Recent Estrangement From My BPD Daughter

[msleah]

Hurt Brooklyn:

Thanks so much for reaching out to me. Again, sorry to take a while to respond. Everything has been so hectic lately.

I was saddened to hear about your experience with your own daughter. It's so hurtful when someone you love decides to cut off all contact. My understanding of BPD is that it is innate and not caused by the parents. Parents can exacerbate the condition, but BPD does have a biological component.

In the mind of a BPD person, everyone is either all good or all bad. This phenomenon is known as "splitting", and it is beyond frustrating for people who love the BPD sufferer. Often, one or more of the parents ends up being demonized as a result. Also, the person with BPD tends to react extremely strongly to perceived hurts that other people would tend to blow off more easily.

A BPD person can be hell on wheels in romantic relationships, as well. My daughter has always been fairly private, but I gather that her relationships have been quite stormy. She is usually not friends with her exes and tends to cut off all contact with them.

Those months-long no-contact periods can be brutal. My daughter and I were out of contact for four months until she finally sent me an email to re-establish communication. She told me she was still angry, but she won't elaborate further. I feel as though her decision to reach out was prompted by pity for my husband, who has stage 4 cancer and has been very hurt by her rejection of me. Prior to her email, she had been communicating with him, but not with me.

My advice would be to reach out periodically with pleasant little notes -- nothing too heavy. If she wants to write back and say more, she will. As Tom Petty wrote, waiting is the hardest part.

I certainly understand and can relate to the feeling of never being good enough for my daughter. It's a terrible emotion, but when it comes up, I try to sit with it until it subsides (somewhat). I reassure myself that I did the best I could. I'm sure you did, as well.

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

[HurtBrooklyn]

Thanks, Msleah:  I much appreciate your response. I hope your husband is comfortable and can't imagine the difficulty you are going through now.  It is so kind of you to respond to me. I'm torn between reaching out to my daughter and respecting her no contact wishes. The longest she has gone is 4 months. We're on month 3 now. I appreciate your info about BPD and telling me her thoughts and actions are not all of my fault. The false memories and the total negation of the many many wonderful times we had as she grew up are the worst for me to bear. I will take you advice and if I don't hear from her in the next few weeks, I'll probably text her or instant message her. Thank you.