Adult DSD Turning the screw on DH

[Pemberlyhouse]

DSD is now early 30s. For more than a decade she has wrestled with an eating disorder and other mental health issues. Quite honestly, it's been hell. Mainly for her but also for us. There have been a number of occasions where we thought she was going to die. I've seen DH in absolute pieces over the situation and her sister is now keeping her at arms length because she can't deal with the roller coaster anymore.

She now lives on her own and has a job but her mental health is fragile. We know she is ill and probably will be for the rest of her life.

However, I can't help noticing how she works to turn the screw on my husband, almost like she has a need to keep him in a state of anxiety.

She will tell him how worried she is about money, how much her flat is costing, how she's saving every penny to keep her flat. DH gets worried and is on the phone to her trying to reassure her and work out a solution. Next thing we know she's off on another big foreign holiday to some far flung destination that isn't cheap. She has been on 5 foreign holidays in the past 2 years whilst pleading poverty.

She's tried to turn the screw again recently and my DH actually got really angry this time. I think he's finally starting to put two and two together and that actions are not matching what she's saying. When he got angry she hung up on him.

Her sister has told us she lies a lot and that she can't really deal with it anymore as she don't know what's true. I used to think this is too harsh but now I think it's just her sister's way of coping after so long and can no longer blame her.

DSD can't access anymore mental health support as she's had so much help over the last decade. I think she needs more psychology support but DH seems to think this is no longer an option. Whenever something good happens to someone DSD will have an episode and need help and support. It's like clockwork.

We are starting to reach the end of our tethers with it all. We don't know what's real and what isn't. DH has tried talking to her but she just won't engage in difficult conversations. Anytime she is challenged she will stop eating or start over excersing to lose weight. It feels like she brandishes her ED like a weapon so no one can challenge her on her behaviour.

It's so sad to admit but after a decade of hand wringing and ongoing support I feel like my sympathy has diminished. DH is exhausted with it all.

We have young children together and I'm dreading having to explain to the kids she's passed if the worst happens. It makes me so sad for her but also angry that she tries to manipulate those that have supported her for so long.

Anyone who can offer some words of advice or support?

People who have MH issues are not usually doing this sort of thing intentionally.

however your dh does need to step back. Stop giving her money (if he is) and stop challenging g her.

It is possible to be cunningly and self-interestedly manipulative and have an eating disorder at the same time (indeed, some might say these are two sides of the same coin, all part of the same illness). By her age, she’s found a groove that seemingly works for her to get what she needs.

My one and only (so not remotely representative) experience of such a personality is that when left to her own devices after finally being told “no”, lo and behold the same capacity for manipulation turned itself into self-preservation by other means. It was twisted, and unreal.

You've been through the mill, you know the desperation. Nobody can advise you on what to do. But the reality is that you’re being issued an ultimatum. Taking into account all responsibilities and duties to all relevant people, how would you expect a friend of yours to respond to an ultimatum such as this?

Is DSD’s mum around?

There an extremely fine line between supporting and enabling

She has definitely got into a groove of behaviour. I'd agree that she's sort of groomed DH into enabling rather than supporting.

What I don't understand is why someone would want to put their parent into high anxiety on a regular basis? he doesn't give her money so there's no financial reward. So what's the payoff for this behaviour?

DH and I had a long chat about it all last night. My view is that he tries the approach of not feeding into the alleged drama by not showing he is worried and upset. That he takes an approach of -'that's a shame, I'm sure you'll work it out' and then move onto another topic. Try to dial down the energy a bit so there's no emotional payoff in getting a reaction from him.

I just don't understand why she does it? it feels really cruel and manipulative. For many years I've just excused it as the illness and tried to be understanding. This latest episode has got me cross because she's been saying how stressed she is about money and maybe losing her job yet is now going on another holiday.

It's all about control, consciously or unconciously, and whether it's controlling her eating or controlling people.

It most likely started at a time where she feel she had no control.

While it explains it, it doesn't excuse it.

Your husband cannot be controlled without him allowing it. He needs to set boundaries.

AS @DoYouReally says - it's about control. On a lot of relationship threads, people will talk about controlling partners as "evil" or "vile" or stress that the abuser is doing it on purpose becuase they get a "thrill" out of your distress etc.

I think the truth is far more nuanced. In most cases, the abuse is part of their own messed up brains. As DoYouReally says, that's a reason, but not an excuse so it helps in that I think it's easier if you can frame something as not being done to purposefully hurt you, but it doesn't mean anyone should put up with the behaviour.

The reaity is that whatever drove her to an ED in the first place may well be driving her in others.

I think she might be in her 30s, but it's okay for your DH to continue to act like a parent. So, if she tells him she's going on an expensive holiday, a brisk, "well, last week you were telling me you could barely afford rent so those two things don't make sense. I definitely don't want to hear how broke you are when you return." ie non nonsense, no indulging rubbish and being clear on how behaviours have consequences.

When I was in peri menopause I got very, very anxious. I’ve never really been an anxious person before and it was bloody unpleasant.

I’d have constant thoughts that I would lose my job and not be able to pay the mortgage and lose my house. I did talk about it with friends and I’m sure they got bloody fed up with it, not least because it was never likely to happen (and in fact never did happen and even if I had lost my job I had savings etc etc).

reality and rational thinking have no impact whatsoever on anxiety. I got anti anxiety meds, then got on hrt and now am fully menopausal and never anxious. But I do remember how it felt.

she isn’t doing it to wind your dh up. She’s doing it because right now in that moment that’s how she feels. It’s got nothing to do with pay offs, or reality.

This brisk pushback is what I'm suggesting to DH. I think he did it this week but with maybe with a few additional expletives (not excusing it but over a decade of this will wear you down). She put the phone down on him.

What is scary is that when you do push back or she doesn't have control she tends to react by starving herself because she knows how everyone will react. It's a viscous cycle.

In the instance I have experience of, it started out as attention following a divorce, then realising the power she held over one of her parents by learning she could command that attention, then feeding off that power (she found control) and ultimately that becoming the only way she knew how to live the way she wanted to live. I don’t think she was happy at all, very much the opposite actually.

If he feels compelled to help, he pay help pay for private mental health services. He should pay those bills directly.

I don’t think he should cut her off but support financially he gives her should be for therapy/support and he pays the person directly because it’s obvious she is not able to manage money. Paying for a therapist if you can afford it would be the best thing you can do

Sorry but I gently disagree with this.

I'm peri menopausal and I know what it's feels like. This is not peri menopause its a complex ED with additional MH struggles and has been going on since she was 17/18 years old. So we're now over a decade into trying to manage it and it has manifested in all sorts of behaviour.

It really isn't like menopause at all. I'm guessing you didn't deliberately self harm when people challenged you on your behaviour?

We went through years of not wanting to say anything to her for fear that she would stop eating. We just can't live like that anymore
We're only human ourselves.

We don't support her financially. She has a job and owns a property (no rent or mortgage). She's in a really good position for someone of her age but is always catastrophising about how bad things are for her.

Sorry, I wasn’t trying to say that an ED is like peri.

what I was trying to say is that people don’t always choose their own behaviour -I would not have chosen my anxiety! And that while I’m sure my friends got worried about me I wasn’t deliberately behaving that way to get a payoff of making them anxious.

apologies for lack of clarity.

I don't believe DSD is happy either but she's got herself into a pattern of behaviour. It's sad that we've now got to a point where the tank is empty. We have to draw a line before it drags us and the other kids down. We can't keep allowing her to dump anxiety on us for a reaction and not push back. Especially when she keeps jetting off on holiday when claiming poverty!

How did your situation work out or is it still ongoing?

It can feel cruel and manipulative when someone has an eating disorder. But that doesn't mean they have control over it and can just be talked out of it. In fact telling her she's cruel or manipulative will just exacerbate the issues. She is ill.
You have to work from your side to have stronger consistent boundaries.
This involves accepting she is ill and cannot be treated like you would treat someone who isn't ill. Part of this may involve not being open with her about the successes or good or bad news regarding other people in the family as it sounds like she cannot handle this.
I think you also need to have clear boundaries about what you will and will not help with and how much you will and will not listen to. This will help her as well as you.
Bare in mind that when you are on the emotional rollerciaster so is she. But you guys have the facilties to get off the emotional rollercoaster which may help her do so also. So what I mean is it is OK to step back. Its OK to not get overly emotionally invested. Worry won't help her. Calm consistent boundaries will.
It sounds like your DH is getting anxious and trying to solve her problems for her to alleviate her distress. This won't help long term because it leads to her becoming very enmeshed. It leads to her emotional dependendance on him which is unstable for her. So this can lead to lack of self esteem and guilt which can exacerbate her eating disorder and other mental health issues.
Basically it's best not to get too involved. Easier said than done. But really you should be aiming to have more fixed calm boundaries. About length and frequency of phone calls, about how much money you are willing to contribute etc etc discuss these together and then do not deviate. If you feel she is extremely unwell and an immediate danger to herself contact the ambulance service or the crisis team do not try and deal with it yourself. And then you need to accept if they feel she needs input or not.
Having worked in mental health for years and having family members with mental health issues I understand how hard it is.
But this is a long standing issue which won't be suddenly cured. She reacts this way to any type of stressors. A lot of this is about accepting that and stepping back. She is an adult. I know its really hard but he needs to let go a bit more. She can't help reacting like she does. But feeding into it by getting worried and trying to help isn't actually helping her in the long term.

It sounds like she has deep issues and anxieties surrounding her father. She’s in her 30s but you have “young children” with her father. Are you close in age to her? Or was he a very young/teenaged parent? It sounds like there’s an element of her feeling anxious/displaced by the younger children and needing reassurance that he’s still her parent and still cares about her. Hence the cycle of trying to solicit care and concern from him to assuage this fear whenever it arises.

I wonder if joint therapy with the two of them might be beneficial to help her work on that particular area of anxiety.

Agreed. She's very obviously looking for reassurance that he still cares about her.

I couldn’t tell you, properly. Like you, I just became exhausted by it all. She took up far more space in my life than anyone else, and it just drained me. This was all a long time ago, and back then I wouldn’t have been able to articulate why I withdrew and why I felt guilty for doing so. With hindsight, it was self preservation. Now, I feel angry that while we were all dealing with our own stuff she felt entitled to act selfishly and hog all the attention for herself. Yes, she had problems some of which were worse than other people’s. But she made no attempt at resolving her problems or taking responsibility for herself. She was happy to place demands and complain, not happy to put in the work.

I hear through the grapevine that she never married or had children, has gone from one failed relationship with a gorgeous but completely useless man to another. She’s been extremely successful career-wise, however. I’m glad for that because the rest of it, frankly, sounds feeble and miserable.

ETA: I hear also there have been issues with alcohol addiction, sadly.

Can you start gently not reacting to her 'bad' behaviour, and only reacting to 'good' behaviour? Learn to say, 'we will deal with it when/if it happens' and 'it is out of our control'.

Therapy, CBT, you name it we've tried it.

I can see why you'd draw that conclusion but truthfully she has an amazing relationship with her younger siblings. They adore her and she them. If anything she absolutely spoils them. She's an amazing big sister to them and I really couldn't ask for more. She actually said to DH that since she won't be having kids, they are the closest thing she's likely to have. So I can say from what I've seen there isn't any behaviour that would indicate resentment to them or me in fact. It would easier in many ways if there was because at least we could work on that.

If anything it's her sister (the one who is closer in age to her and has taken a step back from DSD) that she is in fierce competition with. They have actually been in competition with each other since they were kids and often use DH as a battleground. They now visit us separately because they just spent the time just sniping at each other and I don't want the kids to see it. It made the atmosphere very tense. We honestly don't know how to fix that situation and I don't think we can. DH works hard to not show favouritism to either one. He's always been like that with them both but still they fight. Her sister has a lot of anger towards DSD as she is angry about how her behaviour effects everyone and that after a decade she should have shown improvement. She says she thinks that DSD lies all the time and tries to manipulate everyone. I tend to think this is the anger talking but I think after two very close calls where DSD almost died, her sister is entitled to her feelings as well.

Also, no I'm not close in age to DSD, DH and I are older parents.

I think that they can to a certain extent
I have had someone in my life who undoubtedly had MH issues BUT was also capable of ramping them up if it suited them. They WERE ill but also very manipulative

Our dd is 22 and has bpd . It is a brutal condition that has divided the whole family many many times . She self harmed for years also . Has other conditions and it us incredibly difficult to put boundaries in when they are so close to the edge .i have no advice just a hug x

This is my life.. I am following with interest but sending you a hand hold from a fellow parent who is also at the end of her tether.

Histrionic Personality Disorder?

You can have compassion for her mental health struggles without enabling her manipulation;