You should take a DBT class for parents or join a DBT support group for family members. A lot of what they teach is how to deal with a family member with a personality disorder in a way that helps them rather than making them worse.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She sounds like a narcissist.

OP here. This is actually what I think, too. It's hard.

OP, what you are discussing sounds like narcissism or borderline personality disorder. But the fact that bio=mom is/was bipolar is a big warning flag to me. She's at the age when bipolarism and schizophrenia often present for the first time.

Anonymous wrote:"DD has experienced no abandonment in her life ..."

"Her mother was similar, which is one reason we finally divorced, and while she chose to live with me in MS and HS, the Deja vu of walking on eggshells "

I think you are interpreting abandonment too narrowly, and I'm not just referring to the divorce.

+1

Also: genetics.

OP - I could have written a very similar post about my DD. Similar age and, like you, I try to do anything I can for her but I am working with limited info because she is an adult away at school.

My only suggestion is to find a therapist for yourself. Once a month or once a quarter, for an hour, can be very helpful. Good luck.

I think this type of personality is often a result of at least one parent being very inconsistent in their parenting style, especially including giving and withholding love and attention, so that the child is always uncertain and confused as to what they have to do or not do, say or not say, to get the parent's approval and love. It also involves them walking on eggshells all the time trying not to inflame the confusing parent. Would this be anything like the parenting your daughter got from her mother? If so, the results are very long lasting, possibly permanent, and very difficult to correct even with great therapy and full compliance with the therapists treatment.

"DD has experienced no abandonment in her life ..."

"Her mother was similar, which is one reason we finally divorced, and while she chose to live with me in MS and HS, the Deja vu of walking on eggshells "

I think you are interpreting abandonment too narrowly, and I'm not just referring to the divorce.

My 21 year old son has narcissistic tendencies too and I just try to knock him down a leg or three and point out when he’s being a d@uche. I’m not sure what the answer is, just here to commiserate.

I'm sorry, OP. It's very hard when the children you love and have raised all their lives are not particularly attached to you.

All you can hope for is that she's financially independent later as an adult, because that will ensure you don't need to support her. If her personality is difficult, you need to learn to detach emotionally.

OP, I don't have any suggestions on how to address the situation, but want to share that your DD is fortunate to have you as her dad, even if it may never feel that way. Good luck to you, your DD, and your family.

Anonymous wrote:She sounds like a narcissist.

OP here. This is actually what I think, too. It's hard.

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Anonymous wrote:I think she would make an excellent therapist. Many therapists themselves start off with difficulties. Perhaps you could focus on her positive traits rather than her negative ones? You aren't going to change her personality - she has to find her own way and learn lessons the hard way. You don't have to spend so much time with her. She's an adult now. You did it, your responsibility is over. She made it to 21. Now she can come to you and you can choose to engage and support her or not.

NP here. This really isn’t helpful or responsive to OP’s question. He obviously wants to continue to support his DD or he wouldn’t be on here asking this question, so it isn’t helpful to tell him his job is done. Many parents choose to continue to parent even when their legal obligation to do so has ended. And 21 is very young.

OP, I’m sorry you’re going through this. Unfortunately, I have found that often you have to let them hit rock bottom so they realize they need help. My sibling had mental illness and the ONLY thing that worked to get them to take their meds was that the family’s support was conditioned on it. It was brutal but necessary.

Wishing you and your daughter the best.

She sounds like a narcissist.

I think she would make an excellent therapist. Many therapists themselves start off with difficulties. Perhaps you could focus on her positive traits rather than her negative ones? You aren't going to change her personality - she has to find her own way and learn lessons the hard way. You don't have to spend so much time with her. She's an adult now. You did it, your responsibility is over. She made it to 21. Now she can come to you and you can choose to engage and support her or not.

I am struggling with how to interact with my DD, who turns 21 in a couple of months.

She has been in and out of therapy for years. She was briefly in a partial hospitalization program in HS for suicide ideation but actually refused to participate in individual therapy there or take the drugs that were prescribed. The only thing she seemed to enjoy about it was group — and she wanted to play therapist herself and counsel other kids because she really enjoys telling other people what to do.

Every conversation with her in recent years feels loaded. It’s like she’s always talking down to you, always needs to assert herself as the smartest person in the room, no matter what the topic. She isn’t well-liked by friends who know her on more than any superficial level, because she has no real close friends. Instead, she seems to have a lot of drama and conflict with people around her, often because she has this impulse to tell people off, especially when she feels aggrieved, which is often.

She just had a disappointment at college, probably related to her interpersonal skills, and has been really withdrawn. I can tell she is depressed and I am concerned about it. But it’s difficult to talk to her because she just thinks she’s perfect and everyone around her is an idiot, including me. Her mother was similar, which is one reason we finally divorced, and while she chose to live with me in MS and HS, the Deja vu of walking on eggshells while she is home is discombobulating.

Before she was 18, I have had therapists tell me she has anxiety and depression; I believe that, but, again, she refused to take the medication for it. Another wondered about bipolar 2 (which I believe her mother suffers from, although her mother took an SSRI for some period of time at least.) Another literally told me they didn’t know what was wrong with her but said something was definitely wrong, and then fired her (a therapist firing a patient makes me think of Borderline, although DD has experienced no abandonment in her life). In the few instances where I attended therapy sessions with her before she was 18, it appeared me to that she approached therapy the same way she approached school — be the teacher’s pet, try to get the therapist to “like” her and validate all of her feelings and grievances, real or imagined. I know now we should have found someone who did DBT but I didn’t realize that then.

She does have a therapist now at college — I get the bills. But I don’t know the therapist and HIPPA means the therapist won’t talk to me. I keep looking for a time to raise this gently with my DD — that she seems to complain a lot and be very short and condescending in the way she speaks to me and her sister (and her mother, from what I have heard). I tried that in June and got the silent treatment for five months…

Kind of at my wits end here. She doesn’t have to live this way. I would like to tell her to see a psychiatrist and discuss whether some medicines could help her live less painfully.