BPDFamily.com

Hi. I just found this group. Grateful for that. My daughter has BPD/ADD/depression. She is away at college. After theee years it’s getting bad. Grades dropping, no motivation, feeling isolated, sabotaging friendships. She talks about suicide a lot. I am scared to send her back to school and am considering inpatient programs. I was always a positive person, glass half full. But this is killing me. She has a therapist she works with and is starting new meds. But none of it seems to help. I am so lost. And how much is me enabling. I am her only friend.  Please help me. She has little interest in anything anymore. But one moment she is fine and the next she tells me she wants to die. The BPD diagnosis is fairly new, and at first wasn’t sure. But the more I learn the more it make sense. I would appreciate any support. Thank you

Hey Rimus0525, so glad you reached out.

A fresh BPD diagnosis for your young adult daughter who is already dealing with ADD/depression, plus her being away at college, plus the roller coaster of her emotions -- going from "totally fine" to "wanting to die" at the drop of a hat, plus the sense that you're the only support for her -- I just hear how this is taking a toll on you. So, first of all, we're here for you. This is a group that "gets it" -- parenting children with BPD, even though technically they're "adults"... it's not normal parenting by any stretch of the imagination. It's exhausting, at best.


I hear some positives and some challenges here -- she is in therapy, which is positive, and seems to be open to trying new interventions (the meds), yet change is slow if you even see it at all, and she seems so isolated, with you as the only support and (it sounds like) few if any friends.

I wonder if you've seen our "lessons" link yet? Figuring out how to support -- really support, in a healthy way for you too -- children with BPD is a huge question, so please check this out and see what rings true to you:

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=114267

Whenever you feel up for it, let us know how you've been doing.

-kells76

Thank you so much! I will check the link out. I really appreciate your response. :). Thank you!

For what it's worth, it's not clear whether she's suffering sudden rapid-onset attacks of self-loathing/suicidalism/violence/cussingAndThrowingAboutOfObjects, etc - but if so, in our experience Alprazolam is the most effective drug by far - but because it's a Benzodiazapine and commonly sold on the streets and stuff, doctors nowadays try to avoid giving it to anyone "because there are better drugs now!".

Worth trying to ask about it by name.

On the non-medicinal friend, if you're her only friend I'd say to take it seriously and again, anecdotally, keep in mind...
The "normal" person is more grateful and happy to receive a rose from a loved one 12 times a year, than a dozen roses once a year. But the haltlose rate in BPD patients mean they're often the opposite - they lack a firm sense of their current place in any timeline and live off a hyper-artificial mental image they construct. So it doesn't matter what you do, it'll be forgotten in 3 hours and they'll swear you do nothing...then 3 days later cherish it, 3 weeks later claim it never happened, 3 months later swear it was the greatest thing anyone ever did for them, etc. But therefore something "big" is much preferable to them to a lot of small kindnesses.

In short, think of something so gaudy, tacky and melodramatic that you'd roll YOUR eyes if someone did it for you...but to them it's the adult version of going to Disney and getting $20 of free tokens and having cotton candy, lol. They'll complain some of the time, same as with anything, but the other times when they remember it fondly it will have a MUCH bigger impact than asking them to remember a thousand small kindnesses and mercies you showed them.