Dealing with daughters allegations

[Hopingforthebest]

Hello, I thought I would come here to see if what I am experiencing is normal. My daughter was diagnosed with borderline characteristics at 15. At this age she was self harming on an almost daily basis. Was experiencing high anxiety and hallucinations. She had over 50 admissions to the emergency department in a two year period for overdosing on medication, cutting herself and strangling herself. She received 3 years of therapy through mental health services and was placed on a cocktail of medications over the years. She attended 5 seperate schools in 2 years. Her mother I believed had similar traits and had trauma as a child and teenager. I have other children, one who has had anxiety issues as a teenager. I left my marriage 4 years ago as I couldn't sustain the emotional abuse from my ex wife and daughter. My ex wife then prevented me from seeing my 4 children. To this day I have not seen them or been able to speak with them. My daughter with borderline characteristics is now an adult and seeking a restraining order against me which makes me very sad. She appears to be a well adjusted girl now, has a job and boyfriend and has built positive relationships with other family members. She hates me but is adores her mother. She has stated like her mother that I have abandoned her mother, herself and her siblings. I now have to go to court to defend myself and I am torn between bringing up her history to defend myself and just accepting it as I don't want her to view also that I am hurting her by telling the court about her past, driving her away further. I feel the court will not fully understand BPD characteristics and  the related disorder. I have never done anything to hurt my daughter but she says she is fearful of me.

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]

Hi Hopingforthebest
Your situation is just so sad - yet so typical of BPD. It sounds as though the situation has been driven by your former wife, since you were not given any access to any of the children after you separated. As adults they are free to make their own decisions, but often a bpd parent can make it so complex and difficult eg 'it's either him or me' that it is just too hard.

Since you have not had contact with your dd, why not just not turn up? If you don't defend, then an order can be made against you, but these orders are always for a certain period of time anyway.

Many of these actions go undefended and personally I think it is a good option for you: you don't have to be put in the position of either defending yourself or agreeing to the terms and the so called facts that have been presented.

Another reason I think just not turning up is a good option is that I am suspicious of why this has turned up now. You haven't had contact for 4 years with any of them, and I wonder if mum is stirring up trouble?

Just my thoughts on it all . . .

[Pook075]

Hello and welcome- our stories are exactly the same (BPD young adult daughter, BPD ex-wife).

My daughter had maybe 10 stays in mental hospitals from 16-18 and every time, she'd leave the facility with new friends all over our state.  Only, they were THE ABSOLUTE WORST types of friends because someone was always in crisis and it would pull everyone else right into that crisis.  Like dominoes, one by one, they'd all end up admitted all over again at different facilities across the state.

Why?  Because they all fed off each other's drama, their highs and lows.  That's why your kid likes her mom so much, they're two peas in a pod and they have you to triangulate on.  When something goes wrong, it was because of what you did...bla bla bla. 

My daughter loves her mom about half the year, and hates her the other half.  They've also had dozens of drag-out fist fights over the years and eventually, I just accepted that I wasn't getting in the middle of it until they both worked off some energy.  It's sad and I'm not proud of it, but that was my life for a very long time.

For your situation, it's a really tough spot.  I would tell the truth though (in regards to the courts) and wait things out for the mom/kid relationship to deteriorate.  Defending yourself to your kid won't work because she's been brainwashed for 4 years; she has to return to you on her own.  I'm really sorry...it stinks bad.

[Hopingforthebest]

Thankyou for your support. To be honest i thought about not showing up to court, however I am worried that my daughter wants the order to try and set me up somehow. We live in the same area still and she has made false allegations that I have attended her workplace and harassed her. I don't even know where she works which is the ridiculous thing about this. I suppose I am just wondering whether it is insensitive of me to not feel like I can ever trust her now after she has done this. How can I ever trust her motivations to reconcile as a genuine father/daughter relationship. What amazes me about borderline behaviour though is how sucked in mental health professionals and the courts are into believing they are trustworthy and honest. My ex wife would tell me all the time she knows she is a terrible wife and mother and would go out and have affairs and happily tell me about it, however I have no proof of this as it is only what she told me. My daughter would attempt suicide then once in the emergency department tell mental health staff that she is fine and ask for McDonalds. They would send her home and repeatedly tell me I have a lovely daughter. I feel allot better now that I have read more on this site about what others have experienced as for a long time I kept saying to myself why am I so stupid and how did I let all this happen. All I can tell myself is that I left my family out of total exhaustion as I felt so hopeless and sad. Thankyou again for listening to my experience.

[Sancho]

Hi Hopingforthebest
Thanks for the extra detail. It is a dilemma if you are in the same area. You don't say what the terms of the restraint are. I am assuming it is not to come within xx m of her personally, her home her workplace etc.

I think I would turn up and say that you are prepared to accept staying away from your daughter but you need to have specific details. Then tell them you have no idea where your dd works - that will put a question mark in their minds as to your dd's facts - that you have not seen your dd in 4 years. Tell them you understand your dd has mental health concerns and if it makes her feel better in some way, you are happy to agree to some terms, but they need to be specific because you have no idea of your dd's whereabouts and don't want to run into her accidentally and be in breech.

This might be one way of getting your alternate facts across without going into too much detail??

[Pook075]

We live in the same area still and she has made false allegations that I have attended her workplace and harassed her.

Paranoia is common with BPD's when they're unhinged.  I wonder if you happened to visit where your daughter worked, she hid, and everything she's saying was her perception of why you were there.

In other words, the harassment is you physically being there...which is her mind (combined with her mom) was to cause mass trouble and ruin her life.  I can see that happening through disordered thinking when they're going down the rabbit hole.  In her mind, what other possible reason could you have for being in the same place as her once in a 4-year period?

I would go to court and tell them that you haven't seen her, don't know where she works, etc.  Why?  Because if the courts deem that the order is not necessary, it sets a precedent of wasting the court's time and false allegations.  Then if another shoe drops, you have that in your favor showing a pattern of deception.

[Maggie EF]

I read about this thing that BPD people do called "splitting." BPDs pick one parent they like, and the other parent is the problem. So, to answer your question, "Is this normal." I would say, "Yes." I am the villain in my family, too. I've chosen to stay - not get divorced. But it has been very hard to stay. I live in a house where it sometimes feels like no one likes me. Yet, I know that my husband loves me, and my adult daughter, who lives on her own, loves me. I know my undiagnosed BPD daughter 17 (uD17) wants nothing to do with me. For 14 months, uD17 has not spoken to me. If I enter the room, she walks out. If I speak, she covers her ears, and she will go into her room and throw things around out of anger. My husband tells me to "shush" a lot, leave the house, or go to another room. My uD17's therapist told him to stop doing that, but it doesn't matter if he "shushes" me or not, I still feel horrible in my home.

Leaving would be hard. I imagine if my daughter had cancer and I told people that I was leaving her because the cancer was too hard for me to deal with, that would not be a nice thing to do. So, in my mind, BPD is like cancer; it's a sickness.

She has made very harmful allegations against me, and her actions, passive-aggressive attitude, and disrespect make me very sad. That said, I found this book very helpful, "Stop Walking on Eggshells for Parents: How to Help Your Child (of Any Age) with Borderline Personality Disorder Without Losing Yourself"
by Randi Kreger, Daniel S. Lobel, Christine Adamec.

One thing they talk about in the book is not to JADE, justify, argue, defend, or overexplain. I've decided to do that with the allegations. Whether the allegations are true or not, they are accurate to the BPD. Also, the BPD has riled everyone up, my husband is mad, and my older daughter (the uD17's sister) is mad at me. They believe the allegations are true and have expressed that they've all felt those things from me. Honestly, because they are all saying things to me, I have to agree that maybe they are right. I also think my punishment for the things they are complaining about - my punishment for being excluded from the family - does not fit the crime. It is also frustrating to see my husband get away with making the same mistakes that I'm accused of, and he's not getting kicked out of the family.

But there's something else. I cannot change my husband, and I can't change my daughters, but I can change myself. I've decided to take the high road. Here's what I mean. Let's take one allegation.

One allegation my uD17 made as to why:
1. She isn't speaking to me,
2. She can't stand my voice,
3. She wants me out of her life, and
4. She won't sit in family therapy with me

Once, when she was little, I got mad and threw toys at her. Some of them hit her. My husband said that he saw me get mad over and over and that he knew that the uD17 would get very angry with me one day; he saw it coming. Then the D35 told me that when she was little, I threw things at her every time I got mad.

Okay, they have a point. When I was 18 years old, and I had my first daughter, I was very immature. I can't remember every day of being 18 or 19 or 20 and having a tiny demanding baby, but I'm confident I lost my temper. And I'm sure I threw things at her at some point. I know I threw a cell phone at her once when we were in the car, and I can't remember what she did. I married my husband when I was 36, and I was better by then, less angered me, but nevertheless, I'm sure I got pissed off at some point.

Then there's the uD17 allegations of me throwing toys at her. I remember the day clearly. She was about 6 years old, and I told her repeatedly to pick up her toys. She never did. Then one day, the dining room table was covered in toys, and most likely, I was already triggered by traffic or a long day at work or whatever and I started pushing the toys very hard off the table; she was standing across the room, and a couple of the toys flew off and hit her and she said "ow ow." I didn't realize that the toys would hit her, so I apologized and hugged her. That day, my husband came home, and she told him, "Mom threw toys at me." I said, "Yes, I was upset that the toys weren't picked up, and I apologized to her again." I thought it was over, but every time she became upset, she talked about those toys a lot.

Now, 14 years later, it's one of the reasons, on top of a mountain of other equally trivial allegations, why she is not speaking to me.

So what do I do? Nothing. My husband yells at uD17 for hours, and she doesn't get mad at him. But I am shunned and walked all over because one time, some toys hit her when she was 6. I can't argue or defend myself because then I am not sensitive. So, I have a therapist who specializes in BPD who will listen to me and help me sort through my feelings. I go to church. I work. And I make a point to have fun. I am seeing a play next week with a friend. I have lunch or dinner with other friends. I hang out with my Mom. I play video games or read books. I signed up for a women's fellowship at church.

I have decided to live and be the best I can be. If my uD17, my husband, and my other daughter want to hold on to or get triggered by things, that's on them. As for me, I'm going to enjoy my life.

[Hopingforthebest]

Thanks again for your support it has been very helpful and reassuring