Archive for the ‘Parents of BPD’ Category

BPD and BPD Loved Ones Coach, A.J. Mahari talks, in this 138 minute audio, about what people on the other side of BPD – Loved Ones of BPD  really need to know and understand to understand more about what is going on in the relationship with someone in your life with BPD and how to not lose yourself. Or if you have lost yourself, how to find yourself again.

There are so many growth opportunities for Loved Ones of BPD – so many lessons you can learn that more about yourself than your loved one (or ex-loved one) with BPD. BPD Loved Ones need to stop focusing on trying to rescue the borderline and need to focus much more on what is going on with them, that is what they have control over and that is what, as a BPD Loved One can empower you to regain a sense of self that many feel they’ve lost to the confusion, chaos, drama, and difficulty of splitting in and by their loved one with BPD.

This audio will help you get back in touch with yourself and guide you as to what you really need to do in your own personal situation whatever the relationship is with the person in your life or who was in your life with Borderline Personality Disorder. In this audio A.J. Mahari also explains a lot about Borderline Personality Disorder and why you need to learn to practice Radical Acceptance Skill so that you can gain more clarity and understanding of what is actually going on and what you are experiencing and why and what to do about it, how to cope with it. There are hooks, blocks, and aspects of what people with BPD struggle with that draw Loved Ones in, back in, over and over again and/or cause them immense pain and disappointment and even rage.

Being aware of what really is through Radical Acceptance will help you to begin a journey of reclaiming yourself, not living just for the person with BPD and finding out how much you are losing of yourself, your happiness, and your time and life to what is for many an over-focus on the person with BPD in their lives that for some reaches the point of being obsessive and all-consuming and exacerbating already existing and often increasing pain. Without Radical Acceptance you may also be less yourself and becoming more isolated all the time.

To purchase this audio please CLICK HERE

©A.J. Mahari, December 10, 2011 – All rights reserved.

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Parents of a teen or adult-child who has been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder often feel guilty. There are cases where there has been neglect, abandonment, or abuse, and then there are cases where someone who did the best they could and did not abuse a child ends up with a teen or young adult-child who is diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder.

Parents often feel such a responsibility to help their borderline children no matter how toxic and/or abusive a situation becomes.

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Georgie, a mother of a 20 year old daughter with BPD writes:

"I really am at my wits end with this child of mine. I love you so much. I have done everything – absolutely everything I can for this kid and to no avail. She just refuses to admit she has problems. She continues us, her family, hostage. She won't go to school. She hasn't graduated from high school. She won't help with household chores. She won't get a job. She doesn't pay rent. What on earth is going to happen to her? What are we supposed to do with her?

We did finally get her briefly to a psychiatrist. She was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. It was such a shock to us because she has not been abused or anything like that. All of our other four children are fine, thriving, healthy and functional. When she saw the psychiatrist – a total of five times in all – she was put on medication. Of course, she doesn't want to take the medication.

She had been difficult to next to impossible to cope with or deal with or even have a conversation with. Now she is getting angrier. We don't know why. She is starting to scare us. We are lost. We don't know what to do? Are we going to have to kick her out of our house – what next, out of our lives? God, I can't do that. But, I am also very aware that she is having a very negative effect on her younger brothers and sisters.

Thanks for all the work you do A.J., and I hope that maybe by posting this someone will comment or someone else will be moved to share their experience if they think they have some advice for us at all."

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Perhaps one of the most difficult and painful realities in the life of any family member with BPD is that you just can't rescue them. You can't make them go to therapy and stick with it. You can't make them take the medication. And, people like Georgie and her family can't very well support or continue to be held hostage to the borderline in their family. What are parents to do? Difficult choices for sure.

? A.J. Mahari (with the exception of what Georgie wrote) August 31, 2008.

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Are you the parent of a teen or adult-child with BPD? Would you like to share some of your experience here to help others like yourself? If you would, please email bpdinsideout@yahoo.ca

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How can we as parents cope with our Borderline children or adult-children? Somehow, BPD has robbed these children of reality on all levels. I don’t think our BPD kids realize how far out there they really are. It’s as if they truly believe normal people live the way they do. Our parental examples do not seem to make any impact or bear relevance to their lifestyle.

Once again, it is like all the things we thought we taught have simply vanished in their world. I am sure most, if not all of us parents, pay the rent or mortgage, have jobs, deduct the check for food from the bank account, etc. Our children have seen us at the kitchen table laboring over which bill we must pay first and how and what we will cover next week. Just like Joan getting her license taken after 3 speeding tickets. Objective reality is non-existent. Jobs, money, laundry, paying the rent, personal hygiene, lice, Columbia CD or CD of the month Club, bill collectors, long distance bills, and ad infinitum somehow get lost in the struggle just to be I guess.

I firmly believe none of our kids are capable of surviving in a "nice way" on their own. They have already established a pattern of neglect for themselves. It should not be difficult to understand, intellectually anyway, their disregard and neglect for our grandchildren. It is so sad to see our grandchildren abused and not cared for. Yet, BPD must so distort our kid’s personal reality, they cannot see much past 30 seconds in the future, if that far in advance.

What is ordinary common sense to us, is not for the BPD children. We have touched upon this issue of late in several different ways. I do not pay any outstanding bills for Joan. Bill collector’s do not call me because my number is unlisted. My small community knows about Joan and it knows about us. Marg and I have learned not to give two damns about what others think or say about Joan. Mostly, our acquaitances tell us how wonderful Anne seems to be doing and "God Bless what you are doing." I am trying to say here that we all must consider what is right to do, not be concerned with what anybody else thinks about us or what we do.

As long as your BPD child is not a minor, you are in no way legally obligated (nor morally, I might add) to pay their bills.

In response to two mothers on an email list who wrote that they thought it was wishful thinking or false hope that kept them going back for more with their BPD adult children and that the only way they knew how to cope was to distance emotionally so that the pain, when inflicted, would somehow hurt less, Jackson wrote:

I cannot say what keeps you coming back for more abuse, I can tell you what makes me do what I do.

We left no stone unturned in an effort to help Joan in the earlier years. I mean we did everything concerned and loving parents would do to try and make Joan whole. You name it, we did it. Joan was sapping all of our energy every day. She was making the entire family dysfunctional.

Here is how I learned to cope fairly well with Joan. I reasoned things this way.

1) I am the horse who makes the money to feed and care for this family. If I cannot function in the provider role, the whole family goes into a tail spin. I must maintain my own sanity so I can work and make a living.

2) I used the analogy of an Oak tree to clarify my thinking. If an Oak tree has one bough that is sick and that sickness will eventually kill the entire tree, you must then cut the diseased tree bough to save the rest of the tree. I decided that Marg, Alice, and I needed to remain whole and healthy and I would have to sacrifice Joan.

3) I envisioned the worst that could happen to Joan living on her own. The worst I suppose was committing suicide or somehow getting herself killed. Of course prostitution, alcohol and drug abuse, homelessness, etc. all floated through my mind as possible consequences if I turned my back completely on Joan. I emotionally accepted the fact that if Joan killed herself or was murdered, I would grieve, but still get on with my life.

This rationale worked for me. I could have continued and could continue just fine without Joan in the picture. As hard as it was to "write off" my first born, I knew if I were to survive, I had to make that horrible emotional break.

Many parents report that their Borderline children never see themselves or their problems as the problem. It is always something or someone else and they keep changing and searching seemingly to no avail.

It is just this observation that makes dealing with our children so hard. Rather than sit back and evaluate themselves, they resort to blaming their environment for the problems in their life. The bad situations are a result of others, not them. So, they keep on searching, finding, and again abandoning what they have found for other tempting, greener pastures. The process is self-repeating and self- defeating except they do not know it or understand this process about themselves. Now this is an acceptable way to learn and grown at earlier ages. It is not a successful strategy for adults. Most adults realize sooner or later the grass is really no greener anywhere else. Our BPD kids do not seem to learn this lesson at any age and keep falling flat, seeking the answers with another partner, another child, another job, another boyfriend, another husband, another and another and another.

Until the BPD person wants and realizes there is something terribly wrong, they continue to lay the blame off on others and nothing changes.

In response to a question from a woman on an email list who asked how much of our lives do we have to give up for these kids, Jackson replied:

Spit your anger out. Don’t conceal it. Let your child know his/her behavior directly affects you. Our BPD children must come to know they are not islands. They must constantly be made aware how their behavior directly impacts on all with whom they are connected. Let him/her know you bleed just like he/she does. And, get angry because his/her conduct provokes your personal fury on oh so many levels. Try to express this anger after your real rage passes. If you bite him/her back during an angry episode, you will just get angrier and angrier at his/her refusal to see your side of things.

Sometimes, when the situation becomes calmer, the Bpd child can see your point a tiny bit better. During BPD’s rages, they are focused and consumed with themselves more than usual (if you can make this distinction). You are simply an object to vent their strange resentments and anger through. I try now, with all my might, not to bite Joan back when she rages out of control. Protect yourself first, easier said then done because of our parenting instincts but try none-the-less. Know others like us do understand how angry and resentful our borderline children make us.

Jackson’s take on the Disrespect Borderlines Show Parents

Here’s my take on BPD disrepect — We, as parents of BPD children, are disrepected continually within our scope of interaction. But, this disrepect often comes from the fact that these selfish daughters have not made it out of pre-teen emotional status yet. These daughters are still locked in the fragile pre-teen years on an emotional level trying to reconcile the oncoming march to adulthood. I have finally come to recognize we are dealing with emotionally illiterate children. We view these daughters as incompetent adults in just about every life area. They really are women with no idea how to function emotionally as adults. We interpret this as disrespect. I am finally beginning to truly believe, in large measure, these daughters just missed some brain connection to reality. Of course, I also believe, our daughters most certainly manipulate to achieve their own ends. They are fully aware of the manipulation–they are not aware that the manipulation gains them nothing in the end — only more heartache.

They really do not understand their infantile emotional urges. We suffer the disrespect for sure. I pose the idea that most of the disrespect centers on the infantile emotional nature of an ego-centric pre-teen searching for a stable emotional identity not yet found. That was a mouthful!! It could be bullshit too –just a thought on this anyway.

What About Our Borderline Children’s Children – Our Granchildren?

The fly in the ointment’s name is Anne. If my granddaughter was not in the picture, Joan would not be living with me today. Marg simply said she could not live with herself knowing we did not try and save Anne. With great trepidation, I acceded to my wife’s need to try and do right for our granddaughter.

For those of you with grand children to care for, we realize the gigantic commitment you are making for we have committed to the same goal. Understand, however, we all have choices and we have chosen this path. We could and can walk away at any time. You do have a choice as do we. There are mental health issues to deal with no matter which way you turn — and these issues directly involve us as well as the BPD child and grandchild.

For those of you who have no grandchildren, are having one coming soon, or are afraid you will have one: I will make this very clear and as short as possible.

1) If you cannot make the commitment to go all the way with the grandchild, do not get to know the grandchild. Do not get involved in pre-natal care issues, go for the birth, visit etc.. Once you know that little innocent baby, you are finished. Better to not get involved in grandparenthood. If Joan has another child, count me out per this paragraph. I will not ever do this again.

2) If you cannot let the BPD child in your life go, you must accept the fact that their crisis is your crisis. You have chosen to die a thousand deaths and refused to accept and understand their is nothing you can do to change someone else’s behavior. I am not saying it is easy to leave the child on her own — certainly not. I am saying, in my opinion, you are throwing your own life away in an entirely fruitless project which will bring you much pain and heartache.

&copy Jackson

Jackson, Father of a Borderline Daughter, speaks about BPD Kids

My daughter was just re-diagnosed this week. The shrink said he thought she was much more of a manic-depressive than a BPD individual. Well, it really does not matter what the clinical diagnosis is or was. I know Joan has BPD from my last 24 years of being with her. I also know she does tend toward the manic/depressive as well. These two DX’s were made when she was about 17 by a very competent doctor.

I told my borderline daughter, Joan, she had to get into therapy or she could move out of my house. She made an appointment on her own. Joan will not take any medications. You can’t force these kids to get help. You can set guidelines to protect yourself to some extent.

I am learning the meaning of living one day at a time. Anne (Joan’s daughter and my grand-daughter) seems to be doing ok. She has a little private space here and knows she is loved and cared for here. This is the best I can do for now.

Our children often do make up outrageous tales. Our kids are emotionally disturbed, not stupid. They use the weakest point and jam the sharpened point right there. They want their parents to know just how bad a job they believe we did.

Well, I for one am very tired of that bullshit. I have searched my soul over and over again looking for something I did that made Joan a BPD. And you know, there just isn’t anything I did to make her be the way she is. I hold some malice toward my parents too, but I live my life and suffer the good or bad from my own personal choices. Our kids have yet to escape their egocentric worlds and see no one really cares more than parents do. Just let them go and tell them to find some other sucker–see how fast they come home.

It is at this point, when they come begging, you must reassert your boundaries and stick by them. Do not let your BPD kids manipulate you with anything. As hard as it is to sit by and watch your child self destruct, they must come to know you, the parent, will survive. Without you dear fellow players, there is no game. Let your children know you are not playing the game any longer and begin to deal from strength, not weakness.

Marg, my wife, and I have accepted this attitude and continue to provide the necessary things to secure Anne’s environment as best we can. Joan wants to be with her half retarded boyfriend instead of taking care of her daughter — at least this is my read. But, in the end, Joan leaving for the w/ends is better than having Anne living with her away from us — I am in this game to help and love Anne — Not my daughter Joan.

Joan will either swim or drown. It is up to her. Anne had no say coming into this world. Marg and I will stand by to raise this child until she too is ready to either sink or swim. Anne needs a few years to develop the skills her mother failed to develop.

My youngest Alice, has garnered many scholarships, done well in athletics and academics, She has a very bright future because she takes responsibility for her own actions and realizes what is needed to be a successful adult. Same set of parents, raised the same way, went to the same school. Go figure.

If you continue to suffer the "slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune" regarding your BPD daughter, you will find your son jumping ship. He will feel you have devoted all your time to his crazy sister and you have no time for him.

Read the books Tough Love along with Walking on Eggshells –then stop yourself from self destructing because of your daughter’s unwillingness to help herself. If you want to bear your daughter’s burden and propensity toward the self destruct mode, know you will have not enough strength ever to save a person from themselves.

In order to try and get tough– I had to accept the fact my daughter may commit suicide, she may get murdered, she may become a drug addict, she may prostitute herself. I had to accept this as a loving father — no small emotional task. Accepting it meant letting go of it. Letting go of trying to control what the outcome in my daughter’s life will be because it is too painful to hold anymore and because my holding it hasn’t helped and can’t help Joan. Her life is hers now. Once I decided I cannot lay down my own life anymore for a daughter who really does not care much for herself, I began to accept my fatherly roll in a different way.

I am telling you something simple here from experience. I don’t care if you like me or not. I, and all of us have been where you are. We all still struggle with our own advice to others. We don’t follow everything we spout off about 100 per cent because humans just can’t stick to things 100 per cent all the time. We are only people — a lesson our BPD children must be forcefully reminded of.

Jackson speaks to another woman’s dilemma with her borderline daughter

If you do not feed the horse, you perish. Parents of those with BPD are the horses. If you do not survive, who will take up the reins? No, it is not easy that is why it is called tough love. You must deal emotionally with the very worst consequences your child could suffer — the ultimate being death.

Your daughter is playing a dangerous game. It is the adult version of "cry wolf". What will your daughter do next time she pulls the suicide act and you fail to respond the way she wants? She will probably back down and come down to earth a bit. If you call her bluff, and she carries through with the suicide, you are not responsible. Your daughter is holding you hostage. Your daughter is manipulating you with suicide threats.

Again, it is by no means simple or easy to let your child go and suffer the consequences of her own behavior. If you keep on intervening, you will be in the graveyard and your daughter will go on to find another sucker. I am not saying your daughter is conscious of her own motivations. I am saying that she is very aware of how her behavior gets you to move quickly.

You can forget the contract deal. Been there, done that. It takes two to comply with the terms. The only one who will comply with the contract is you. Throw her out of your home and life for now. Let her come crawling back, if she ever comes back. You will then be calling the shots. This approach isn’t all that healthy either, but we are not living in a perfect world.

I am very blunt and harsh. You will keep on carrying your cross as long as you decide is is your job to save your daughter from herself. It isn’t your job, however. You are enabling her to twist your guts in knots and make you crazy. And no matter how many hoops you jump through or how much you allow her to play you, you aren’t even helping her by not holding her accountable for her actions.

I readily admit that the stress of my personal situation makes me very sad at times. After you have turned all the stones over in seeking to help your child, and you find you can only sit by and watch and hurt, one more thread gets pulled from the cloth. If you pull enough threads from the cloth, it falls to pieces.

Many of us cannot understand why our adult children behave like hooligans. Why do our children insist on being the entire show. Our kids show no capacity or empathy for us, yet they fully expect we parents to drop all and come running to help. I for one am tired of having shit thrown in my face and then having to eat it too.

It is very interesting to note how different the feminine approach is in relation to BPD children. I am not commenting on the rightness or wrongness of the approach — simply noting that I get the distinct impression of mothers operating very differently than fathers.

Oh yes, I hurt. I get embroiled in the day to day battles. I am learning to distance myself from these nasty little escapades my BPD kid pulls. Fathers definitely do hurt too.

? Jackson

This is the journey of a man who is the father of two daughters. One, his oldest, had Borderline Personality Disorder. His youngest daughter does not.

All names have been changed at the request of the writer.

Jackson’s Journey

Where to begin. Perhaps at the beginning at about 10:00 p.m. at Mary Immaculate Hospital located in Queens, NY. It was May 14, 1975. ?Joan? arrived after a difficult and induced labor. My new wife Marg was 18.

Joan came into our lives 24 years ago. It was a difficult birth, but not extraordinary. Of course this is so easy to say because I was not the one heaving with labor pains or pushing my guts out.

Perhaps we should have known that Joan was not going to be an easy child. But she was the first and we were young and full of energy. I certainly had no clue in the early years that ?Joan? would bring incredible emotional pain to our lives. I do remember having to get in our old beat up car and drive Joan around the neighborhood before she would fall asleep. But, this was in infancy. She was a colicky baby, but Marg was patient.

The years whirled by and our second daughter Alice was born in 1981. There was some natural jealousy of a 6 year old already on board toward the new arrival. Alice got chicken pox at 3 months old and I followed with a case of adult chicken pox. Alice came away easy in that most of Marg’s immunity protected her from a bad chicken pox experience. Me, well it was a bad two weeks for sure. This is about me to a large extent, and unfortunately so.

No I don’t have BPD. Joan has it. I suffer and Marg suffers. Anne, my six year old granddaughter suffers, Alice suffers. We suffer in different ways and spaces. We suffer the brunt of a daughter, mother, and sister who is often "out to lunch".

Joan?s world is fantasy and boredom, tattoos and cutting her own flesh (at least we know in her younger years she cut.) We cannot tell now. Joan is unable to deal with reality and lies to herself and everyone else as if her lies can change reality to make it what she wants or needs it to be. I guess it does change Joan?s reality, but not ours. We see much more objectively the terrible toll BPD exerts on Joan?s daughter Anne. It is a double hurt for Marg and I. We watch Joan throw her life away and concurrently watch her screw up her own daughter’s existence.

As if this weren’t enough. We threw Jessica out at 16. Bought a house for her and Anne and Anne?s father to live in. I had to throw them out of the house because they were systematically destroying it. We took Joan and Anne into our home again. The home Joan was thrown out of at 16. And on the saga goes.

I could outline 100 episodes of experiencing her BPD. What good would it do now and here? You all know what I am saying. You know of the push away I hate you and the pull toward you I love you. You know of the magical thinking and fantasy life lived by your own BPD kids. Joan lost her license for 6 months for speeding several years ago. Two of the 3 tickets were in the very same spot. Tell me BPD behavior doesn’t cry out for notice.

What good does it do to tell you Jessica repeats the same behavior over and over again without taking any meaning from the bad outcomes. She has lived with two men, one Anne?s (my granddaughter) father. The other just a bum, from a white trash family. Neither has a driver’s license.

Who can live with garbage all over and cat excrement? Who, in their right mind, could not bathe for more than several days or leave their teeth rot in their own heads? Who could associate with only those with no way to succeed in life. My Joan — a beautiful blond, blue eyed child of slight build–now much heavier — never had a job and blames everyone else for what goes wrong. She never takes responsibility for her own conduct or the very bad choices she consistently makes.

Joan makes me very unhappy and sad. I could have let her go her own way if it were not for Anne. Actually, it was Marg who said we must try to save Anne. I simply had to go along for Marg’s sake. I could have put both Joan and Anne on the mental shelf to protect my own fragile emotional world.

I could have cut them both loose from my world. Oh, I would have paid a large price in guilt. I would sleep better though. I try to live one day at a time and remember not to be too angry about having to raise another child. I wouldn’t mind raising Anne if Joan left us alone to do the right thing.

Counseling you wonder?. Oh sure, we have tried and tried. Joan says there is nothing wrong. She says that she is normal. We are just uppity people who don’t understand her or the downtrodden people she chooses to associate with.

At this point, the bottom line is: Anne, is my granddaughter. I cannot help Joan anymore. I cannot even kiss her goodnight when I leave for work. I can’t stand being around her. I do indeed walk on eggshells and don’t like that feeling when it is my house, my income and my sanity.

I searched high and low all over the internet, in support groups and through research trying to find practical suggestions on how to best grow my granddaughter up with Joan being a Borderline. I would throw Joan out again tomorrow if it were not for Anne.

I’ve been working in state prisons for 18 years. It’s a very tough environment. But I can tell you BPD is much, much tougher to deal with. My wife Marg worked with small children in a daycare setting until a neuropathic injury ruled that occupation out.

Marg handles this BPD situation much better than I do. I am the one who has sought support online.

About My BPD Daughter and Her Daughter

I guess I want Joan to be the perfect parent. Much like the idea of a white picket fence life, a fantasy, I am falsely thinking Joan could and should be the best parent ever.

I am angry that Joan thinks more of herself than her child. I think the child’s needs must always come first. But, then I look at how I have lived my life thus far. I cannot say I put my children first all the time. I know my limitations and have lived by them to a large extent.

I often escape when conflict arises. The escape, years ago, used to be physical. Now my escape is primarily mental. I simply tune out. Why should I expect so much from Joan?

When you become a parent, the primary focus is the child. Concretely speaking, a parent should:

1. Provide the basics of life. Included among these basics are: Clean and wholesome living environment. Plenty of nutritious food. Clean and properly fitting clothes and foot wear. Several play areas i.e.–school playground, backyard, friend’s house. A place for the child to call home (a room, a space, something that is the child’s domain completely. A daily routine that engenders security in knowing what will happen and enough flexibility to adjust to life as it comes. Routine and flexibility will prepare the child for life.

2. Provide basic emotional stability. (which is impossible if the parent is not emotionally stable) Real parental love must show through. Parents must love a child enough to be firm with discipline. Affection must be ongoing. The child must feel valued and wanted. The child must feel secure enough with the parent to separate from the parent. The child must know the parent will always come back. (Much like the early years of peek-a-boo and hide and seek) This idea must take root as the child grows into adulthood.

Eventually, the child must learn the parent is simply another human being with faults, with foibles, with strengths. Balance must be learned. "Moderation in all things" is a hard won battle to learn and abide.

Spouting off is easy. The right words, the ones that sound good, have always come easy for me. Living the words, a far greater challenge. How could I possibly think Joan would be the parent I want her to be? How totally unrealistic to think this could be so. Children don’t come with a book. Marg and I only learned these fancy words over much time and thought parenting–trial and error.

I think what drives me bonkers is not seeing the love expressed for Anne often enough. I don’t see a lot of affection between mother and daughter, but I do see some. When Joan is having a good day, the love and affection towards Anne is more noticeable. The turning away part is difficult to see. You sense when Joan begins that fade out. Then, the big push away. How can a child understand this behavior?

It is hard enough to be a single parent. It is hard enough to raise a child and make the common mistakes so many make. It is even more difficult when you have BPD.

A central conflict for me concerning Joan as parent is my basic idea of parenting. I say this: You must love your child enough to lay down your life for your child. I don’t see this fierceness of purpose in Joan.

One demonstrative way to illustrate this observation is to discuss the ongoing lice infestation problems we have experienced over the last couple of years. You do not keep on exposing your child to known infestation conditions if you love your child.

I have many examples of Joan putting Joan’s needs first rather than Anne’s needs first. This is not to say that the child’s needs must always come first. Balance is key. I think I see too many lapses of motherly love in Anne’s rotted teeth, not knowing how to tie shoelaces, coming home late when Joan wants to be out and than rushing the bath and bedtime routine so Joan can leave again, and more etc.

Where does a parent’s right to some small happiness begin? The fact that Joan leaves for the night to be with her boyfriend is objectively justifiable. Emotionally, I just cannot accept the fact a loving parent would do this. Joan does have a beeper we can ring in an emergency. By the time we contact her, however, we would have had to act on the emergency anyway.

Here is an actual example of what happened in a semi-emergency situation one night. Anne had a terrible episode of projectile vomiting after her mother had left for the night. My brave wife Marg had vomit from head to toe as I ran for the garbage can. Of course, Marg bathed Anne and got her teeth brushed. I took of the bedding and scrubbed the mattress with bleach water. We settled Anne back down and she slept with us for the rest of the night. All this unbeknown to Joan.

What good would it have done to call Joan here? We would have had to supervise her in doing what we already knew and were there to do. So, Joan gets to play while Marg and I get to be parents all over again. And yes, I resent that we are put in this position all the time. If I am going to be a parent, I want full custody to raise the child the way I see fit. Then, I will be a full time parent and tell Joan to leave and stay wherever the hell she wants to except here, at home with Anne.

I AM WORRIED STIFF

The greatest harm can come from the best intentions. If we fought and won custody for Anne, would this really be in Anne’s best interest? I have read that children, no matter how badly they are treated, want to remain with mom. At this point, Joan is not being abusive to Anne — at least during the hours Anne and Joan are home with us.

Would raising Anne be in our best interests? Yes, to alleviate any guilt we feel about what we perceive to be Joan’s parental failures. No from a practical life cycle view. I would like to be less responsible rather than more responsible.

What happens if Anne turns out to be Borderline too or creates very substantial problems like her mother? Then where is the light at the end of the tunnel. I shutter to think I will have to repeat all of the intense emotional pain I went and continue of suffer through with Joan.

? Jackson