Step daughter is high conflict/drama, I think had bpd.

[Rosiespal]

I’ve been the primary female parent to a stepdaughter I think may have BPD. I’d love some input. I just finished stop walking on eggshells, it was very helpful, and helped me confirm some suspicions. My daughter came into my life when I met my husband 8 years ago. She was 10. She has a twin brother as well. Their mother is an alcoholic who was also a cutter and made at least 2 suicide attempts as well (I also think she has BPD). At least one of her cutting events occurred when she was alone with the children. My daughter asked for therapy pretty soon after I met her. She claimed anxiety and depression but it always seemed “not quite right” examples include:: she would tell us she was so anxious she shook, but would then hold her had up which didn’t shake, when she noticed she started shaking it. Her first therapist she went to after she threatened self harm and told us she was a normal teenager and had no mental illness: that night she scratched the inside of her wrist with a razor blade (I suspected she’s eavesdropped on my conversation, she does this a lot). Never attempted self harm again but it is her “go to” to bring up when she wants to deflect from a topic that is too painful for her to discuss, so we don’t communicate well: everything is superficial and on her terms. Her second therapist I think was better, she felt my daughter was working on a personality disorder but her signs weren’t obvious enough to diagnose prior to 18, and I think she was correct. My daughter was well behaved in “the world” but high conflict at home, often creating dramas about her mental health that never felt right (she is very attached to her self-made diagnosis of anxiety and depression but no mental health professional has given her that diagnosis). Just before her 18 th birthday she stopped going to the therapist that suspected a behavior disorder and started seeing a woman who was her guidance counselor in middle school. As a guidance counselor I felt she was not very good. She did the math that my daughter was a straight a student and let her read Harry Potter in her office rather than engage her on days my daughter didn’t feel like going to class. So I am fearful that my daughter has intentional found a therapist who will tell her what she wants to hear rather than help her work on her true diagnosis.

Anyway the first thing that made me realize she was different: she is unable to have a true conversation. She walks into a room and has no interest in or understanding of the current conversation and just starts monologuing about herself. Often choosing to speak about things to the very person that is least able to accept those words (ie talking to my husband or me about how much she loves to drink alcohol and use marijuana, often providing unnecessary details about the quantity or dangerous experiences) we’ve learned  not to fight with her, so a lot of these conversations die with her just stopping talking but us being silent or saying something lame like “that sucks” or “sorry to hear that” and her leaving the room. This never got better from age 10 and I can truthfully say I’ve had maybe half a dozen real conversations with her and I am embarrassed to admit they only occurred when I was complaining about another person to her. She loves to blame and complain and when I have a weak moment and complain myself, that’s when I feel closest to her.

When my daughter is having a “down day” we do our best to acknowledge her feelings but reinforce that this is not a free pass to excuse her responsibilities. When we ask her to still, for example, try to do some homework, or go to school, she will either sabotage herself (or do no homework and fail a test)or go to guidance and say she is “afraid to tell us” she is depressed. Now that she is in college things are worse. She lived at home for the first semester due to covid, but was miserable and “no offense, but Hates it here” Now she is in the dorms and “shouldn’t be left alone” 

Sadly her mother is in her life again. She is now sober and in AA but still has a high conflict personality. Of course mom is “the only one that gets me” and “is a goddess” while each therapist my daughter sees calls my husband and carefully probes about whether I am an abuser (not super fun, but it did help the good therapist come to an understanding of my daughters issues). We used to joke that my daughter didn’t have a therapist but a “paid best friend” because when we could speak to the therapist about her, they either said she was fine or (the good one) said they needed to maintain rapport until she was 18 so she could make a diagnosis. And nothing got better. I tried talking to her several times about whether she wanted to see someone to get formally diagnosed and she said “I know what I have” now I am trying to talk to her about whether she wants to work with her current therapist to explore whether she has another diagnosis besides her self-made ones: you can guess the answer was no and she followed it up with “we are just trying to stop me from scratching your skin off” she has no physical evidence that she does this. This is a common theme that seems different from BPD, she talks frequently about thoughts of self harm and suicide (less so) but always when she is either not getting her way or in a situation where someone is trying to get too close or probing too deeply. It always ends the conversation and changes it to her, so the behavior is reinforced

Anyway I’m open to thoughts about my experience. I don’t have a specific question apart from does this story sound familiar? She doesn’t rage, but she can be exceedingly manipulative and will use tears and sadness (and can cry on command, something she brags about to her friends and has demonstrated to me) in a similar way to get what she wants. Though she loves animals and is in school to be a nurse I don’t get a lot of empathy from her. Rather she likes care giving because of the praise it gets her. I think praise is what she craves, and why college isn’t going so well is that there aren’t the golf stars, pats on the back or built-in praise she needs and I feel so badly for her. I know she is hurting but what comes out of her mouth just seems superficial and not quite true to my gut. So I don’t know how to respond. I’m going to try mirroring and validating in my next interaction, we shall see how that goes. I don’t think I’ve seen her smile apart from when she is given money or bought take out in over a year. Thank you all for being here

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

[PearlsBefore]

 

Welcome to BPDFamily, happy to meet you, sorry you're here...

Whether your daughter has a mood disorder, personality disorder or simply trauma from her childhood is not instantly clear to me - depending on the circumstances of her mother's departure and how much access she had prior to your introduction it could also be something like RAD/DAD rearing it's ugly head (although that's far better news than BPD is, if this forum isn't too biased).

The "deliberately talking to the person most likely to be upset by the news" is something I haven't seen mentioned very often in the forum (though I may have just missed it) but is definitely something I recognize. The closest BPD in my life knew that I believed her libertine ways were leading her down a bad path in life that wasn't helping her sanity and tenuous grasp on reality...but would send me almost pornographic emails describing what she had done this week, sometimes under the guise of just "seeking advice, because I trust you", etc. So there are dozens of these emails of "Oh yes, I only enjoy c****l****s if the guy is spanking me", or "Today I was with a married man who said I'm just a piece of a** and he doesn't love me, but his wife is a b****, what do you think, is this okay?", etc.

Why? Ultimately I think it tied into her frustration that I was relatively serene and rarely showed emotion towards her - in her BPD-lack-of-an-identity mind, she worried that she "didn't exist" except by how people perceive her. So being ignored meant she felt like she had literally become a ghost, and to become "real" again she needed people to feel strong emotion about her, positive or negative. (and from the sounds of it, the sex partners never professed love/hate for her - not sure she's been in a monogamous relationship in her life). I'd guess it's something similar with your daughter both seeking to become a nurse despite lacking empathy AND telling her father about her drug use, either positive or negative feedback assures her she exists. The issue is, while ignoring the behavior and not reacting positively or negatively is a great way to reach an extinction burst and eliminate the problematic behavior in normal psychology...personality disorders, and especially BPD/ASPD, are a fickle beast and I'm not sure anyone's yet figured them out.

So my best suggestion? Pretend you're horrified by some small detail (dying hair, leather miniskirts, two earrings in the same ear, refuses to wear matching socks, whatever), like that's the biggest possible betrayal and scarification and upsets you far more than the self-harm, drugs or suicide threats, etc. Then she'll feel like she got the most attention and felt the most "real" through that route, and next year's rebellion may be lesser because she simply decides to get a THIRD earring on the left side just to REALLY annoy you all.

[Rosiespal]

Thank you! The needing attention to feel real sounds a lot like my daughter. When she needs attention she will get it anyway she can. My instincts have been that responding with silence is not the most loving way for her needs but am trying to navigate how to do it without causing more conflict. Thank you so much for your thoughts and advice!