31 year daughter with BP expecting twins causing much stress for family

[Anondad]

This is my first post and I am completely new to this. Two years ago we discovered that our only daughter (age 31) might have Borderline Personality Disorder. Over the last two years as we have learned more we are convinced she is a BP and most likely has Narcissistic traits as well. She met a young man about 6 months ago and is 4 months pregnant expecting twins.  Her mood swings and outbursts have been a constant stream of emotional abuse and rages (more so than her tirades in the past). Her boyfriend has threatened to evict her because she won't let him get any rest and continually begs him for money. When confronted with eviction she cried and said she realizes she indeed has BP and will seek help. Her pregnancy is at risk due to her stress and a medical condition but instead of seeking help as she claimed she has blasted her mother and I for not readily spending hundreds of dollars for baby items for the "reveal" etc. It has caused me so much stress at work that it has affected my performance at my job. My employer is graciously giving me a leave of absence to try help her get aid.  She is employed part time due to Covid and has received unemployment but does not spend her money on her bills (i.e. car insurance, etc.). She rages at her boyfriend and her mother and I for not giving her money to cover her bills and she buys expensive baby items without asking us or trying to save any money or meet her bills. We tried to help with some baby items but she keep coming up with more expensive items plus she wants money for her bills. Since we don't immediately give her what she wants she refuses to seek help and vows that we will never see the children. I have tried to get her set up for psychiatric evaluation but they need her to confirm her insurance etc. and now she will not cooperate at all. One of the babies is underweight and her emotional stress is making things worse according to her MD. I pray someone might have some guidance. Since she doesn't have much money and finding someone who deals with BP has been more complicated than I realized. Sorry if this is rambling. My wife and I are going through Randi Kreger's book "The Essential Family Guide to BPD" and that is how I found out about this site. Forgive me if this is too rambling. I am concerned for her health and the babies (and her boyfriend and our family too - it is very difficult).

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

[Naughty Nibbler]

Hi Anondad:

Sorry about what you are dealing with.  It's a tough situation.  

You are going to have to keep setting boundaries and enforce them consistently. If not, she will use emotional blackmail to try and get what she wants. If she is successful in getting you to pay for things, it will just continue over and over. Sounds like she needs to be forced to start managing money, even if she learn it the hard way.

What do you anticipate will happen with the father?  How does he feel about the pregnancy?  

What are your thoughts if she asks to move to your house with the twins?

You might consider some counseling for you and your partner to help you make decisions and navigate through this.  It's best to not make decisions from FOG (Fear, Obligation and Guilt).  

Your daughter need to get into treatment, but that's hard to do, if they don't want it.  If she neglects/abuses her children, and gets reported, she could be forced into treatment at some point.  

If you go to the large green band towards the top of the page, you will find a "Tools Menu".  You will find links to various communication strategies.  I suggest starting out with "Don't Invalidate (feelings)", "Boundaries" and then check out the Workshop area.

Do you have additional children and perhaps other grandchildren?

[Anondad]

Thank you for  your reply.

I will try to answer the questions in order.

* What do you anticipate will happen with the father?
He is very involved and our daughter currently is living with him (but her legal residence is still at our house). The tension with her mood changes and demanding more money for baby items forced him to prepare an eviction notice with her. It was then she said she would seek help and that she finally believes what her mother and I have been saying that she might have BPD. He is holding off on the eviction since she is showing real effort to get counseling and help.

* How does he feel about the pregnancy? He wants to be the father to the twins. He has been married before but there were no children. His attitude can be summed up when he told our daughter, "I want the person I fell in love with. Not this person I don't know when you become so angry."

Our daughter has been diagnosed as a child with Attention Deficit Disorder and the Scottish Rite thought she may show signs of dyslexia (her school teachers challenged that claim). While she was on my insurance I set up three evaluations for her with professionals but she backed out each time (she was 18 then). She left our insurance due to age when she turned 26. 

* What are your thoughts if she asks to move to your house with
  the twins?
We would prefer she live with their father but if she doesn't get real help he won't be able to live with her. We are not sure if she can even take care of a baby let alone two given her impulse spending and great mood swings. She loves children and is good with her god children (her best friends boy and girl) but that is not taking care of your own.

She seems to have calmed down with the father and he is allowing her to stay for now but she is incredibly hateful to her mother and I when we don't just hand over money to her. Of course we want to help with the new babies but as an example she wanted $300 plus for the baby shower, $200 for baby items, $200 for the baby reveal, $300 to pay for her car insurance and this is all even before the babies arrive. She didn't have the money for her car insurance because she spent so much on high chairs etc. that she does not have to have immediately. When we point this out she explodes saying we don't care and we will never see the children etc., etc. but then when she wants money she comes back asking for more. We told her if anything is over $50 we would have to talk about it because we have to budget. She is angry because we don't immediately agree to her demands and she says nothing about the money she has already gotten.

We are setting limits and boundaries working with her. Our concern is she get so stressed and depressed she is putting stress on the twins. One  baby is now underweight and her doctor has listed her as a 'high risk' pregnancy due to a medical condition she has  with her uterus. When we try to talk with her and calm her down she just responds with hateful texts messages or phone calls and wishes we were dead, saying we have never been there for her etc. I know it is the BPD but it seems even when we do help her she will stress over something else next. It has grown much worse now that she is pregnant. She was never abused or abandoned as a child and had a stable two parent home (although I had to work two jobs to support the family while the children were young and so was not at home as much as my wife was with them).

* Counseling? Yes we are taking advantage of counseling - through our insurance and Employee Assistance program at work and also using the tools you mentioned on the website and going through Randi Kreger's book "The Essential Family Guide to BPD".

Thanks for the advice. My wife and I will go through the "Don't Invalidate
and "Boundaries" links today.

* Do you have additional children and perhaps other grandchildren?"

Yes! Our son and his wife and our only grandchild so far live with us.
They have been working to get a place of their own (our daughter-in-
law has completed her degree for teaching and is working on her getting
her test for her teacher's certificate). The grandson was born with special needs and although he does have some challenges is doing well with his cognitive skills to the point they want to evaluate him for possibly to see if he is gifted.

Our youngest son is also living with us after graduating college and is working on saving for his house which he plans to move into by June this year.

Our daughter due to her learning issue (ADD diagnosed at age 7) and low self esteem has not sought any further education after high school nor believes any would help her. She stopped taking medication to help her ADD when she turned 18. I believe she may have some for of dyslexia, ADD, BPD, and possibly narcissistic personality disorder traits (at least as far as we are finding out from Randi Kreger's book).

Her boyfriend says they have found a psychiatrist they trust and she is willing to see her but it is taking time to set up further appointments.

Thank you for the information about FOG. My employer is giving me time off to help her and also help myself due to the impact this has had on my performance. It has been difficult for me because my only brother took is life in 1990 at age 30. From what I know now I believe he struggled with BPD or something very close to it also. Struggling with those emotions and how our daughter has been acting did cause me a lot of conflict. One help on the site was learning the difference between the emotional mind, the logical mind, and the wise mind. I certainly struggled with my emotions and reason. I found it difficult to balance the two (i.e. stress keeping me awake at night and impacting my performance at work which was quite demanding). I am working through this too and it is helping. I don't respond in anger anymore to my daughter as I did in the past before we discovered this could be a medical condition (about 2 years ago).   

If she cannot remain with the father and comes back to our home without getting professional help we know it will be hard trying to live with her. We don't want to kick her out on the street with two babies. Right now we are trying to help make sure she remains healthy for herself and the twins. Sticking with the boundaries we have set only seems to make her more angry and puts stress on her and them. Somewhat of a very tough go no matter which way we turn. We are also doing a lot of praying. Thank you so much for your comments.

[PearlsBefore]

From what I've seen, pregnancy and new motherhood (I assume these will be her first?) can be huge stressors.

My main pwBPD was roughly the same age, and similarly was more interested in having parties and slipping words and phrases like "my baby bump is my lovely lady hump now" into conversation that suggested she still thought only of herself rather than the child. Sounds like that's your "what about my Reveal party?" stress right now. Of course while she whined about how she needing things like new styles of bras for each stage of pregnancy, of course she didn't actually ever take them home or open the packages...it was more about proving that people loved her enough to buy the stuff for her. (That dreaded BPD insecurity that everyone secretly hates them and is looking to leave them). You might consider if you could tweak her self-interest, make it so that once Baby B has caught up to Baby A in size a little more then you'll arrange that party or buy her the matching sailor suits...but give her a selfish goal she can focus on that involves her taking better care of the children.

As a point of interest, my pwBPD had no interest whatsoever in choosing a name for the child right up until even after it was born - the father had given a few suggestions and when she indicated she really didn't care, he selected one himself. When people suggested she "rename" the baby a month after it was born to better fit with her new social group, she did so, but then went back and re-re-named it and finally declared rather passively that she really didn't care what it was called so long as someone else would change the diapers and feed it. One thing none of her relatives and friends had foreseen was that she didn't want to breastfeed because she was worried it would ruin the shape of her breasts (again, she was not very young which made the concern more strange) - so you might want to not take anything for granted, get some relative to slip in some references to her about how nice the process is to know that the baby needs you in that way, is learning affection for you by seeing you as its lifeforce and basically satisfies all her BPD needs if she does her darned job.

Where she's not likely to be careful with the pregnancy, you'll want to find a way to do it yourself without coming across as overbearing. When a certain pwBPD was cautioned against vigorous exercise she quickly announced she was intending to join her friends in her first-ever 5k...it was never clear if she was wishing to "accidentally" abort the child but restrained by her own sense of morality, or was just lackadaisical about it. Obviously alcohol and drugs are a common problem with BPD.

On money, obviously not knowing your situation, but I'd tend to say her most reasonable request there is that she blew her car insurance payment (dang that's high, insurer get wind of BPD, ?) on her excitement about baby needs...if I were in your shoes I'd personally offer to cover that single payment and stress that in the future she consider thrift stores, classifieds ads and hand-me-downs for baby furniture and such. Unfortunately the world has changed drastically over the last generation or two and if she tries to prepare for her child the way you prepared for her - she'll end up in these financial straits.

The stress commonly felt by BPDs can, when compounded, cause early delivery although in my experience not so early that the child was lost or anything. But she's had four children, all of them born before their due date - I assume the BPD is related. One thing you might try that appeared to have helped is both folic acid supplements (important for pregnancy, useless if not pregnant) and oily fish a/o fish livers, etc which seemed to help in her case (you'll read conflicting reports online, "it's the best idea evar, omegas for the win!" and "omg, who would ever risk so much Vit A?", etc...I swear the internet is the worst thing to ever happen to the medical world). The major problem is that she hated the taste - so it would have to be a trade-off, "eat a tin of sprats pate and then your mother has fudgesicles in the freezer for you", "we can order pizza tonight if you'll do the quadruple-dose of folic acid and a shot glass of healthful elixir first", etc.

One thing that might help ensure the twins' safety in the first twelve months is if you and your son/DIL were to "babysit" them several days a week regardless of where your d31 is living. Of course she'll likely bristle if you suggest it, so suggest the opposite - go good-cop, bad-cop on her with your spouse and initially suggest "You know our household can't just be free babysitting for you whenever you want" and let her freak out about how unfair it is that you placed that boundary, then "give in" and agree you'll let her drop off the children any time she needs. You might find the twins' father is a helpful co-conspirator on one or two of these plans, since it seems he's also at his wit's end trying to "do the right thing" yet debating whether to dump her back on your doorstep...compromise might be reached here in my experience. They're awkward conversations, but can be productive - just don't let your d31 find out or mis/interpret them as everybody hating her and wanting to get rid of her.

I have no idea how the Scottish Rite fits into the story, but will hope that they just run a medical centre in your area and you're not actually seeking medical advice from the group otherwise .

[Anondad]

Hello. Thank you.

We just received word while she was at the doctor that the birth weight of one of the babies is at 50% which is critical.

If I understand are you saying we should give in to her demands until the babies are born to keep her from being stressed? She will not let us rationally talk with us.

* Car insurance: she shared a family policy but due to her repeated accidents and refusing to pay her portion of the premium we had to take her off our policy. Her cost is high due to her number of accidents.

We are trying to find out more since she just left the doctor. Another family member mentioned folic acid and she said she discussed this with her doctor but getting information from her when she is angry is not easy. I will try to find out.

It sounds like your BP is similar to her. It seems she wants the trappings of the reveal, shower, etc. but not the wisdom to try to save money for what she might need. She and the young man are not married and at this point he is cautious after seeing such a change in her personality.

[PearlsBefore]

There may be nothing that can be done to save the second twin, it may simply be preordained that he not survive (so be careful not to loose your frustration or anger on her if it ends up that way, God-willing it does not)...but in the meantime I'd say to invest your efforts in trying. If you just give her $1000 today, it won't help the infant - but if you tell her that certain benchmarks basically have "prizes", it may be more helpful for the whole family.

Is she taking an anxiolytic to manage her stress and anxiety? I absolutely swear by the efficacy of alprazolam (xanax).  "Obviously consult your doctor and do not find a way for her to use it off-prescription in the meantime as I may or may not have done and subsequently ensured survival". I've seen Escitalopram and Lorezapam in action, but neither of them had the same zen-to-the-amygdala effect as alprazolam. It goes on the list of "favourite drugs out there", and yes - loved ones of pwBPDs sometimes have such a list 

While I know stress/anxiety can induce miscarriage, my concern was always greater that the stress/anxiety would lead to self-harm episodes that would be of far greater risk. As I said, in my very limited sample pool - the stress resulted in the children being born early every time...but that's still a win. The game isn't "get the babies to come out at 9lb6", it's to get them out alive by any means necessary.

If boardgames or DVDs could entice her to a few zero-drama dinners, you could always quietly make sure that the cooking is rich in everything she needs to make up for the rest of the week. Could even just mention that you've decided for the duration of the pregnancy you'll give her $25 cash whenever she comes over for dinner without anyone uttering anything loathesome...you know, "to help with baby costs". It'll result in more visits, more nutrients, less drama, and should end up costing you no more than her insane "Oh, did I mention I put $100 on my credit card for baby shoes from Sweden?" quirks do right now...

And you can ask your son to let her gripe to him about what sucky parents you two are, for the duration of the pregnancy; nobody has to legitimately believe it, but it'll help her calm TF down and have an outlet and feel validated.