Grateful

[Parents! Get help here!]

I am so very grateful that I found this community. I am hoping, no PRAYING, that we will get some guidance, answers, and support to help turn our lives around. I'm going to use the pronoun "our" because I am married, for 35 and a half years, and my husband an I are on the same page with our situation. We have 2 children, a son (N), age 32, and a daughter (A), almost 29. After MANY years, close to 29, our family has been turned upside down from A's behaviors. Right after Christmas, yet another family holiday that was ruined, BPD was brought to my attention by a very close friend, and N's wife of 5 years, who is a LCSW. The two do not know each other. We had never heard of BPD, but the book, Stop Walking on Egg Shells, was recommended. We read it separately and discussed after each chapter. WOW! We finally had somewhat of a "direction". And now we are here.
(A) does not live with us. I have not had a conversation with her since Christmas Eve. Her dad's personality is somewhat "natural" in being able to communicate with her and not re-act. Me, I have a lot to learn. I have always been a "fixer", and need to learn how to let go, but still have a relationship. Setting boundaries, I now see, is essential, but I'm just not sure how to approach that. (A) is in total denial that she has ANY issues, and it has been like that her whole life. She has ALWAYS been the victim, and never taken any responsibility for her actions. She has pushed away not only friends, but close cousins, and worst of all, her brother, sister-in-law. If things don't change she is also going to lose her only nephew, age 3, and niece, age 1. Breaks our hearts...but these are the consequences she seems to be accepting.
So for now, in these beginning stages (I could go on and on and on and on...) I'd like maybe some thoughts on how to get started on this road (like setting some simple boundaries to start...do I come right out and say, "From now on..."? And my other question is, we have a very big extended family, and live in a small community. Many people know, and care about, (A). Do we say anything to them, or what do we say when they ask about her? I have discussed with 3-4 VERY close family members/friends, simply for support and so that they know what is happening.
As I said, I am very grateful to have found this community.
Thank you!
TeachMePls

[TeachMePls]

I am so very grateful that I found this community. I am hoping, no PRAYING, that we will get some guidance, answers, and support to help turn our lives around. I'm going to use the pronoun "our" because I am married, for 35 and a half years, and my husband an I are on the same page with our situation. We have 2 children, a son (N), age 32, and a daughter (A), almost 29. After MANY years, close to 29, our family has been turned upside down from A's behaviors. Right after Christmas, yet another family holiday that was ruined, BPD was brought to my attention by a very close friend, and N's wife of 5 years, who is a LCSW. The two do not know each other. We had never heard of BPD, but the book, Stop Walking on Egg Shells, was recommended. We read it separately and discussed after each chapter. WOW! We finally had somewhat of a "direction". And now we are here.
(A) does not live with us. I have not had a conversation with her since Christmas Eve. Her dad's personality is somewhat "natural" in being able to communicate with her and not re-act. Me, I have a lot to learn. I have always been a "fixer", and need to learn how to let go, but still have a relationship. Setting boundaries, I now see, is essential, but I'm just not sure how to approach that. (A) is in total denial that she has ANY issues, and it has been like that her whole life. She has ALWAYS been the victim, and never taken any responsibility for her actions. She has pushed away not only friends, but close cousins, and worst of all, her brother, sister-in-law. If things don't change she is also going to lose her only nephew, age 3, and niece, age 1. Breaks our hearts...but these are the consequences she seems to be accepting.
So for now, in these beginning stages (I could go on and on and on and on...) I'd like maybe some thoughts on how to get started on this road (like setting some simple boundaries to start...do I come right out and say, "From now on..."? And my other question is, we have a very big extended family, and live in a small community. Many people know, and care about, (A). Do we say anything to them, or what do we say when they ask about her? I have discussed with 3-4 VERY close family members/friends, simply for support and so that they know what is happening.
As I said, I am very grateful to have found this community.
Thank you!
TeachMePls

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

[Sancho]

Welcome TeachMePls and welcome to the family. I can certainly identify with everything you say about your dd’s behaviour/personality and how it affects your family. Things like always being the victim, alienating others etc are part and parcel of this awful condition. You don’t mention anger and I wonder if that is part of your story too?

I can also identify with being a ‘fixer’ and I think coming to the point where I let go of this was the beginning of change for me. It is so hard! In particular when you can see that a loved adult child is going to make a decision that will have disastrous consequences.

The other side to this for me is that my dd expects me to ‘fix’ things when they do explode! I suppose that is because I was the ‘fixer’ for too long.

It is difficult to suggest re boundaries because you haven’t given details about your dd’s behaviour – more about her attitudes. My dd explodes with verbal abuse and some years ago I calmly told her that I was not going to respond when she did this because she needed time to de-escalate when she was like this and my response – any response only made things worse. I have stuck to this and it is very helpful.

The starting point though for an adult child I think is to stop being the fixer. Use the 3 Cs mantra – I didn’t cause this, I can’t control it, I can’t cure it – to help you move into a different way of thinking. It’s my opinion that an adult BPD child taps into our concerns for them and feels we are pressuring them just by being concerned. We need to ‘let go’ of our concern (‘Letting go is to fear less and to love more’).
In relation to the community. I wouldn’t say anything. This is early days in your own understanding and it seems the community is accepting as things are. The other point in regard to this is that the symptoms of BPD can lessen in the 4th decade ie between 30 and 40 and your dd is not quite there yet. It is encouraging that she is living independently.

If you can give some specific examples of the kind of behaviour you want to set a boundary to I am most happy to give my opinion. Of course every person/family is different, but we do share the experience of living with a loved adult BPD child and can pass on our experience.

Thanks for posting and hope to hear from you soon!.

[TeachMePls]

Thank you so much for your response. I repeat the 3 C's multiple times a day until it gets ingrained in me. Our dd get extremely defensive, angry, and verbally abusive to me (not so much to her dad because he refuses to engage with her...which I am learning).

She yells, screams, and if alcohol is involved, she will cause a scene no matter who is around. She drinks, but I am more concerned with her consumption of nicotine and weed through vaping.That pen seems to be super-glued to her hand! I believe that has also had an effect on her personality.

She brings up situations that happened over 20 years ago that she has not come to terms with or been able to let go of. I'll admit, she had a tough childhood. Her left arm had to be amputated when she was 10 days old due to a gestational blood clot that lodged in the major vein just below her elbow. She had multiple sicknesses as a child along with 4-5 instances of head lice between pre-school and 3rd grade. Both my husband and I are over 6' tall, and she was a big girl. She was severely bullied from grades 5-8, then diagnosed with scoliosis starting her freshman year of high school. When she was 24 (4 years ago) she was at a party on Christmas Eve and fell off of second story balcony and she should have either died, or been a paraplegic, but after hours of surgeries, she has recovered 100%. She's never felt as if she belonged, or was accepted. But now, she is a 5'10" beauty on the outside, but simply miserable on the inside. She blames everyone else for her misery and if everything is not all about HER, she gets upset, angry, and impossible to deal with.

We HAVE told her that we will not be her punching bag anymore, and that if she needs to vent, complain, yell, scream...to find a good therapist to work it out because we cannot "fix" her problems. So we'll see.

Sorry for the long post. I appreciate any feedback!

[CC43]

Hi Teach Me,

I can relate to your situation somewhat.  I have a stepdaughter in her mid-20s who was diagnosed with BPD a while back.  Like your daughter, she's fixated on the distant past.  She dredges up past "traumas" and ruminates on them incessantly, and she blames her current problems on those ancient "traumas."  I'm putting "traumas" in quotation marks because she's distorted the truth about past events, always painting herself as the victim.  She blames her extended family and even past friends for all her own poor choices.  She refuses to take responsibility for herself.  Needless to say, that attitude has hindered her ability to function as an adult.  She remains very entitled and extremely demanding of others.  She's all take and no give.

My stepdaughter doesn't seem to have the superficial appearance issues that your daughter has, but I bet that can make social situations even trickier for her.  My stepdaughter did experience bouts of mild acne, which I suspect were exacerbated by a poor diet and smoking.  At the end of the day, I think her acne had the effect of lowering her self confidence, as she's preoccupied with looks to an extreme.  Anyway, I suspect that people with BPD already lack self-confidence and have serious difficulties maintaining healthy social relationships, and appearance issues could make an already debilitating situation even worse.  Their emotional intelligence is very stunted, so they have trouble seeing beyond the superficial. 

I observed that my stepdaughter's daily consumption of weed made her symptoms much worse.  Like you, I think the weed actually changed her personality.  In my mind, there's no doubt that the weed impaired her executive functioning skills; she referred to herself as "scatterbrained," which was apt.  My stepdaughter's behavior improved a little when she cut back on weed.  I think you need to make every effort to find a way to help your daughter to stop consuming weed.  The least you could do is prohibit consumption in your home or in your presence.

Like your daughter, my stepdaughter's angry outbursts and passive-aggressive avoidant behavior have alienated her from all her former friends.  She's made enemies with extended family, and it's a shame.  She was unable to be with other family members during the holidays.  Basically she's willing to speak only with my husband and me, but I suspect that's merely because her dad is her source of money.  If he cut her off financially, we might not see her for a long time.

My stepdaughter ended up "hitting bottom" when she lost every last friend, quit school repeatedly, couldn't hold a job and felt hopeless.  She talked of suicide and attempted suicide multiple times.  It was the stints in the hospital that convinced her she needed to get help.  She's been through a few residential programs as well as several intensive therapies.  With medications, she seems to be a little more stable.  But she has a very hard time handling any stress.  She's a work in progress, but at least the progress is going in the right direction these days.

I read somewhere that the BPD symptoms seem to subside a bit in the 30s.  The way I see it, my stepdaughter is trying to live in an adult world with the emotional intelligence of a young child.  I sort of see her as "handicapped" emotionally.  To my thinking, she's only 70% mature (sorry, I think in terms of facts and figures).  Therefore when she was 20, she was emotionally only 14--no wonder college proved too challenging!  At 25, she's barely 18.  And I'm hoping at 30, she'll be functioning like a 21-year-old adult, i.e. making strides towards becoming independent.  But I don't think she'll get there on her own.  I think she needs extensive "remedial" emotional training, because she just doesn't seem to learn these skills on her own.  In a way, she has it tougher than most, because she has to "unlearn" her bad habits.  Her thinking is pervasively negative, and she believes she has no agency.  No wonder she's depressed.  So I think that with therapy and medications, there's some hope for her.  But it's so hard to remain hopeful, because she struggles and relapses, and she spews hatred every which way, especially towards her parents, precisely the people who are helping and supporting her.  It's a shame, especially for someone with so many natural talents.

[livednlearned]

I am married, for 35 and a half years, and my husband an I are on the same page with our situation.

It's great that you and H are on the same page, truly a silver lining. It can be so much harder when parents don't have the same perspective.

Right after Christmas, yet another family holiday that was ruined

Holidays and BPD don't mix well. Same for birthdays and large gatherings. Do you see any patterns with past holidays? Knowing what to expect can sometimes help lessen the damage.

I have always been a "fixer", and need to learn how to let go, but still have a relationship. Setting boundaries, I now see, is essential, but I'm just not sure how to approach that.

Be kind to yourself. Setting boundaries with an adult child will take time and your daughter will test those boundaries every step of the way. Non-verbal boundaries that I have real control over are the most effective, and it took a surprising amount of reflection and effort (with a therapist) to identify and kind of isolate what mattered to me.

Talk is cheap and can sometimes create big targets so take time to think about what changes you want to make. If you choose to verbalize your boundaries, choose a time to discuss them when your daughter is more or less regulated, and use "we" language or "I" language. "I don't like how flooded I get -- I have a hard time when people yell at me. I'm learning to give myself a time out and leave the room, so heads up for next time that I may need to take a walk."

Do we say anything to them, or what do we say when they ask about her? I have discussed with 3-4 VERY close family members/friends, simply for support and so that they know what is happening.

I understand the dilemma. My son is autistic and it's much easier to tell people there's a reason he's not sociable. However, I regret telling people because it's a complex stigma and it's not really my story to tell. If you're sharing BPD insights with very close family members because you need support, that's one thing. But telling other family members when there isn't a formal dx and your daughter might found out could end up harming your relationship with your daughter if she discovers she's the last to know.

It's good that you can see fixer tendencies -- that's a great place to start. Curbing those urges will be a real challenge (speaking from experience  )

How does your daughter support herself? In past cycles, how long before she talks to you again?

[TeachMePls]

Thank you for your responses and insights Grateful. I appreciate everything that you said. As far as how long she'll go without speaking to me, she DID show up at my birthday dinner a week and a half ago. We had it at a restaurant with family (18 of us), which was safer for her to act like things are "great". We hugged and she wished me a Happy Birthday, and that was the extent of it, which I was fine with. Everyone went to our son's house for cake and gifts afterwards and she chose not to go, which was fine too, but again, her loss to not spend quality time with her only niece and nephew. The sadness in me comes from all that she is going to miss out on, but I am learning to let that go. I haven't heard from her since.

For setting boundaries, I agree with you. I will start with non-verbal ones. She is not in a place to hear any type of change, boundaries, or consequences. She'll just get mad and want to argue, which I do not plan on doing!

Thank you again!