BPD child and demands for apology

[Parents! Get help here!]

Hi all.  I am really happy to have found this forum.  I don't know where to begin, but I will try to keep it brief by asking the question that is most pressing to me at the moment.

I am divorced and have a daughter who has just turned 18.  She has been living with her dad since she turned 16.  To the best of my knowledge, she is not technically diagnosed as BPD because of her age, but she shows so many of the symptoms.  I have limited information because her dad withholds it from me, and this is not a subject that I can broach with my daughter for fear of immediate outburst and then a refusal to communicate with me.

To keep it simple, we are in the current cycle of 'refusal to communicate'.  She is demanding an apology for something that I said.  I am tired of apologizing for things that she insists are wrongdoings on my part.  My therapist has told me that I have apologized enough.  The issue is that my ex believes all her grievances against me and supports her in her beliefs.  If I don't apologize, I don't know when she will speak with me again.  I honestly don't know how to apologize for something that I didn't do.

I don't know how to live in this limbo nor how to extricate myself.  I try to enjoy all the other joys and blessings in my life, but I so often feel overwhelmed by sadness and anxiety. 

There is so much more to the story, but what do I do?  Nothing short of an apology will be acceptable.  I cannot express myself or have an opinion.  It is her way or the highway.

If nothing else, I guess that I just need an online support group on which I can virtually drop my tears ...

[Fefa]

Hi all.  I am really happy to have found this forum.  I don't know where to begin, but I will try to keep it brief by asking the question that is most pressing to me at the moment.

I am divorced and have a daughter who has just turned 18.  She has been living with her dad since she turned 16.  To the best of my knowledge, she is not technically diagnosed as BPD because of her age, but she shows so many of the symptoms.  I have limited information because her dad withholds it from me, and this is not a subject that I can broach with my daughter for fear of immediate outburst and then a refusal to communicate with me.

To keep it simple, we are in the current cycle of 'refusal to communicate'.  She is demanding an apology for something that I said.  I am tired of apologizing for things that she insists are wrongdoings on my part.  My therapist has told me that I have apologized enough.  The issue is that my ex believes all her grievances against me and supports her in her beliefs.  If I don't apologize, I don't know when she will speak with me again.  I honestly don't know how to apologize for something that I didn't do.

I don't know how to live in this limbo nor how to extricate myself.  I try to enjoy all the other joys and blessings in my life, but I so often feel overwhelmed by sadness and anxiety. 

There is so much more to the story, but what do I do?  Nothing short of an apology will be acceptable.  I cannot express myself or have an opinion.  It is her way or the highway.

If nothing else, I guess that I just need an online support group on which I can virtually drop my tears ...

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

[pursuingJoy]

Hello Fefa  the middle of my 3 girls likely has BPD, and I'm in exactly the same position with all of my kids. Last year they moved in with their dad and asked me not to contact them. After years of being the primary caregiver and being very close to my kids, working through my own stuff so I didn't dump it on them, and trying so hard to make the right decisions, I was told there wasn't anything about me to make it worth maintaining a relationship. Part of me is still in shock.

It's hard to see other families with kids. We have a membership to a water park and sometimes it rips my heart out to go. I've had to take breaks from social media for the same reasons. I've cried many hot tears over the past year and I know you have too. I'm so sorry. It's not fair. I worry about my kids and what they're learning. They're angry because the ex is now "sharing all that I did to him" (he was abusive and it broke my heart to leave him). I can't fight it. 

Estrangement feels like death and it's soo lonely. We have to be careful who we share with, and the support we receive is pretty meager. We are not alone. Estrangement is becoming more popular, especially in western cultures. We're not the first, and we won't be the last. We can and will survive this.

Don't give up on you. You were a whole person before your kids, and you're still a whole person. It felt selfish at first, but I've even tried to find the silver lining. There was so much fighting at my house leading up to their complete rejection. It's peaceful now. I didn't want it, but I have more time to garden, and stain the deck, plant my flowers, paint, work on replacing the front stoop, go to my husband's softball games. We play volleyball and do crossfit. I help our local immigrant and refugee community.

When I was 28, I took about two years away from my mom myself, and I came back. Kids often come back. Let's keep hoping for that day and not waste the time we have right now. We're worth it. I'm here if you ever need to vent.

[pursuingJoy]

Allowing my kids to be responsible for their part in this has been critical.

Our kids need to heal and they've decided they can't heal in proximity to us. Doesn't mean we were bad parents. We're only part of their world. They have some work they need to do. Let's hope and pray that the right people cross their paths and they have access to the tools and resources they need to heal.

When I was hurting, my counselor told me I could start healing, even if I didn't get an apology from the other person. We are all responsible to seek healing when we've been hurt. Sometimes the person who hurt us plays a role in our healing, but whether they do or not, we can heal. I don't want you stuck on believing that a fake apology might make this go away. I was faced with a similar ultimatum, and I refused to violate my values to accommodate their demands. I think I knew deep down that they were just grasping for control in a world that felt like it was spinning. Ultimately, it would not have helped.

[Tanager]

I relate to the post by Fefa and appreciate the response from Pursuing Joy. I have found myself giving fake apologies to the point of practically groveling just to get my daughter through her current outburst.  I read Jones54's link to a thread on dissociation: When Feelings Become Fact.  That helped and hurt. I don't want to apologize for  baseless accusations. At the same time it breaks my heart that my daughter actually believes such horrible things about her family.  We have sincerely apologized for mistakes we have made but how to respond to the rest with truth and compassion eludes me.

[beatricex]

Hi fefa,
Both of my adult step daughters likely have personality disorders, one probably BPD, the other maybe anti social?  Like you, I have done and said things to them, and then they want some sort of apology from me.  The younger one doesn't even want an apology, she just wants me out of her Dad's life (Dad was her 'person').  This is really really tough, I get it.

Something I am learning to do in the two years since the stuff really "hit the fan" is to disconnect, as Pursuing Joy explains.  You need to focus on you and the life you had before your kids.  I know it sounds really hard to do, and believe me it is.

But this is not personal for you and it isn't for me either. I didn't raise either of my step daughters, they were adults when I met them.  My husband and I have given $8000 dollars in cash to the oldest, helped get her car out of impound after a DUI arrest.  We saw her and her kids every other weekend for a year as she was going through a rehabilitation program after (besides an extreme DUI) also getting arrested for possession of cocaine.  She made it through that program because instead of hanging out with her friends, she had us.  For financial, emotional and moral support.  Then, 1 week after finishing her program, the oldest goes to another state with her boyfried of less than a week to take his then 2 yo kid from it's maternal grandparents.  After they did that, she must have got her younger sister on her side, because then my youngest step daughter "disowned" her Dad because he wouldn't divorce me immediately after I unknowingly "stepped in it."  What actually happend is I texted some stupid stuff about being careful because of COVID.  Because my oldest step daughter was acting strange (this was before the sprint to another state to take a kid, it now makes sense why she was acting odd, I though maybe she was on drugs again) I also texted her ex husband, just to touch base and so he had my number. I had no idea what was actually going on in either one of their lives, how could I know?  I am not on social media, I don't check up on either of them.  I have a life!

I know now what's going on only because of going through all the stages of grief and getting marriage counseling with my husband.  We went through hell the last two years. Also, due to the oldest going to get the kid with her new boyfriend (twice), the boyfriend got slapped with two expensive lawsuits.  I would have advised my step daughter to Not get involved with this person, we are helping her financially!  But I didn't do that, she never gave me the chance to.  They are really lucky they were not arrested.  All of this happened without my knowledge, but me just being "me" triggered them and they went into attack mode.  Proactively went into attack mode.  This is part of the disease.

The thing is you know Nothing about what's really going on in your kid's lives, let's face it, they have the internet and there are other influences besides us.  Way bigger influences.  And we thought we knew this kid, since we had cosigned on her apartment at the time.  We helped her move, we thought she had no friends...we were wrong, we don't know her at all.  Optimistically, we thought she was on the straight and narrow, being "good."  We had no idea what she was really up to.

Don't take anything personal, try to get a relaxing hobby like gardening like PJ suggests (I also garden and so does my husband) focus on your life, who you want to be now sans worry and stress.  If she does come back one day, you don't really know what that will even look like.  Maybe it will be in more crisis.  Maybe not, pray for her and hope for the best.  That's all we can really do.

good luck, I hope you find some peace.  You deserve it and you're a good person.
 
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