1:00 a.m. crisis-I think validation was helpful

[PeaceMom]

Hope this encourages someone. Yesterday DD19 uBPD came in from being God Knows Where at 7:00 am. She did some college schoolwork, got dressed (looking darling) and left to go meet the friend du jour for lunch. At 8:00 pm I texted to remind her that she has been out all night and sleep was important to be in the right mindset for a big college test today. She said “oh really, I didn’t know”. Sarcasm at its best. And I was bummed that I fell prey to my fear and texted any advice at all.

I went to bed at 11. No sign of DD. At 1:00 am she’s banging on my bedroom door asking me to hurry and come in her room. She was freaking out saying she wanted to kill herself, had zero reason to live, she can no longer tolerate one huge crisis after another...She had just gotten a speeding ticket coming home at midnight.

I witnessed a complete BPD textbook dysregulation unfold in front of my eyes. Black and white thinking, fatalism, victimization, feelings = facts, extreme emotion, screaming, bawling, fear, shame, guilt...

It was extremely triggering to me. I hate loud noises in my ear, especially in the dead of night. So, I was encouraging her to cry and scream more quietly, etc. as we have a household of 6 and a freaked out Labrador.

I sat on her bed and just did deep breathing, occasionally saying “speeding tickets suck” “everyone gets them and everyone hates them” “it’s scary to see police lights” “I’m so sorry”. She finally calmed down around 2 and fell asleep.

During that hour, I was in a zen-type state of extreme calm and I had flashbacks of times in the past (before I knew better) where I would have said “DD, maybe you should have been home studying” “it’s dangerous to drive at night when you haven’t had much sleep”
“Why can’t you simply go to lunch and come back in 2-3 hours instead of 12 hours later?” This absolutely would have exacerbated the situation. I had insight into exactly what “Loving Someone with BPD” says about our ability to make their situation so much worse.

I’m chalking this one down as another lesson in this never ending textbook.

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[FaithHopeLove]

That is excellent, Peacemom. You did a great job.

[Bluemoon23]

Thank you for sharing this experience! So inspirational and good to see how you used the best things to help in the situation. So happy for you and to hear this

[Normlee]

Thanks for sharing a meltdown handled so well! This is perfect for me right now. I go too far "helping" and see I exasperate my DS.  I will practice being there for him gently- validating and letting him work through the emotions as he needs to.
Hugs

[Rosheger]

I am very impressed!  High 5!  I had so many similar things happen years ago, long before I knew anything about emotional dysregulation!  Great example you gave us of best way to handle these situations!

[PeaceMom]

All’s quiet on the Western Front here tonight as DD hasn’t even mentioned the speeding ticket or horrible night last night. Life’s a continual whiplash w/a BPD kiddo.

[secretgirl]

Hope this encourages someone. Yesterday DD19 uBPD came in from being God Knows Where at 7:00 am. She did some college schoolwork, got dressed (looking darling) and left to go meet the friend du jour for lunch. At 8:00 pm I texted to remind her that she has been out all night and sleep was important to be in the right mindset for a big college test today. She said “oh really, I didn’t know”. Sarcasm at its best. And I was bummed that I fell prey to my fear and texted any advice at all.

I went to bed at 11. No sign of DD. At 1:00 am she’s banging on my bedroom door asking me to hurry and come in her room. She was freaking out saying she wanted to kill herself, had zero reason to live, she can no longer tolerate one huge crisis after another...She had just gotten a speeding ticket coming home at midnight.

I witnessed a complete BPD textbook dysregulation unfold in front of my eyes. Black and white thinking, fatalism, victimization, feelings = facts, extreme emotion, screaming, bawling, fear, shame, guilt...

It was extremely triggering to me. I hate loud noises in my ear, especially in the dead of night. So, I was encouraging her to cry and scream more quietly, etc. as we have a household of 6 and a freaked out Labrador.

I sat on her bed and just did deep breathing, occasionally saying “speeding tickets suck” “everyone gets them and everyone hates them” “it’s scary to see police lights” “I’m so sorry”. She finally calmed down around 2 and fell asleep.

During that hour, I was in a zen-type state of extreme calm and I had flashbacks of times in the past (before I knew better) where I would have said “DD, maybe you should have been home studying” “it’s dangerous to drive at night when you haven’t had much sleep”
“Why can’t you simply go to lunch and come back in 2-3 hours instead of 12 hours later?” This absolutely would have exacerbated the situation. I had insight into exactly what “Loving Someone with BPD” says about our ability to make their situation so much worse.

I’m chalking this one down as another lesson in this never ending textbook.

WOW soo inspirational... you go girl!
I find teenagers even when they're NOT bpd act super emotional/irrational. I know when I was around that age I was nuts LOL so I can't imagine having BPD on top of that... poor girl. But my mother was never like you... she was very invalidating so your daughter is very lucky to have you as her mother

[Lola B]

Excellent work! It is hard to bite your tongue and parent when they get older. Having pain from the emotional demonstration is very hard. When I was recovering from my brain injury I wore earplugs a lot. It helped. If DD is open to hearing it, tell her it helps you stay calm when she needs you. My DD19 is willing to tolerate me more and more each day because we communicate about it. I have used the term Highly Sensitive Person because BPD triggers her and may be wrong. She likes that and it is very true. There are things she perceives as obvious that are imperceptible to some.

Hang in there and stay awesome!

[StressedOutDaily]

Great job! 

[wendydarling]

Go you Peace, you've worked so hard on your learning, that must have felt so good! I relate to the Zen type state you describe it's powerful and in turn you can teach your DD a valuable skill overtime.

[PeaceMom]

I appreciate the encouragement, ya’ll. I will use the term Highly Sensitive Person w/DD as she has no idea that her last psych ward wrote down BPD as a preliminary working diagnosis. If she did hear them mention it, she would have had zero frame of reference and it likely was over her head.

I just watched the expert video posted at the top of our home page here by Fruzelli taking to therapists who do BPD Family Therapy. Excellent information. Thanks Skip!

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[Rosheger]

Just watched it too - very interesting!

[Turkish]

I sat on her bed and just did deep breathing, occasionally saying “speeding tickets suck” “everyone gets them and everyone hates them” “it’s scary to see police lights” “I’m so sorry”. She finally calmed down around 2 and fell asleep

This is great.  You could have judged her, sure, yet that wasn't the issue of the moment.  You may have also built trust in that she might be more open to your advice in the future,  advice which may seem obvious to you or us, but hard to understand during an emotional dysregulation episode, where she might have felt guilty or shamed, but wouldn't admit it.