BPDFamily.com

Hi. I have a 15 year old daughter who has been struggling with mental illness for a couple of years. It didn't seem like anything when she was little. But looking back, there may have been signs early on that we never picked up on. She has been dx with social anxiety, depression, OCD, sensory processing disorder, eating disorders and most recently, BPD. It started to go downhill for her in middle school. She coouldn't seem to hold onto friends for too long and experienced a lot of peer and teacher rejection. It went on for about 2 years, until it got worse the summer before her first year of HS when she was completely isolated from friends. No camp and everyone she made plans with cancelled or just blew her off. She started the school year terribly. Didn't want to go, wouldn't get out of bed and it just got worse.

What I didn't at first is that she is a popular youtuber with thousands of subscribers. But no friends in the real world.

Then, the traumatic experience of having a classmate steal her youtube channel and all her online identities. And the boy taunted her and her online friends. It was bonafied cyber-bullying.  
She got worse and wound up in a partial hospitalization program for 3 weeks. She seemed to get a little bit better with the social anxiety, but still couldn't hold on to friends.

Her dad is loving, but doesn't really understand all of this and his behavior and unsupportive verbal language is detrimental to anybody making any progress. (We are still married)
I'm looking for ways to let him know that we need to stick with this as parents, together to help her overcome and deal productively with the mental illnesses. Anyone have any suggestions?
Thank you.

hi Techgal and *welcome*

your love for, and desire to support your daughter couldnt be clearer. im glad you found us.

you mention that your daughter has some diagnoses. is she seeing a therapist? has there been symptom progress? the cyber bullying must have been an incredible blow. that age is so hard, and isolation and depression are sadly all too common.


well, its going to require communication. this can be in the form of a talk, or several talks. it can be in the form of leading by example. mental illnesses arent intuitive, and can be difficult to understand. if your daughter is in therapy, one way to get on the same page might be for each of you to meet with the therapist. what do you think?

I have similar issues with my husband. My DD20
Suffered from school refusal and huge amounts of anxiety. I really wished we had handled her much differently. We shamed, threatened and criticized her all during that time. If only I could turn the clock back!
As for my husband, I plan to use DEAR MAN, an acronym for Describe, Express, Assert, Re-inforce, (stay) Mindful, Appear confident, Negotiate
Describe: I see that you get angry with our DD a lot, especially when she doesn’t complete a task. You use harsh tones and words and give very intimidating looks. This escalates these events into conflicts.
Express: I feel scared that you or she will completely lose your tempers.
I feel helpless and frustrated because I don’t know what to do except try and get you both to stop. It’s hurting me so and I really want to find a resolution that can benefit all of us.
Assert: I need you to take a breath and consider just how difficult it is when emotions aren’t regulated and depression zaps your motivation. In order for DD to complete a task- which few feel like doing- most of us healthy folks just say ‘ugh, not a fun task- but I’m going to get it done anyway.’ DD doesn’t have that kind of regulation right now. I need you to have compassion and understand where she’s at. This is why it can take her several days or weeks to complete these tasks. Please do your best to understand the nature of this disease and the challenges one has when disregulated. When you criticize, use hatch tones, give dirty looks, it scares me and it just heats things up in our home. More importantly, it just adds to the disease by shaming our DD. She is already constantly beating herself up. I’m not saying stuff your emotions. That’s unhealthy too. Acknowledge your feelings, but have compassion. She’d do it if she could.
Reward, reinforce: you have a tremendous opportunity to build a closer relationship with your daughter. I think if you show her the respect for what ever she’s dealing with, she’ll begin by returning that respect. By being understanding about why she’s not completed a task and see
It as a symbol of her disregulation and disease, you might not be so angry so much of the time. You might even consider offering to help her- that could help you build a stronger relationship with her.
Mindful- I’m going to do this as kindly as possible
Assertive- I’m going to say this with confidence... .confident that he is capable of hearing some if not all that I have to say.
Negotiate- I am completely up for any form of negotiating he might bring up.
I hope this helps a bit- much of a ramble