talk to you later when "things" settle down."  This has worked very well for me, even so much as the last two times she has gotten escalated, she has called back hours later to apologize. That was something that never happened before.

I also have found that because I am her one constant person in her life, that I make a point of checking in every day, just to say hello. This has also been helpful because I find that things don't escalate and brew for as long. I honestly used to dread talking to her, but that is not the case anymore.
 
My daughter refuses any counseling at this point, which I can understand b/c she has never had the right kind (DBT), so I am now working on reading the DBT workbook in hopes that I can help her with some change strategies. I don't know if that's even possible, but I am going to give it a try.
I have also found these recordings very helpful ( I even copied and pasted some of her responses).  Hope some of this helps- keep us posted.

Family Connections: Must-Have Skills (October 16, 2011)
by Marie-Paule deValdivia

https://www.borderlinepersonalitydisorder.org/recordings-for-families/