Hello all,
So I'm new to this site but not new to BPD. My DD22 has BPD and has recently left an abusive relationship. She's been back in my home for 3 weeks. I have been raising her child, my grandson, pretty much since he was born in 2018. Now that she is back home, I have been working harder to set and reinforce new boundaries with her. Some days are ok, some feel entirely like an uphill battle.
Her father passed when she was not quite three. My mother (her grandmother), who I just recently found out has been diagnosed with BPD, has been involved in my daughter's life, in her toddler/preschool years as a caregiver when my partner (daughter's bio-father) passed away. I did not process his loss at that time and was physically there but not emotionally for my kids. My mother helped me care for her. Over the years my mother was involved with my daughter in an unhealthy kind of way. Inappropriately close relationship, my daughter was parentified and essentially groomed to meet her grandmother's needs for attachment. My mother would then disappear without a word leaving my daughter devastated. This happened many, many times over. My mother's behavior was so normalized in my family and by me and my siblings that I didn't realize that by allowing my mother to come back, I was essentially enabling my mother's abuse. I don't know why I did not see my mother's behavior for what it was.
My mother and I always had a complicated relationship. I was the mother in my home growing up. I raised my younger siblings. I always thought my mother hated me tbh, she has done everything she could over the years to turn anyone I loved against me. She has done her best to turn my daughter against me, saying things like, your mother loves your brothers more than you, etc. She did this to my daughter for years. In 2016, I sat down with my daughter and I asked her to share with me all of the things I did that let her down, hurt her or how I failed to care for her as a mother. She said some things, I took responsibility and told her I was sorry. I promised her that I would do better. That helped to build some of the trust back. Now that I know my mother (her grandmother) has BPD, I've been out of sorts, sad, angry, full of regret about allowing her around my kids. Why did I magically think she would be different with my kids? I didn't really know the truth of things, I didn't know that this
PLEASE READ was not normal. Sorry for the ramble, I have so many feelings about all of this and anger is at the forefront. (Yes, I started seeing a therapist)
Now that she lives here again post d/v relationship. She competes with her 2 yo son for my attention. She is very high functioning in the sense that she contributes to caring for her son everyday (until she feels overwhelmed, she's never alone and will tell me when she's had enough). She is also very neat and clean and is starting to take pride in her appearance again. She helps around the house. All of these are good things. She is constantly around me looking to have chats with me about how (insert negative trait or behavior here) family members are. We also have a caregiver for my grandson as I work. She believes the caregiver is her nemesis. She constantly wants to complain to me about everything. She also suffers from auditory hallucinations and genuinely believes everyone is talking badly about her behind her back. Constantly accusing people of doing this even when they are otherwise engaged or gone out and couldn't have done so. I have been setting boundaries with her and she rages everytime I enforce them. Some days are good and we make it through, most are not.
The problem I am having, the most immediate one, is that living with my daughter is just like living with my mother again and some days, she drives me crazy. It's like you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. Sometimes, I feel like giving up. I have this little grandson, his safety and well being are so important to me. She compromises the home environment with her behavior. Most days, I can remind her of the boundary and tell her to go downstairs and take a walk, which she will not do without a fight, but eventually she will go. The yelling, the ranting, the accusations, etc. In front of her son. She has not been violent and I feel that she would be more likely to do something to harm herself. I am not a big proponent of medication, but she refuses to take hers, she refuses therapy and she smokes weed at night and complains she doesn't sleep. She will not go get any sort of treatment or help.
Tonight we had a blow out (my grandson was sleeping upstairs). She gets super moody especially at night and knowing this, I try to avoid her somewhat. I encourage her to take a bath, listen to music, watch a movie in her room, etc. I try to talk her into engaging in wind down activities. She'll stay up cleaning. Tonight we got into a conflict as she took something I said the wrong way and then got mad. I asked her to leave the kitchen as I didn't want to fight and she took that as a personal challenge. I love my daughter, but she is so much like my mother that I just want to find her an apartment, pay first and last month's rent for her and move her out. I don't know how to get past these feelings. I'm exhausted. I feel like I have spent my whole life dealing with these behaviors and I would like some peace in my life. It has taken a lot of work for me to get where I am in terms of my own work and healing. Sometimes I wonder what it is that I should be or could be doing about this. Sometimes I feel like there is nothing I can really do as she is an adult and needs to help herself. I don't know anymore.
If you've made it this far, thank you for reading this.
MB
