Nancy -- it is hard to tell the "special" part from the cunning part. I think that's disconcerting for us as parents -- that our kids are charming and we still feel like we must be hypervigilant, even more hypervigilant (better read my Melody Beatty lol).
When gfg17 was in Residential Treatment Center (RTC) we were told in a family meeting "We wish we had ten of him." That alone made me want to run screaming from the room. He's doing pretty good so far, at home -- no duplicity or funny stuff of the kind we are discussing. To me, lots of the cunning and charming stuff sounds like attachment stuff, which probably resembles, in many ways, the addiction and Borderline (BPD) issues.
All we can do is watch and hope. If I had to bet $100.00, I'd bet that the special part in our kids is real (for now). Your daughter is making surprising gains in rehab (I mean, not fussing over that cell phone could not be faked in my humble opinion) and now a good therapist who's wise to her. My gfg17 had a psychotic break in juvie, and now is in public school 1/2 days and getting all A's. Before his break, I never saw any type of "self" inside him. Now I wonder. It seems his psyche shattered into a million pieces when he was psychotic, and then re-settled back into a better place, like a kaleidoscope, when he started on Clozaril. But I still wonder.
Maybe they are survivors. I guess that's my biggest hope -- that they are survivors. That they have some resilience. We can't give them that (which is kind of comforting because it really is up to them).
These posts help me to think too -- thanks Nancy.
Jo