Daughter Causing Chaos / Need her to move out but terrified what will happen

[Europeanut]

Hi everyone, I'm new here.  Thanks for any responses. ( there are SA triggers and drug use mentioned in this post)  Sorry for the long read.

I have two daughters from a previous marriage and live with them and my husband of 6 years.  My oldest daughter is 22, and she has dual diagnosis bipolar and BPD. 

About two years ago we were having a lot of conflict with her and her behavior and she decided to move in with a boyfriend for about 18 months.  It was a peaceful time in our household, although I did still have to bail her out and help her sometimes. 

Then last year broke up.  She stayed living there and one day when she was sleeping on the couch he raped her.  She didn't want to try to get him prosecuted for rape and go through all of the trauma associated with that, because sexual assault within a relationship is so hard to prove, and he didn't physically hurt her.  So instead we forced him to move out of their shared place and she continued to live there with roommates.

I had to pay her new security deposit (since the bf was refunded his when he moved out), buy a new fridge for the place since they'd ruined it, and help her with rent.  After about a month she was really struggling, had quit her job and said it was too triggering to be in that house, so I moved her back in to our home.

She's been here almost a year. 

Since she moved back in it's been near constant drama.  She's had an endless stream of crappy partners.  She's been drinking and doing increasingly more drugs.  She keeps making terrible decisions - she fell for a scam that cost her $1,000 (that I had to help her with), she quit her job without having another, she got fired from a job, she's gotten speeding tickets and run red lights, I could go on and on.  It's been chaos.

Her car is in my name, I pay for the insurance, I pay for her phone, even her bank account still has my name on it.  Her living with us has cost me thousands of dollars because I have to keep bailing her out. 

Most recently, she's with a new guy she met a few weeks ago.  A few days ago we told her we needed a break from her having guests in the house (i.e him, who had been with her every night for more than a week, showering here and eating our food).  Instead of just staying home and spending the night alone, she packed up her car to go sleep with him in it (he's homeless and has bipolar 1).  Yesterday they were sleeping at a hotel room and when we woke up he'd left her there and taken her car. 

So I drove down and picked her up, we reported the car stolen, etc. Many hours later the bf dropped the car off with the key at her friend's house with all kinds of excuses about how it was all a misunderstanding, etc.  It was night by then and I was exhausted from the drama of the day so I told her to just got to bed and we'd deal with it in the morning and went to bed.  I wanted the police to check the car over to make sure he'd not done anything illegal with it while he had it (like hit someone).

This morning I woke up to find out that in the middle of the night she left and picked up the car and has been driving it around (even though we'd reported it stolen), and contacted me because her key fob stopped working and she couldn't get into the car and wanted me to call AAA. 

I can't reason with her.  I can't talk to her about things.  Any time I try to say anything to her that's remotely negative she shuts me down, won't talk, hangs up on me, etc.  She keeps making these impulsive destructive choices and we keep being dragged along with her.  It's hurting my marriage (my husband has reached his limit with this and I'm afraid he's going to leave), it's affecting my other child (a HS senior), it's costing me so much money, and I feel like the stress is killing me. 

She's fairly good about taking her meds, and I've got her in therapy for DBT, but the progress seems slow.  She's been to the ER twice this year for suicidal ideation and both times she's stabilized in the ER and not been placed.  She doesn't eat consistently, or take care of her body, and now she's using drugs.  I looked into a long term inpatient BPD program and my insurance doesn't cover it and it costs $40k for one month which we just cannot afford. 

I want so badly for her to get better and make better choices and do the right thing.
 She was such a bright, lovely child.  I had such high hopes for what her life would be like.  I've worked so hard to get her stabilized and on a better path but she keeps making these choices. 

I can't force her to do anything.  I think we need to kick her out.  But I know she'll be homeless and I worry so much about how much worse things can get for her out there alone. 

She's my baby.  I know you parents can relate.  I don't want her to be hurt more than she already has.  I'm just hoping for some support, or advice, or just solidarity. 
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

[Pook075]

Hello and welcome to the forums.  Every word you wrote resonated with me because I've been down the same path with my 25 year old bipolar/BPD daughter.  We kicked her out at 21, she bounced between halfway houses until she was 22.5, then ended up in a relationship for the following two years where she lived there.  Maybe 3-4 months ago, she returned home to live with me and she's a completely different person because of it.

You must kick out your daughter, or simply stop walking on eggshells around her, because she is choosing to not be a part of the family.  I also paid for everything for my kid; car, phone, etc and she took each thing for granted...until I stopped doing it completely.  And your intuition is correct, there were massive temper tantrums over standing up for myself and my home, but those were short lived because she wasn't here anymore and it wasn't my problem anymore.

That may sound cold and heartless, but it's actually the most loving thing I could have done since I let my kid see what the world was really like.  If she made bad decisions, she paid the consequences, and that's the only way she was going to learn to appreciate anything in life.  It took her maybe 3 years to find her rock bottom and decide that she wanted to make real change, and that's when she actually started taking therapy seriously.

In my home, there's two rules for anyone to stay here- clean up after yourself and help around the house, plus be kind to others.  I have made those two rules ridiculously well known and my daughter is welcome any time...if she agrees to the rules.  For a very long time, she saw those rules as punishment (instead of common sense) and that was perfectly fine- she could stay wherever she wanted and make her own rules.  But she quickly learned that every household has those rules in place, whether they're spoken or not.

I did not tell my daughter, "Get out."  I simply said there's two rules and you can follow them or leave on your own free will.

You're in a very similar position where you have two choices- you can help your daughter grow up or enable her to continue on the path she's on.  One will bring her some pain but the other brings everyone pain and chaos.  You simply have to choose your path; do you want her to be semi-happy today while destroying your life, or have a shot at being stable and providing her own happiness?

As sad at it is to say, this is not your fault and there's nothing you can do to help your daughter.  That can only come from her and you don't get to decide when or where she'll be ready to change.  But as long as you're enabling her and accepting bad behavior, she has absolutely no reason to change since she gets to blame everything on you.  Make sense?

It may help to hear that my daughter and I have a great relationship now.  She went through hell and back getting to where she is today, but she now loves me and respects me.  While she still does dumb things (today she's at work on no sleep because she was out with friends all night), I can talk to her and point out mistakes with her actually hearing me and knowing that my advice is always in her best interests.  We're close and I love it, but it has to be a path that she actually chooses on her own.

I hope that helps- stop walking on eggshells and take your house back!

[SaltyDawg]

I agree 100% with Pook on this - his is an example I am taking notes on, if and when my own child/children would be doing something similar.

I will add that in addition to BPD Family, there are local in-person groups around the country who are all struggling (about 3/4 of the attendees) with the same issues, albeit for similar and differing health diagnosis of their respective children.

I also attend NAMI meetings (nami.org) for the parents and partners of mentally ill - the NAMI Family Support Group these meetings can be in person, or virtual (Zoom) - I personally attend these meetings as you will be with those that who get it at various stages of what you are contemplating.  The leaders of the group I attend have done what Pook has done, except their daughter is not welcome in their home as she is too disruptive for them.

[Europeanut]

Thank you both so much for your comments and advice.  It is so helpful to me and to my husband to hear how other people in similar situations have handled these things and what you've gone through.  If for no other reason to not feel alone in this. 
I'm torn about having her move out but I'm resolute about not helping her with any further crises.  Luckily so far we've been spared from having to make a decision because she has decided to sleep in her car. 
Anyway, I just wanted to thank for your your thoughtful responses and let you know that they were so helpful and appreciated.   

[Pook075]

Thank you both so much for your comments and advice.  It is so helpful to me and to my husband to hear how other people in similar situations have handled these things and what you've gone through.  If for no other reason to not feel alone in this. 
I'm torn about having her move out but I'm resolute about not helping her with any further crises.  Luckily so far we've been spared from having to make a decision because she has decided to sleep in her car. 
Anyway, I just wanted to thank for your your thoughtful responses and let you know that they were so helpful and appreciated.   

Keep your head up and just work with your husband to find the right path together.  It will get harder before things get better, you're in the dark before the dawn.  There is hope though and you'll get there!

Please continue to ask questions as needed, we're here for you!

[Randi Kreger]

I think the advice above is really good. If your relationship was a Venn diagram, you would be two circles sitting on each other. What you need is part of the circle and circling her and then the other part is for you. I think that here, in a codependent type of relationship, at least what I read from your post.

I would advise that you carefully withdraw more and more on a steady basis of trying to run her life, pay for her mistakes, be her motivation, clean her cat’s litter box, and cleaning the sink with a toothbrush. Every time she brushes her teeth. She is a grown woman. She does need to see what the world is like.

Parents have the best altruistic reasons for entering their child’s life, but when they start taking over, the parent is blamed for why things didn’t work out. I would advise you to get out of her way. Make sure she is controlling her own life.

Dialectical behavior clinicians have a thing they do call cheerleading. is just encouraging a patient to do what they set out to do. Small accomplishments lead to big accomplishments.

Giving into their demands is one way this happens. Once you start, like I said, in another post, it’s like putting a patient on a ventilator. The patient becomes dependent on the ventilator and never gets off it. It’s why people have advanced directives.

Much warmth and light to you. Remember to take care of yourself. That is your number one job. You sound exhausted and you can’t take care of anybody else if you can’t take care of yourself.