My DD has my husband and I completely held hostage & unsure how to move forward

[Sammy Jo]

My daughter will turn 21 in 2 days. She was diagnosed as bipolar with ADHD at a very young age. Her BPD diagnosis was long suspected but not confirmed until after age 18. She has been in college for 2 years, in another state. While she did well academically, she systematically alienated almost everyone there that tried to help her, i.e. her RA's, friends, counselors, etc. We just pulled her out of the fall semester after an eight-month relationship with a young man turned sour. He could not handle her BPD and the relationship verged on violence and her outbursts. We flew her home when she said she was suicidal, we flew up to her. We had to call the police twice. The first time, she was held at a mental hospital for 72 hours, and the second time she was released the same day. That is when we withdrew her and brought her home to regroup. It has been less than a week and our lives are turned upside down. It is clear that she simply cannot stay with us until the next semester begins in January. Today she called me a mother f***ing c***t. That was a new low even for her. Calling 911 doesn't help b/c they don't hold her. She will not freely admit herself to any mental health facility and we can't force her. Although my mind is ready to kick her out of the house, my heart isn't ready. We are looking for a 90-day transitional housing facility right now. After so many years of this, I am ready to give up. She doesn't want to help herself. She is always the victim, it is always someone else's fault. She is emotionally abusive and she is hardest on me. Lately, I worry for my safety if my husband is not at home. The scariest part is that she is taken all her meds, and they are just "not working." And this is the second or third time that her long-time psychiatrist has recently changed them. After the breakup with the boyfriend, she has turned extremely vindictive towards him and will not, or cannot, let it go. She is determined to hurt him, even though he lives in another state now. Even though she continues to talk about how her heart is broken. Any ideas or support or similar circumstances are greatly appreciated. We're just broken.

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

[LouiseC]

I feel for you. Believe me I feel everything you are saying.

I don't know at all how to help you, or myself, but I want you to feel seen and heard. It is hell. It isn't our fault. And it isn't fair for this to be our lives because everyone is hurting then.

I would say find what is best for you. You didn't wish this or bring this upon yourself. And I hope this is a comfort to you.

[Sammy Jo]

Thank you. Validation helps:)

[StepMothering]

SammyJo,
I can relate to your angst and frustration with the situation and fears for your daughter. I have an adult stepdaughter experiencing many similar situations.
If you have 90 days maybe an inpatient program specializing in DBT would be helpful. My opinion is that medication alone does not help the BPD person acclimate to a typical life within society. It does help tremendously though!
We have had to learn that we have to withdraw help until she agrees to therapies to make any progress.
Protect yourself. When I was having fear that my SD would become violent in my home, we did send her away, thus an inpatient program elsewhere may be an avenue.

[ScarletTwist]

This story sounds familiar to me too. My daughter is now 30. It is excruciating to watch them struggle and yet refuse help. I don’t really have any answers but these boards have been so helpful to me to get some clarity. It’s counter intuitive for sure, but I am working on boundaries and not trying to make everything right for her, which is impossible anyway.

[KBug]

I'm so sorry that you are going through all of this trauma. It's so hard to be falsely accused. My bonus daughter (BPD) does this to my husband (her father) and me. She's made serious false accusations about my husband being a pedophile and me having an inappropriate relationship with her ex-boyfriend. She has learned from and been encouraged by her mother who also has BPD to make false accusations against her dad and spread them to whomever will listen.

I don't know her, so take this with a grain of salt. I don't think that she will physically hurt the baby, but I would be deeply concerned about emotional abuse. My husband's ex engaged in serious parental alienation with the kids, even before I knew him and married him. Kids love him because he's so good with kids. His own kids adored him. She would get jealous and work to sabotage their relationship with him by telling them bad things about their dad and getting upset if they were to affectionate with him or if they engaged with him too much. That's the primary reason he divorced her. He was staying in the marriage to protect the kids from her but thought that it would be better if they divorced. He was wrong. It just got worse and she did everything she could to keep the kids away from him by violating the custody agreement and telling them lies about us, as well as emotionally punishing the kids for spending time with him. This caused them to have a chilly relationship with us. He was too afraid to challenge her in court after years of emotional abuse from her and the fear that her lies would mean that she could take custody away from him altogether.  Now that the kids no longer live with her and they have spent time with us without her knowing about it, we have wonderful relationships our sons. They see that we're not monsters and that we have a strong and loving relationship. They also have commented about how spending time with us is so peaceful and calm.

The daughter has had the same experiences, and even lived with us off and on (until she is stressed about something and takes it out on us and moves back in with her mother), but she's doubling down on attacking us with false accusations and spreading the rumors. She's now 25. We finally got to a point were we had to protect our own mental health from her. We made up an agreement for living with us. Violations would result in warning, and then having to move out, unless the violation was so egregious that we would skip the warning. Basically the expectations were "tolerable roommate" expectations and that she had to be in therapy and taking her meds. We also expected her to engage in some combination of therapy, self-care, work, and/or university that is equivalent to full time work. The consequence was that she would have to move out if she didn't abide by the agreement. We would help her find a room to rent and pay for her first 2 months expenses. Our own mental health couldn't handle things the way that they were with her in the house unless some things changed significantly. We also feel like that she has always had a soft place to land and that there haven't been many strong real-life consequences for her actions. We felt like we were enabling her not to learn to adult by not letting her experience adult consequences.

Of course, she moved back in with her mother, and started the false accusation cycle again. We just told her that we are done for now. She's welcome back into our lives if she can own some responsibility for her own life and decisions, she can treat us decently, and she stops stirring up false drama and chaos. I know she's sick and can't always control these issues. I'm sure if she knew how to stop all of this, she would. She makes herself far more miserable than she makes others. However, my husband and I can't afford the constant drama and chaos and emotional abuse. We have to protect ourselves. We're in therapy because of her, both together and separately. We love her and want the best for her but we live with her. She's just too toxic right now. For us, it goes along the lines of the idea of being in a plane crash and putting on your own oxygen mask first on so that you can help others. We can't help her if we are not mentally healthy ourselves. We will always be here if and when she's ready. We can't make her do anything but we can help to create the conditions where she figures things out or gets to a place where she's really willing to work on her challenges. Living with us isn't going to help her get to either of those places.