Wanting to Move In

[M-T]

Our 20yo BPD daughter has been staying with us for the last 4 days. She stays with her boyfriend and he's out of town, she has no friends, and so she feels alone and came to stay with us. She didn't really ask how long she could stay, just stated how long she'd be here.

Her lease on her apartment (that she doesn't stay at) is about to run out and after the last year of her losing many jobs and my husband and I having to financially support her in many ways - and also setting boundaries around the amount of money we're willing to help with - we have decided that we will not co-sign with her again. It's too risky and she hasn't followed through with her responsibilities.

She recently accused us (mostly me) of many terrible and untrue things - like not financially supporting her, never being there for her, expecting too much of her as a child, etc. - and since then I have really taken steps to read more about BPD, accept it, and stop feeling so guilty about what her life is like. I'm trying to work on better validation communication. It's really hard because she is SO intense when you are communicating and her feelings are so outlandish and the behaviors she's describing aren't great... You can barely get a word in with her and conversations escalate so quickly (even when you are agreeing with her!). I know I'm failing at the first step - "listen w/o judgement" - but it's challenging.

One of the boundaries I'm working on - and admittedly haven't probably clearly communicated to her - is that I'm taking her for her word. So, for example the other night she listed off a bunch of things that are bothering her and causing deep depression followed up by "I don't want to talk about it rn". So I did not push. I just invited her to come stay with us that night or to call if she needed. Awhile back I was trying to get a sense of her plans when her lease runs out. She basically said, "I have this under control and I don't need your help." So I'm trying to take her word on that. Anytime I try to ask questions about what's going on or plans - really I just want to see if there's a way to help her - she gets upset or defensive. So since she has been here I just avoid it unless she brings something up and then I'm very careful in how I approach it. My method in recent years has been to stay pretty silent. I know that's not always the best approach but for me it's the easiest. I go into fight/flight with her and it's really hard for me to think through the steps of validation or conflict resolution, etc. So I'm quiet.

Since she's been here, it's been just okay. She will often go outside and sulk and I feel she is seeking attention or for someone to ask her what's wrong or if she needs to talk but I avoid giving her attention in that way. I feel if she needs something, she should use her words to communicate that. She doesn't help around the house...we eat dinner and she's gone. She got in the hot tub with our 5yo son and we were nearby but not in plain sight and she just left him in there alone. When my husband asked her where she was she was around the side of the house and said she was going right back over there. But she went inside...As mentioned above, conversations with her are really intense. I can't be myself when she is around. She lived with us during 8 months of the pandemic and it was awful.

All this to provide context for a question. She has been hinting at having no plan for a future place to live. It's never clear if her and her bf will be living together (that decision seems to change). She has hinted at being "homeless." My 12yo son (my sons adore her which is lovely) asked us in front of her if she could live with us. We have a small home that we moved to last year and I just said, "That would be hard with all the bedrooms already full," and she said - half jokingly - "Oh I'll just throw a tent in the backyard." I just laughed it off. The next day she mentioned it again, always passively. She's always "fished" for offers of help. She mentioned the idea to her boyfriend and his response was, "I'll come with you!"

So...if it's not clear...she cannot live with us. She cannot stay in a tent in our yard. But I have no idea how to tell her that and I feel the question is coming up. And, of course, my mind jumps ahead to...what if she will be homeless? She hasn't worked in a couple months now. She paid last month's rent from a car accident insurance claim. I don't know her plan for paying August rent. She is getting a little money from her grandma (her mom's mom - I'm stepmom but I've raised her since she was 9). She seems to be applying to jobs but even if she gets one, no guarantee she can keep it. How do you tell your daughter they can't live with you when they are struggling? Any other advice around the very long post. Also - FYI - I'm already in therapy and have been for many years now.

Thank you!

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

[Isabel2]

We are in the same situation and it is tough but I think you have to consider the whole family when it comes to making and communicating the decision.  We have told our 19 year old daughter (I am also step-mom) that she cannot come stay at home right now. We are thinking about the other 4 people in the family, the struggles they are going through and the effects of her behaviors on the other two children who are still minors at home. Our daughter still has money (she received life insurance from her bio mom who passed away).  We have set up a kinds of positive support - if she would get her license we would buy her a car, if she spent her part of the life insurance on college we would pay the rest, we have encouraged counseling, and paid for psy. hospitals etc.  She chooses to stop meds, quit counseling and in the last few months spending her life ins/college money on all kinds of luxuries. Our therapist has said we are enabling her and that she might need to hit rock bottom before she works to gets better. I guess we had to make the decision - does her mental health matter more than the other 4 people in the family, do we want to set up support that encourages her to help herself and do we want to have to economically support her for the rest of her life when she has good amount of money she is just blowing? We are 100% willing to help her if she takes even baby-steps to help herself - things like consistent counseling, staying on medications etc. we even drew up an "adult contract" delineating how we will help and what her responsibilities are.  So, I guess we look at it that she does have choices...if she is willing to take baby steps to help herself we are willing to help her.  We are not at the point yet where she would be homeless since she still has the life insurance money...and right now she has been in and out of a psy. hospital and crashing with friends in-between.  If she gets to the point of being homeless and chooses not to take positive steps to receive our help then we will ensure that she knows where homeless shelters are and food banks. There really does not seem to be a good solution - it is either enable, take care of the person and live with the behaviors or let them go to make their own decisions and face the natural consequences of those decisions.     

[M-T]

Isabel2 - Thanks for your response. It always blows me away how many people have nearly identical experiences. My daughter also does a lot of compulsive spending. I've watched her go through thousands of dollars in a matter of weeks on what seems like nothing. We also try to use incentives like...we pay for half of something w/in reason (a car, a deposit, etc.). We had to set up a contract last year as well, outlining some loan terms (basically we were paying for part of her bills and loaning her part of them). I considered adding medication into that contract (because she also does not consistently take meds even though it helps) but we decided against it because we just feel it's something we don't have control over. But I see how it could be a good "carrot" for other things - for example, "You can't live here unless you take medication." She probably then wouldn't come but even that is too risky a promise for me to make. And she would probably start and then stop and we'd be stuck. But yes - it could be for other incentives. When we asked her to discuss and sign the contract, she freaked out and told us what terrible people we were for making our own daughter sign a contract. She refused to sign until a few weeks later when the bills were finally due.

It's definitely not worth risking the rest of my family's mental health. It takes a huge toll on me. My 12yo is always excited when she comes home but after a couple days he starts asking questions or commenting on how she is always in a bad mood, etc. She talks about "not seeing herself here for long" in front of him and she is vague enough about it that I don't think he always picks up on it but he probably does more than I know. That's just not okay.

She does go to therapy consistently, I think because she really needs an audience for all her complaints, so for that I'm grateful. Right now, she is driving around without insurance. I have asked her about it multiple times (asking for the car info to add to our insurance but that is one bill we've always asked her to pay) over text and she ignores. Her dad asked her about it and she basically said, "I can't afford it right now; I'm not ready." I walked in on the conversation and said, "You know how risky that is right? You could put yourself in a huge amount of debt." And, as usual, the conversation immediately escalated and turned to her yelling. It's hard for me not to offer to just pay for it because of how risky it is but - as you say below - natural consequences...

Anyway, a question for you. You told your daughter she can't live with you right now. HOW did you tell her that? For example, did you give her honest reasons/examples. I feel so unable to be honest with my daughter about how her presence affects us for multiple reasons: 1. Any criticism is obviously felt very deeply and fuels her feelings of self-hate; 2. She denies those actions anyway and blames us or finds ways to turn it around on us that we aren't being understanding of her struggles; 3. the conversation escalates very quickly and unpleasantly.

Thanks for reading through this. I appreciate having someone to process this with.

[beatricex]

hi M-T,
I am also here, am reading and can relate as I too am a stepmom.  I don't have any useful advice, just wanted you to know I hear you and am really keeping you both in my thoughts today.

This is so hard, and I too understand the decision to not say anything as it triggers them even more.

 
b

[M-T]

Thanks b

[Isabel2]

Hi M-T,
My husband told her during family therapy.  She checked herself into a hospital back in March.  For the most part even the years when we all lived together she would often act like her two step siblings and I did not exist.  Some days she would not talk to us nor look at us at all and would only interact with her dad...that made for some fun family dinners! So, in March only my husband was participating in the family therapy as an approved person. There is a much longer story to all of this but to make it short my husband told the therapist and her that she could not move in without taking some positive steps towards adulting first.  She, at that time, was literally saying that her childhood was not long enough and that she just wanted to move back home, get involved in and have her dad drive her back and forth again to some of the same activities she did in high school  and just be at the house to rest for a few months and then she might start to adult.  My husband told her that as she is an adult now we needed some boundaries to have a healthy adult relationship.  The therapist said she fully supported boundaries and at the time was working with her on steps towards finding a place to stay when she left, moving forward with college and finding a job.
At first it was not good, she was angry and we never really got the truth on how all of it started but one her family members on her bio mom's side contacted my husband and encouraged him to build her a tiny house on our lawn and just let her live there!  My husband talked to him and cleared up the history on how we have tried helped her and that she does have money to take care of herself.  It seems he was under the impression that we never tried to help her and were leaving her destitute...so she may have told them interesting stories.  I am sure you can relate to all of the wonderful untrue stories that get spread around the family, community and social networking when the person with BPD is not happy.  But after a while she did seem to accept it and was able to find a friend to stay with rent free.  She was talking about going back to college this Fall but instead recently checked herself back into the hospital.  So now she is in PHP and we don't know what is really going on since my husband has only been allowed to talk with her. So time will tell. Since your daughter is in therapy, if she allows you to talk to the therapist, you might want to set up a family appointment to discuss the issue...that might help with a little less negative reaction since the therapist can help.

[M-T]

I have talked to her therapist once, last year, because my daughter requested a session with me (it almost always falls on me - I think because her dad is better at setting boundaries). However, I requested to talk to the therapist before because family sessions before this therapist (she's had quite a few) in the past have been a bad experience - basically us sitting there having to listen to all the things we are doing wrong from our daughter. When I talked to her, I knew they were floating around the idea of a BPD diagnosis but I certainly didn't know much about it at the time and hadn't "accepted" it, though reading about it felt so familiar. The therapist told me my daughter didn't feel like I was there for her. I proceeded to detail just the one last week of interactions I had with my daughter. And at the end I could tell the therapist understood a lot more about her because she had more of the story. And basically said - I was leaning toward PTSD but now definitely BPD.

And then my daughter decided she wasn't ready for a family session. So haven't met with them together. I think I have to figure out how to do it w/o a therapist. I will talk to mine, but it is just a ways off and I was anticipating a conversation soon. I may be in the clear for a bit - she left yesterday.

It's funny that you say your daughter talks about "not having a childhood" or needing to be one longer because my daughter says the same things. It's true she had a traumatic childhood when she lived with her bio mom. But we have raised her since she was 9 in a healthy home (and didn't know about the trauma until she was a teenager). And yet we are still to blame for so much. Of course, when it is to her advantage to "be an adult," she uses that. I know there is a push-pull with BPD folks related to independence/dependence.

I like the "we need some boundaries to have a healthy adult relationship" as a starting point.

Isabel2 - good luck to you with all of this. I have (recently) learned to take respite and pleasure in the times when she isn't communicating with me. It's hard not to worry but it also feels good to just be.

[beatricex]

It is helping me to just hear some other stories, and know it's not personal with me and my stepdaughter.

Just some things she has said are so similar.  There is this constant argument that I'm not "a blood relative" and therefore can not know her, and that I must be ejected from the family. The desire to have her Dad available, like he was when she was a child (note, my step daughter is 26 with two kids, 1 and 3), and not be a parent.

The push/pull of never knowing when she is going to explode and bring up her own childhood and how her bio mom and Dad wrecked her life.  Yet, she feels she saved her Dad's life, and now he's forever indebted to her and that they are "best friends."

Sometimes my step daughter feels more like the ex.  Funny thing is my husband has an ex (her mom) and she's no problem whatsoever.

[kitty1961]

I feel everybody's pain...
My 33 year old moved back home about 5 months ago after many attempts to live on her own.
She does not work on disability and we helped a lot! just so she would not have to come home.

My daughter has BPD, Bi polar 1 and schizoaffective disorder.
Last apt she was having delusions about her neighbors trying to get her.
She kept telling me her place was clean and tidy. My husband and I went there while she was in the psych hospital. ( 25th time)
Filth, rodents and bugs!
We moved her out, paid a hefty fine and brought her here.

I dont know how to tell her she cant live here when she is so obviously mentally ill.
She would homeless and dead or assaulted within a week .

Maybe your kids are more highly functioning? We are stuck and can not find or afford a long term facility.

I wish all of you the best of luck, please tell me if you kicked your kids out and the outcome of it

[M-T]

Gosh kitty, That sounds really tough. I'm so sorry. I can totally relate to worrying about homelessness, assault, etc.

For us, this is all so "new" - the diagnosis was about a year ago even though we've been struggling for years. She moved out on her own for the first time a little less than a year ago (except for her half year in the dorms, which was also a disaster). That has been eye opening because I always thought she would do okay holding down a job and being independent. That's definitely not going as expected. So many new behaviors have cropped up since she left home.

I rely heavily on my therapist to help me KNOW and decide what is appropriate. She supports me in not wanting my daughter here and that helps me feel okay about it. It's just the communicating part that I'm trying to work on. I have no idea where we will be in 10 years! We could be right where you are. I hope others have better advice for you. I'm holding you in my thoughts.

[Leaf56]

M-T, hi, sorry, I'm a bit late to respond to your question about how to tell an adult child he/she can't live with you. My son has been living with his dad for the past two years. He has begged on several occasions to move back in with us for what are probably valid reasons: he's having a hard time stopping the marijuana abuse because it's part of his dad's daily life; his dad has yelled at him several times in a cruel way because he can't stand the depression my son suffers from because it reminds him of himself; it's much nicer at our house. Every time I've been very clear that he will never live with us again. I've said, "No, that's not going to happen," "that's never going to happen," "you'll never live with us again," etc. I'm careful not to add "sorry." He forfeited the right to ever live with us again because of the things that he said that made me feel unsafe to be in his presence and because he uses marijuana. Even if we didn't have a teenaged son living with us, I would never allow it or feel safe or be able to sleep. I don't waffle at all when I say it or hedge in any way. It's never going to happen and that's all there is to it. I think not having the option and making it very clear is actually doing him a favor. I think it's important to never say anything that sounds like "well maybe if you [fill in the blank] we'd be more likely to allow that" spells disaster. I think if you have good reasons for not wanting your adult child to live with you, that's your right.

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