by abraham90 » Fri Apr 06, 2012 2:56 pm
Your description sounds like my daughter about three years ago. I think the best policy is to use 'tough love'.Stop trying to help her, this feeds the dependence. This can be hard to do because you feel guilty, and this is what this personality type depends on, they are very skilled at manipulating others. The shrinks call it: Borderline personality disorder, there is no obvious 'disease', but the constant sabotaging of family members lives can be horrific. The only real solution is to get them to take responsibility for themselves, own their own mistakes. If you keep 'rescuing' her she will never develop any skills.So, even if she gets into a bad state, don't make it easy for her to get money, food. Eventually they get the message that no one is interested in making her problems the center of attention anymore, and the usual tricks of emotional blackmail are not working, and they start to do the right thing, because they HAVE to. A job and basic cleaning up skills.
Best of luck with this, I sympathize, can be terrible.