20yo son: I finally have a name for what he's doing, Splitting.

[Kata]

It is both a relief and frightening to find this website and finally have a name for what my 20 yr old son has been doing.  He’s splitting and I think he has been for years.

He was always stubborn and difficult to parent, he would often refuse to do what he was asked, but I didn’t think it was seriously outside the realm of normal behavior.  For the most part, his childhood was pretty normal, he still has his dad and I together, and we were always present for him.  His dad and I probably shouted at him a handful of times when things got serious and more heated, but we’ve gone over it with a counselor and they’ve assured us that it all sounded like pretty normal parenting.

At around 15, he started showing an extreme vindictiveness to authority.  He thought the principal was staring at him meanly in the hallways and deeply hated her for it.  At one point they had to question a group of boys for an incident, and after that the principal and vice was the devil in his eyes.  He would tell me stories about knowing people were looking at him or talking bad about him, when I didn’t pick up on anything odd in the interactions.  He and his dad weren’t getting along well at all, arguments culminating in him freaking out and making suicidal comments.  I got him into counseling, and the counselor said they didn’t think the suicidal comments were actually being planned.  He kept going for awhile until it seemed stable and he said they were just rehashing the same thing and not making progress.

Then COVID hit and finding a counselor was nearly impossible, plus it became a daily struggle to just get him to attend his classes and turn in assignments.  I was finding empty alcohol bottles, weed containers and paraphernalia and mushrooms a few times.  He told me these were all things he was sharing with friends and got mad if I even suggested that it was a problem.  Eventually we settled in to allowing him to smoke pot outside, but the drinking and other things was not allowed.  For good or bad, This seemed like the lesser of several evils and I just needed to get him to graduation, which he did.

Since then, it has been a cycle of calm and anger, chaos, extreme name calling, threats of no contact rinse and repeat.   He calls me every name in the book, has decided I am a narcissist, have anxiety, toxic, Bipolar, and has listed off things from his childhood that he says were abusive.  He spends time on youtube watching videos to prove his point and sending them to me.  He is basically saying that his behavior is all our fault because we abused him. His examples are few and not very well thought out, and I tell him that he may not have liked how he was raised, but all his examples are Parenting, especially in times when he was doing things that worried us.  He calls me a c*nt regularly and tells me to curl up and die and he can’t wait to sh*t on my grave.  At this time in his life, he thinks I am evil and his dad is weak and subservient to me, which couldn’t be further from the truth.  In fact due to them fighting so much earlier, I asked him to step back a bit and let me take the brunt of his anger.  If it was up to his dad, we’d shut off all support and let him grow up fast.  I think he’d crash and burn, and I don’t want him living under the bridge and learning even worse habits, or choosing to end his life.

However, he recently started college again and the first night in his apartment and he decided to come home and hang out with us instead.  (His first attempt to start college last year lasted about 1.5 mos and then we had to go pack him up and bring him home)  Over the next couple months, he came home every weekend, Friday and Saturday nights and ate dinner with us and hung out.   Meanwhile, we are terrible people.  I’m helping pay for his tuition and room/board, because I’m hoping school will give him perspective and he’ll realize he’s wrong, but in my mind I know this is probably bigger than something he can just learn his way out of.   He’s still partying and I know he’s also dabbling in cocaine, he says very rarely, but some of his overblown egotistical reactions just remind me of extreme coke users I’ve met in the past.  I can see his bank account and there is not enough money going in and out to really support this kind of substance abuse.

I’m not taking care of myself.  I’ve really pulled in and have stopped hanging out with people, being called a terrible person and a c*nt by your son has a way of worming its way into your brain, even though I know I’m a good person.  I work in healthcare, so it is my nature to help and serve others, so at this point I just work and sleep. At least I’m helping someone.

So here I am.

 

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

[AlwaysApologizin]

Hi Kata,

Welcome! I’m a newbie as well and grateful to find this forum to know though we feel so alone and isolated in those heated moments with our children, in fact we are not!

I’m so sorry for the verbal abuse you have endured. No one deserves that but especially us mothers who do and would do anything for them.
I also suffer from BPD and can tell you there’s hope it can get better. I just can’t tell you or me how or when!

I like you have always had a caring heart. I took care of my sick mom age 12-25. Held jobs as a home health aid and attempted nursing school until I got pregnant with my 2nd son. It also helps I’ve lived with BPD and can empathize and sympathize with my son. By no means does it make the episodes or attacks any easier. I have to remind myself not to take it personal but even more so I have to tell my husband not to internalize it or take it personal and to not respond the way he would truly like to!

I do think it’s great he’s attempting college again! Give yourselves a Pat on the back for that! His dependency is becoming independency no matter how slow it may feel. The fact he comes home to be with you on weekends, let that be a reminder that the things he calls you is not how he truly feels. If they hated us the way they try to make us feel in those chaotic moments, they would find a way to go no contact.

My 22 yr old also suffered from the shutdown of Covid and not being able to find psych help. He has had 3 different therapist these last few years. He finds one for 6 mos and either feels he doesn’t need them anymore or they aren’t right for him. I can understand that because finding the right one is like finding the right med, you have to go thru trial and error. Starting over with new ones can bring up triggers. But I do believe therapy is #1 when it comes to BPD. My son is in between one right now and that’s what brought me here. We went quite a while with no episodes and bam, we’re back to walking on eggshells! He will have a bad day at work and take it out on us. He lives in apartment built onto our 2nd garage so the chaos comes in text more than in person. Which then makes us linger and read leaving an imprint in our minds. As he’s gotten older he doesn’t stay in an episode as long and even eventually apologizes!
2 yrs ago no way we got an apology!

I hope you find the care and comfort from others here you so truly deserve! You’re a great mother and you’re doing everything you possibly can. No shame or blame should be on your heart! I wish you well and pray your son gets the help he needs. 

P.S. what is splitting? Lol

[Kata]

Thanks for your kind words ❤️. It's hard for me to admit how bad this has been, our older son didn't really even know the level of abuse because he left for college just before Covid hit, so he just hears bits of it. And I've probably been trying to protect him from some of it, so I don't taint his relationship with his brother, always hopeful that he'll grow up and this gets better.  Our older son is kind and loving, and tells us he appreciates how he was raised, so that helps me not think I'm a complete f-up.

Splitting is where a person has to see other people or situations as all good or all bad, and they struggle to recognize that everyone has good and bad aspects, and have made wrong decisions. They often split on themselves, so small bad decisions are turned into deciding they should just be all-bad. 

I'm still learning, but found some recent info on this and it felt like they were documenting our family!

At this moment, my son is no contact with me because he blew up when I tried to bring him some Easter candy, saying I was trying to control him with gifts. Which is really astonishing because I've honestly never given the boys things then tried to guilt them. I like picking out things for them that I know they will enjoy. Simple as that.