Our adult daughter

[anyminutenow]

Hi All

We're the parents of a beautiful, talented, smart 30-year-old who has BPD.  She was diagnosed a couple of years ago.  We discovered that she had, in fact, been diagnosed some years before but had not told us and had ignored the diagnosis.  We're pretty sure she has had the condition for about 20 years as she was an extremely difficult teenager and she made her first suicide attempts around the age of 12.

Our daughter is a mum herself, to our gorgeous 10-year-old grandson.  She manages to parent him really well considering what she goes through on a daily basis.  She was running her own business with a lot of support from us as a children's entertainer, but she now feels she cannot continue with it.  This makes us sad as she's never been able to hold down a job for more than a couple of weeks before she has a bad day and can't go in.  She then either walks away or gets sacked.  In the last two weeks she has told us she is definitely going to pursue being an actress.  A few days after that she announced she wanted to be a policewoman - thank goodness she didn't get past the initial stages due to a tattoo on her hand - then a firewoman.  She admitted it is the uniform that attracts her but is currently not in a state of mind to listen to much sense.

Sorry, this is a long introduction!  The last couple of weeks have been really hard on us and our daughter.  She was told to take a break from her tablets by the GP at around the same time her group therapy finished and she broke up with her latest boyfriend.  She has also developed a terrible phobia of spiders which has meant we have had to rush over to her house and rescue her and our grandson several times from spiders.  Yesterday she threatened to call an ambulance if we didn't go round to get rid of one.  She's back on the tablets (when she remembers to take them) and is going to have more therapy soon so we're really hoping this particular bad time will pass for her.

I don't know what I'm asking for or expecting from this group, but it would be good to know if the rest of you feel as powerless to help and how you manage your own feelings of desperation and anxiety which we both now seem to suffer when she's going through a rough time and demanding all of our attention.  We both work and it is so hard to carry on as normal when we don't know what sort of day she's having or whether we will get an emergency phone call from her at any minute.

I'd be glad to hear from anyone.

anyminutenow

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

[livednlearned]

Hi Jacqui,

Welcome and hello  

I'm sorry for what brings you here, and at the same time glad you found the site.

I am learning to coach my BPD loved one instead of rescue and fix, which is a hard transition to make for me.

With you D, I wonder if she might have some OCD traits to help explain the spider phobia. Any idea why this phobia recently developed for her?

You may be able to work with her son and coach him to competence so that he feels empowered. Is that possible? Showing him what you do when you see a spider, model for him how to remain calm, admire him for handling it himself, and then when it happens again, recognizing and acknowledging his competence. I don't know why I think it might work best to do this with him and not your D. I guess because fear of insects can be a very fight/flight fear that is hard to change. Giving your grandson the skills to handle the emergency will help him learn BPD skills and regulating his own emotions, while also showing you have confidence in him, and that leads to a feeling of competence.

I also found that validating questions are among the most powerful for me in my skill box. This places the responsibility for the problem where it belongs while also being supportive. If I am overly competent, I tend to trigger or foster victim behavior, which can then turn to resentment that I have no confidence in her abilities.

Because pwBPD tend to externalize emotions, how we respond can have a powerful impact.  

LnL

[Mutt]

Hi anyminutenow,



I'd like to join   livednlearned and welcome you. I'm glad that you decided to join us. It helps to talk to members that share similar experiences and can offer you guidance and support. I'd suggest reading as much you can about the disorder, you'll quickly see the benefits and become proficient over time.

I'm sorry that you're going through this. It sounds like your D us going through a stressful period. When a pwBPD internally feel out of control the person will try to over control their environment to compensate for the out of control feelings. The person in my life that displays BPD traits is my ex wife and from time to time she'll feel out if control and try to regain control with loved ones. I had to stop reacting to her. I hope that helps 

[anyminutenow]

Hi guys

Thanks for your responses.  I did manage to get my grandson to watch me catch the spider and to see how easy it was and how scared the insect was so I hope he can learn this skill.  I have no idea why my D has developed this fear, although I think it speaks more to the isolation she's feeling at the moment - it's a way to make us drop everything and run to her.  I don't know if there's some OCD involved, but she should be starting individual therapy soon (rather than group) so hopefully the therapist will draw it out of her.

I really feel for you too, it feels good to be able to talk to others who understand and I will certainly by looking at all the tools on here to help me with communicating with my D.