BPD step daughter and overwhelming reactivity and manipulation

[RDF]

Hi all, I have been reading some posts here and it has been very helpful.
I have a SD (she is 15 yrs old) that has very strong BPD traits and her mother is BPD, untreated.
I am struggling as the step mom and really need some advice.
My step daughter and I had an amazing relationship for the first year and a half that I knew her. During this time she was always angry with her mother as her mother would have yelling matches with her frequently and was always invading her privacy. Eventually my SD she stopped going to her mother's house and staying with us for days at a time. We would always encourage her to spend time with her mother while setting healthy boundaries and to keep contact open. My SD, at that time, was emotionally unregulated and had very poor distress tolerance, she often had big over reactions to small things and many many melt downs when she was tired, but I was often able to talk to her and set boundaries for appropriate behavior (prior to going on trips ect). Over the past few months my SD has now decided that my husband and I are "rude and mean" to her and has now been refusing to come back to our house since her dad tried to set rules about being up for school on time and not being so rude to him and everyone else. she has been quite rude to my daughter at school (they were very very close) and now wont respond to my husbands messages, she has been telling everyone at school that we are terrible people and she's not feeling safe at our house and has clearly been getting manipulated by her mother because the one text she did sent in response to my husband was not written by a teen and was extremely manipulative.

So far I have not messaged her because the last time I did she just ignored me. I don't know what to do or how to handle this. My SO and I have counselling schedule but could not get in for over a month from now!
Should I reach out to her via text or just leave it and hope she decides to come back? I know if I message her her mother will be tearing whatever I say apart and will make me look like a terrible person in some way or another as she has done this many times in the past. I'm also quite hurt she is talking so poorly about us but I know I will not be able to address this or anything else for that matter. I feel like the only solution would be to let her have her way with everything so she doesn't lash out and not come back home. Her father is sometimes disengaged from the whole situation but is clearly very frustrated and stressed about losing his connection with his daughter.
Thank you in advance

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 RDF and, from one stepmom to another, It can be so helpful to move from reading to sharing on this site.

My H has two daughters who are now 15.5 and 17 (nearly 18). I can say hands down that 15 has been the most challenging age for both of them. Kind of like -- maximum sense of ability ("I'm the most grown up I've ever been!"), autonomy, self-centeredness, and entitlement, with minimum sense of empathy for others or compromise. Lots of black-and-white thinking and big reactions. Our 15.5YO has, blessedly, now that she's closer to 16, been more open to discussion and compromise with us, and our 17YO has had light-years of insight and perspective develop over the last 2 years. And yes, their mom has many BPD-type traits , and they have a stepdad with many NPD traits. It... hasn't been easy.

Many of us here on the boards have a situation where a child's (or stepchild's) other parent has PD traits and behaviors, and as the kids go through adolescence, it is really difficult to suss out which behaviors are "typical teen" behaviors, which ones are a function of the two-home setup (but not due to BPD influence), which ones are "rubbing off" on the child from the BPD parent, and which ones may legitimately be emerging BPD in the child.

While it's not impossible that your SD15 may be showing emerging BPD, it's also important to remember that playing two parents off of each other can be typical in a high-conflict two-home situation, and as 15YO's seem to have maximum entitlement with minimum maturity   they may use low-skill maneuvers to get immediate gratification... and that looks a lot like BPD behaviors. So, it might be BPD, but it also might be her using the most effective tools (but not mature tools!) at hand to get what she wants.

All that to say -- whether she does or doesn't have "official" BPD doesn't make your life easier right now. It's the behaviors, not the label, making your life difficult.

Just a few questions to get a better sense of the situation:

-when did H and SD15's mom divorce, and how old was she at the time?
-is there a custody order/parenting plan in place? Was it followed for a while?
-how long have you and H been married? How old was SD15 when you married?
-is SD15 in any kind of counseling or therapy (even seeing the school counselor)?

...

It's good to hear that you and your H have counseling scheduled. My H and I did MC since before we got married (11 years coming up this year) through late last year, and I don't think we would have survived without it.

Hopefully the two of you can work through roles and expectations in MC. Being a stepmom is sometimes the "worst of both worlds" -- you have all the agony, care, love, and investment in the kids, with zero power or control over how things go. OK, that's a bit of an overstatement -- even parents really don't have control over how their kids turn out -- but the stepparent role really highlights that fact. And that can make it so difficult when you see your spouse doing something (or not doing something) regarding the kids that you really disagree with and wish would change.

...

My overall thoughts about the situation in front of you -- SD15 not responding to your texts, and you wondering if you should keep texting her or her mom -- would be:

whatever frequency and tone you used to message SD15, feel free to keep doing that, "as if" things were basically OK, and without expecting or hoping for a response. This isn't about pretending everything is fine, but more about demonstrating to SD15 that you are stable, continue to love her, and she doesn't need to do anything particular for you to keep loving her no matter what. So, if you'd normally text her "have a great day at school" every morning, don't feel like you have to stop that -- as long as you genuinely want to send that message. If you feel like you need a break from messaging her, that is OK too! I think the most important thing is to do what you would want to do because of who you are, not in hopes of a certain response from her.

I remember one night after I'd taken SD17 to work. She laid into me while I was driving her there, basically telling me how I was doing stuff wrong regarding SD15, not listening to my perspective, not curious about my point of view, and totally entitled and self-important about the whole thing. I didn't feel like talking about it with her again, but I did do something nice for her when she got home, that I would've done anyway, and she was grateful. While I'm still not sure if that was the A+ correct approach or not, what I can say is I hope it showed her that she can be a rude and immature teenager and I'll still love her, that my love isn't dependent on her "being perfect" or "being mature" etc. And when there's a parent wBPD in the mix, that can be an important message to send, as the child may feel that love from the BPD parent is conditional ("I have to make sure Mom is happy or she won't love me").

In terms of you texting her mom, I'm thinking it might be a better direction to focus your energy on supporting and empowering your H to deal with her. Listening to how he's feeling, not solving his problems, and asking how he thinks he might handle it are generally more empowering than giving advice, saying what he should do, etc. Though it doesn't hurt to ask him if he'd like to hear about some new ways of communicating that might help! My H was grateful to learn about B.I.F.F. communication especially when he saw how it decreased pointless email arguments between him and the kids' mom.

It can be easy (but stressful) for us stepmoms to get drawn into unhealthy drama triangles. It can be more uncomfortable, but ultimately healthier, for us to find ways to empower our partners to step up in their parenting role, while we provide strength from the sidelines.

None of this is easy, and it can take a while to turn things around, but I'm here to tell you that our family has gone from SD17 telling H "you're not my family" to his face, to her leaning on us to help her problemsolve significant issues at her mom's house. It's a long journey to make those changes and it is possible and worth it.

Hope some of that is helpful food for thought -- let us know your take on those BIFF and drama triangle links. I'd be curious if any of that sounds helpful or resonates with you?

-kells76

[CC43]

RDF, I can relate to your post.  I'm a stepmom of a stepdaughter in her mid-20s who has been diagnosed with BPD.  She has an older sister who isn't diagnosed with a personality disorder, but who spent her adolescence acting out like a drama queen.  I do not know their mother well, but I do know that she is a high-conflict individual.  I married my husband once their youngest had graduated from high school, to minimize disruption to the kids' daily lives.  That means I knew my husband's children for a few years during adolescence, but I didn't live with them at that time, and I didn't know the extent of their issues.  Perhaps ironically, once I got married, the stepdaughters both dropped out of school because of major behavioral issues and lived with us for extended periods.  Fortunately, my stepson didn't experience any academic or behavioral issues.

Like you, I have a hard time teasing out what is "normal" teenage behavior and BPD.  I tend to think that the girls' behavioral issues in their teens were exacerbated by the general situation:  a high-conflict mother, and a father who wanted to be a "friend" more than a parent.  One behavior pattern in particular I found disturbing.  Basically, whenever the girls didn't get what they wanted, they would run away to the other parent's household and cut off all contact, to "punish" the offending parent.  Once the girls had their driver's licenses, they were allowed to drive at will between households.  My husband would be distraught by the cold-shoulder treatment from his daughters.  So whenever one of the girls would run to his ex-wife's house in protest, he would text and call after her, basically begging her to return, and he'd give into her demands to boot.  After a few years of this behavior, the girls never learned to sort out their family disagreements in a healthy way; what they learned was that outbursts, followed by running away, would get them not only attention, but what they wanted.  They continued this behavior at college, and the results were unsurprising.  They got kicked out of rooming situations multiple times.

I just don't know how much of that behavior relates to BPD and how much is a product of the situation.  It may be that the girls patterned their behavior after their high-conflict mother, whereas my stepson modeled the more mature behavior of his dad.  But my opinion is that the lack of boundaries and consequences exacerbated their behavior, and that could have taught the girls poor social skills.