Challenging relationship with adult daughter

[BlueMom45]

My daughter turned 18 last December. About a week later she threatened suicide after telling me to kill myself. She threw a place mat at me while throwing a fit. This all happened because I asked her why she came over for the weekend, if she wasn’t going to actually stay the weekend? She just got back from her boyfriend’s house after being there the entire weekend. She didn’t live with me at the time but was visiting like she always had since she moved in with her father at 13. Of course I had to make the tough decision to call 911. The police came and ask some questions and she was in tears, clearly traumatized. She did not want to go to the hospital at all, let alone in an ambulance. We made a deal with the police that they would leave, if we would promise to take her in, so we did. She agreed also. My daughter has a supposed history of cutting which I have never seen (just taking her word for it)and had been making vague suicidal suggestions for awhile, I am ashamed to admit that I did not call sooner. She talked me out of it each time and made me promise not to tell her Dad (whom is violent and she was blaming for the cutting in the first place). Again, not my proudest moment, I wanted to remove her from that environment, but she would throw a fit at the slightest suggestion of it and act like everything was okay, because she wanted to go to school there and be with her boyfriend. Anyway, while she was in the hospital I called her father to let him know. He was mad as hell at me! Of course he immediately became defensive and blamed me for her behavior. I suspect he has his own personality disorder that’s why we divorced. After she came home she was doing better due to the antidepressants and I understood that she felt traumatized and would be angry at me for a little while, however she went beyond that, she didn’t visit me for 5 months. Which she later blamed on her Dad. I didn’t see her again until her graduation. At her graduation her father and boyfriend psychologically bullied my husband and I to the point we felt fearful for our lives. I don’t know what she told them, but I suspect she blamed us for her behavior and made us into abusers in order to shift the blame from her personality disordered dad and self only survival.  We let her and her boyfriend know we felt unsafe and the behavior was narcissistic and sociopathic. They both just smirked and behaved with no empathy whatsoever, I thought both my daughter and her boyfriend’s attitude was sadistic and vengeful. My husband and I tried to blow her behavior off as survival needs living in an unsafe home, trauma bonding with a personality disordered parent, but she left his home in June and the behavior is still erratic and unpredictable. I don’t think I can or should trust my daughter. She has done other things that are manipulative and have jeopardized mine and my husband’s safety. If I sound cold I don’t mean to. My empathy is wearing thin right now.

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

[Leaf56]

My advice: Try going no contact for a while and commit yourselves to never being treated like that again.

[BlueMom45]

Leaf56,

Thanks for the advice. I think I will take it.

[kells76]

Hi BlueMom45, adding my voice to Leaf56 in welcoming you here.

Anyone in your situation would feel worn thin, after going through all of that in such a short time. She isn't the only one coping with trauma from that situation -- I wonder if you are, too, watching all this go down with your D18 whom you love.

This is an important point:

My advice: Try going no contact for a while and commit yourselves to never being treated like that again.

Stepping back from frequent contact with a child with BPD, or stepping it down to not being in contact, doesn't have to be a momentous "this is it forever -- there's no going back" decision. You can recognize that it may be better for both of you to get some space from each other for a while, let things get back to baseline, and reassess down the road.

As your D18 is now an adult, you can see this as a break for both of you that lets her differentiate a bit more and lets you have some breathing room to develop new tools and skills for relating to an adult child with BPD. In fact, we do have a section of articles on When a teen or adult child has Borderline Personality Disorder -- take a look and let us know what resonates with you.

I don’t think I can or should trust my daughter. She has done other things that are manipulative and have jeopardized mine and my husband’s safety.

How is your husband doing with all of this? Are the two of you on the same page for how to move forward?

Come back and post whenever feels good to you, no pressure at all here.

kells76

[Leaf56]

Yes, kells is right, I very intentionally said "for a while" because in my opinion, 18 seems too young to think about going no contact permanently, though I wouldn't judge you at all for doing so. And I don't think it's ever helpful to make a pronouncement to them about the way things will be forever. You might think it in your head, but it's always best to say something like, "I need a break. That amount of time could be very long, like years, or short, like weeks, but I DO know that this isn't working and the situation will need to change for me to be involved anymore." The idea is to be as dispassionate as possible, give them as little to feed on as possible, and just quietly go away with no big declarations or reasons given. It helps if you can stop being triggered by anything too. Because when you're both being triggered, you're both part of the problem. You just go quietly live your happy life and see if maybe some day she decides to change. Likely not, but at 18, I'd give her at least a few more years to mature before I got to the point of cutting her off in my own mind. But that's just me.

[BlueMom45]

All the replies here confirm a lot for me. Things I’ve been feeling and thinking. I definitely was traumatized by my daughter’s hospitalization, even though I was relieved at first because I thought she was finally going to get the help she needed. I’m practicing self care and using the Sensa app for mental health and have an appointment with a therapist in November (the earliest I could find for my ins/area). My husband is upset as well and feels confused, betrayed, frustrated and disappointed, and sad too. He was already in therapy. I know not to give her anything that can be misconstrued, as anything can and will be held against me and used as kindling in a future fire that I don’t have the energy to fight or put out. So, I’m very careful with my words and even that pisses her off and is used against me as some how “flipping the script” (her words, not mine) to make her look bad. Yes, it’s walking on eggshells , and I’ve listened to the book “Stop Walking on Eggshells” and I looked like a bobble head with all the “yes” I was nodding. We are currently not talking and that is another whole conversation where she projected and rejected and became verbally abusive. I responded as calmly and compliant as possible. She told me she didn’t want to speak to me anymore and I said I would honor her wishes. However, afterward I realized I could no longer live in denial about how serious her mental health issue is, and that I needed to protect myself and my husband, get support of some kind and seek therapy. That’s when I found this forum. I will check out the recommended links that were suggested. Thank you all for the replies and for being here. I seriously doubt we will be going no contact forever, although I kind of feel relieved that we aren’t talking and part of me doesn’t care. The other part misses her and will probably grieve once the shock wears off.  Sometimes it sucks being a parent.

[LotusS]

Honestly, I know how tired you and your husband are. This illness just takes over diesn’t it?
(My husband and I are not doing very well with all the stress fir the past 5 years).
But I’m trying to understand BPD more and to adjust to it-the book « Overcoming Borderline Personality Disorder - A family guide for healing and change » by Valerie Porr M.A. is really very good.
It is big and complete.. but go to the section about « DBT for behavior change » and you’ll find how to communicate differently to avoid tense and volatile situations without having to walk in eggshells-which BPD people  hate too/trigger.
It takes a different view. It takes work. I know. It’s hard.