Hello to all

[DhammaMamma]

Hi there.

I just want to introduce myself. Our adult daughter is our person with BPD. We've done the same type of things many of you have done, including ineffective enabling behavior. We've paid for rehab for alcoholism, we've paid for therapists repeatedly. We've taken the NEA-BPD Family Connections course and work hard to communicate effectively. We love her so much, but absolutely cannot handle the BPD-aligned behaviors.

A month ago, I reached my limit and went on 30 days no contact with her. Her therapist, DBT teachers, our joint therapist, and my personal therapist were all aware. Tomorrow, I will be letting her know that we will not continue to have the same relationship we do.

My decision has been complicated by the fact that she was diagnosed with breast cancer a year and a half ago.

Tonight, I'm working on my list of things I am willing to do and things I absolutely will not do. I plan on sending it tomorrow and then dealing with the fallout.

We are in our 60s and are ready for peace. I'm so grateful I've found this spot and look forward to discussions of all of our loved ones.

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

[kells76]

Hi DhammaMamma, welcome to the boards  This is a good place to meet others who understand what it's like having a child with BPD.

It's good that you are working with yourself to understand your own limits -- what you can handle in your life and what you can't. Having our needs and values clear to ourselves is so important.

What's your hope about what will happen if you send her the list of what you will and won't do? What would be the ideal outcome for you? What's your expected outcome? And what do you think would be the worst-case scenario?

And just a couple more questions, to understand your situation a bit more -- does she live nearby? And does she have any kids?

So glad that you have therapists to support you, too. When there's a pwBPD in our lives, we need all the support we can get.

-kells76

[DhammaMamma]

Hi Kells!

Thank you for your response.

My greatest concern is what will happen to her when I die. Thus, my hope is that by continuing our separation, my daughter will become more independent. Right now, she relies on others (mostly me and my sister) for virtually everything. We support her financially, although she has been going through an SSDI appeal. She can't even open her own email due to her anxiety.

I know that my enabling is to blame for much of this.

Right now, I am "her person" -- the one that is blamed for everything, attacked, who is supposed to make her happy, etc. I do not want to be "her person." She is nearly 40 and has alienated all of her friends in our area. She needs to meet new ones.

She has been taking DBT classes, but only seems to be going through the motions. She has recently started seeing a DBT therapist, too, so I'm hopeful that will change.

I plan to tell her that I will continue to support her by continuing to pay for rent, utilities, therapies, medications, and will provide a small stipend each month for her transportation needs and food until her SSDI case is decided.

We cannot be in a car together -- whenever we are, there are inevitably ineffective conversations. She's addicted to Tick Tock and tends to "doom scroll" -- constantly wanting to talk about negative political stories, how bad the world is, and stories of abuse. My own mental health cannot listen to these stories and even though I have asked her to not talk about these things, it continues.

Expected outcome is that she will go into crisis when I tell her. I will likely block her on phone and email for awhile to give her time to cool down.

I want to disengage for 6 months, to give her time to continue with her DBT classes and working with her DBT therapist. I continue to see my therapist and attend Family Connections "graduate" classes.

She lives about 12 minutes from us and does not have children. She does, however, have a cat and a dog that we have mostly been responsible for throughout the years as she is unable to care for them. She has used them as pawns much like other pwBPDs might with children (and she's "kidnapped" our dog before, too).

My most sincere hope is that through DBT, she will decide she wants to build a life worth living. After six months, I am willing to go back into joint therapy with her only if we use a DBT therapist. I am under no illusion that we will ever have a typical relationship, but I'd like to have a relationship with her. She is my daughter and I love her. But our relationship has been impacting my work and my health. I need some peace.

So, here is what I am thinking:

I would like to stay on no-contact for 6 months for my mental health. During that time, I will continue to pay for rent, utilities, therapies, medications, and will provide a small stipend for transportation and food.

After 6 months, if she is interested in trying again on our relationship, I will be willing to:

• Go to joint DBT therapy with her and continue to put in the work to build our relationship
• Talk and text on the phone with her, play the online games we play together
• Have dinner together once or twice a month
• Continue supporting her until her SSDI case is done, or until I have retired.

I am not willing to:

• Drive her places. I get anxious when we are in a car together.
• Visit every week. She needs to build a network beyond me so that when I'm gone, she will have others to depend on, too.
• Put up with abusive conversations about myself or my family.
• Continue to shuttle the dog back and forth. It is emotionally too hard on us, and on our dog, each time she takes him back. She already (in anger) took back a cat the we had been loving for 9 years.

I need to be able to use my wise mind beyond these things. These are the things that have been most difficult for me.

Have you ever had to disengage from your pwBPD? How did it go?

DM

[kells76]

Hi DhammaMamma;

So much of what you're saying makes sense -- that your biggest worry is how she'll manage after you're gone. You love her and would want her to be able to either take care of herself or have care set up.

And it makes sense that you're ready to try a different way of loving and caring for her, where you step back and let her have the opportunity to catch herself... or not, whatever she chooses.

Knowing really specific things that are dealbreakers for you is important, too, like knowing that it is not good for either of you to be in a car with each other.

What struck me about your list is that so many of those things are 100% under your control -- what great (true) boundaries. For example:

-you can choose not to get in a car with her
-you can decide if you accept contact from her (or not) over the next 6 months
-you control your visit frequency with her
-you're able to decline to participate in listening to abuse
-you can say No to transporting the dog
-and many more

That's a great list of true boundaries, which are under our control (versus ultimatums, which aren't). She can decide if/how she participates in DBT, and then you can decide how you want to engage with her, based on her choices. And you haven't given ultimatums or empty threats.

It's also nice that you have some positive things to look forward to, like potentially getting back to playing games online together, or catching up over dinner. Like you said, she's your daughter, and you love her. A "least bad" relationship between you two could look exactly like that -- enjoying low-stress, low-intensity interactions occasionally, so that your relationship stays neutral to positive. It may not look like a "Hallmark movie mother-daughter" relationship, and that's okay, because it's YOUR relationship.

Have you ever had to disengage from your pwBPD? How did it go?

I wish we could! The main pwBPD in my life is my husband's kids' mom (and her current husband has many NPD type traits). The kids are now 15 & 17, so we're on the home stretch, but the dysfunction from Mom & Stepdad bleeds over into our life and is pretty intrusive. I love the kids but it's been very difficult to be "required" to stay engaged with such strong PD behavior.

One way that I have disengaged from some drama is that in the past, if there was something the kids wanted to do with us but on Mom's time, we'd try to send "convincing" emails about why it'd be best for the kids, or proposing time trades, etc. Mom would use those as opportunities to: prove that she was the favored parent, badmouth my H, tell him that the kids preferred her, propose deals that were in her favor, etc.

Now, if there is something that the kids want to do with us but on Mom's time, my email looks like: "Hi Kids' Mom, does it work with your schedule for SD15 to do XYZ on Day at Time? If I don't hear back from you by Day/Time, I'll assume we're good to go and will do pickup at Time. Thanks; kells76"

Basically, I accept in advance that Mom may say No, argue, blame, etc, so I already don't get my hopes up for agreement. If she does, that's an added bonus, but I'm already positioning myself to decline to beg/rationalize/persuade. If she say No then I don't pursue.

If she doesn't write back, that's also an answer, so I don't get hung up on nagging her to respond.

If she says Yes, I say "Thanks, be there at Time" and I don't make small talk. She sees most interactions as a referendum on who is The Good One and who is The Bad One, so the less "target" I present to her (in terms of content), the better.

In a way, I think it's kind of like your idea to have your relationship with your D stick to known neutral-to-positive venues, like the online game and going out to dinner. We can choose the breadth of our interactions with a pwBPD, and sometimes, having a more limited, more structured relationship offers the best chance of it being neutral-to-positive. Because I limit my interactions with the kids' mom, there are fewer opportunities for her to start arguments or badmouth. This is ultimately better for the kids -- yes, they don't see us interact much, but on the occasional times they do, they hear us say Hello and discuss the weather in calm, polite tones. That's about as good as it's going to get.

...

If you ended up sending your D your letter, how did it go?