Angry Daughter

[MaureenSmith]

Hello everyone,
This is my first post and I have already gotten so much help by reading through everyone’s posts.

My 27 yo daughter has BPD and I have been having such a hard time connecting with her. I am constantly walking on eggshells being careful with every word I say in fear of her getting more angry with me. She accuses me of not putting her first and not following through on things with her. I feel like I’m being gaslit with things I said or didn’t say and I feel like I’m literally losing my mind questioning everything I’ve said to her. I feel as though I need to write down in a journal all of our conversations because she turns them against me.

Any help or support is so appreciated. I feel like I’m losing her.

Maureen

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

[Josie C]

Hi Maureen…and welcome!
I absolutely hear you when you say

I feel like I’m being gaslit with things I said or didn’t say and I feel like I’m literally losing my mind questioning everything I’ve said to her.

My dd(29) also has BPD.  She regularly misinterprets my words and facial expressions. She then twists my intentions, puts her own spin on them, and accuses me of being a terrible parent.  Most times, I’m not aware of the misunderstanding—only to find out days, months, or even years later. Just yesterday, she told me something I told her when she was 8 years old old “really f-ed me up.”  It feels like she’s reaching for anything—it’s easier to blame me than it is to work on herself.

Honestly, it’s difficult work to remember and believe MY truth.  She’s the oldest of four kids and her dad and I have worked at being the best supportive parents we could be.  When she started showing signs of depression, anxiety, etc, we took her to drs, therapists. Nothing seemed to help. Then she became an adult and won’t allow us to communicate with her therapist. And after 15 years of having her berate me and blame me, it’s hard not to believe she’s right. My own therapist works with me to keep my head above water.

It’s a tough road, this loving someone with BPD.  Know that here you have folks who understand.  Keep reading and reaching out, we all learn from each other.

Hugs,
Josie

[Peony1214]

I can relate and am going through the exact same scenario with my 24-year-old daughter. It is getting to the point where I am needing to keep a journal logging all the time we do spend together, and what we we did together, because she constantly accuses me of not spending any time with her at all.  She is getting more of my time than any other member of my family! I am now in therapy learning how to best interact and respond to her and it is helping a lot.  Hang in there!

[js friend]

Hi Maureen,

I began a diary/journal for the very reason of gaslighting when my udd lived at hom. There was no way my udd would accept that I hadnt done or said something to set her off and I was just lying about it so I began to keep a diary and wrote down what I could remember  andberthere was lots to remember....it was hard to keep up with. But  what I noticed was that there was often a pattern of her verbal abuse and gaslighting. I noticed that she would often only do it when were alone together and our altercations would always esculuate very quickly so I made a conscious effort not to JADE( Justify .Argue, Defend, Argue) anymore. I also stopped confronting her about the lies she told because I realised that even if the evidence was there in black and white or there infront of her she would still deny it...so what was the point? Honestly, once I found the JADE technique  It saved so much more of my time and mental energy and udd didnt know what hit her as she had always liked to stir things up and cause drama.

[CC43]

Hi Ladies,

I can hear the desperation and sorrow in your posts.  I feel that you truly love your daughters and feel their pain and frustration!  You are champions for dealing with this, year after year.

I get that you've resorted to keeping a journal to catalog interactions, in order to preserve your own sanity.  I imagine that your daughters are accusing you of all sorts of transgressions, and she's so riled up and persistent that you start to believe her, and you question your memory.  My stepdaughter would act the same way.  But over time, I learned that there's no arguing with her when she's dysregulated.  She's not interested in fact patterns.  Her brain would twist facts to suit her purpose--to give her rage an outlet.  She became so outrageous in her accusations that I found some to be strangely absurd.  I even had to laugh in private, because what she accused me of was typically the opposite of who I am.  I thought to myself, how could she be so misguided, and misread cues, and misremember events so completely?  And why is she so obsessed with the ANCIENT past; doesn't she have better things to think about?  Why is a full-grown woman obsessing over childhood and using it as the excuse du jour?  Can't she move on already?

Then it dawned on me:  she's not really talking about me, she's projecting her own thoughts onto others, because her brain is twisted with anger about something that happened.  And then I saw that pattern, over and over.  Typical accusations would be that family members were self-centered, childish, drama-seeking, lazy, uncaring, avoidant, unsupportive or disrespectful.  Those accusations described her perfectly, not her parents or me.  What was the trigger?  Something that went wrong recently, a stress or a disappointment.  So her brain would twist facts to suit her purpose--to give her rage an outlet, and in the process DEFLECT our attention away from the real problem, because the real problem was too painful for her to handle.

If you start to see this, then you don't need to catalog the day's events or everything you said.  You see, she's not interested in hearing your version of events.  If you try to correct her, you'll feed her anger, because she could view that as invalidation, disrespect, attacking her or outright aggression.  In her mind, she's right and you're to blame, no matter how misguided and unhelpful that is to her when dealing with the stress or disappointment of the day.  She's not interested in hearing facts or possible solutions.  She can't when she's in that state of mind.  So I think she needs time and space to sit with her feelings and learn to process them better.  That's where DBT therapy and/or medications (mood stabilizers) can really help.

When I stumbled upon that perspective, I found that I had an easier time dealing with my own feelings.  Instead of defending myself from the false accusations, I'd just see her flare-ups and blow-ups as a sign that she's dysregulated, and that she's having other problems at the moment.  It's so predictable now, that my husband and I can see it clearly, even if we don't know exactly what's going on with her.  We basically say to each other, uh oh, something bad happened (at least something that she'd consider bad).  And that might initiate a call to her therapist for general insight about how to handle it (step back, offer support if she wants it, check in on her more often, etc.).  If she cuts of contact for more than a day or two, then that's a red alert (avoidance). 

Earlier you mentioned that your daughter had skipped therapy that day.  Maybe she felt guilty, knowing that you pay a lot for those sessions.  Maybe she didn't have a legitimate excuse, and you (or her therapist) would call her on it.  She might fear that you'll say she's not trying hard enough.  Maybe SHE thinks she's not trying hard enough to get back on track, and it's eating at her.  She feels she failed once again, and she's stuck.  Because her outlook is so negative, she thinks she's a total failure.  She wonders, why do I have to do this anyway, it's so unfair.  Nobody else has to deal with this stuff.  Therapy is stupid anyway.
 Nothing ever works.  Then she goes down a rabbit hole, a path that is well-worn in her brain.  She's damaged.  It's not fair.  My parents made me this way.  They messed me up.  They're evil!  It's hopeless.  I'll never amount to anything.  I can't do it.  It's their fault I'm miserable.  Etc.  Then she has to do something she doesn't want to do--sort out health insurance matters--and she blows up.  Her thought patterns are so negative, she doesn't have the mental resources to handle doing something she doesn't want to do.  Adulting is just too HARD.  I'm not saying that this is what happened; I'm just trying to illustrate how her negative self-talk can play out, emerging as anger, accusations or excuses.

Sometimes I think that BPD means that emotional development is delayed.  Sometimes I think of my stepdaughter as emotionally handicapped.  Even though she's in her mid-20s, emotionally she's still a teenager.  And when she was a young adult, emotionally she was a tween.  I do believe though that she's made some progress, as she has learned to cope with some adult-level responsibilities.  These successes can feed some of her resilience.  In fact, I tend to think that if she can get through suicide attempts, she can get through anything, if she'd just remember that.

[MaureenSmith]

I can’t thank you all enough for your kind and helpful responses. You are so right, I love my daughter so much and actually texted her this morning as she hasn’t responded to me in a few days.  I am hoping she will respond, but as you all said, maybe not expecting much while she goes through this is the only thing I can do. I am reading a book on boundaries and am reading as much as I can on this site which is so helpful.
All I guess I can do is tell her how much I love her and pray that she knows that.  She is adopted and already has abandonment issues, so it is a hard path to navigate with her.
I so appreciate you all and thank you for your time in responding. It is wonderful to have a resource like this and I am so glad I found it and all of you.
With love,
Lisa