I believe that my son has BPD.

[Kennyboy]

My 22 year old son was recently honorably discharged from active duty here in the US. He has been home living with me, I've been trying so hard to make him adjusted to life with me at home, but he's not doing very well, I've caught him in so many lies, he doesn't know what he wants to do on life, he is an emotional mess, binge drinking, and desperately trying to have a steady girlfriend. He chases them all away because he is needy, clingy, and suffocating. He's burned through his close friends by trying to date their ex's. He has no friends and extended family also runs away. I've given him a good summer, we traveled around extensively, but he cannot focus on anything, and changes his career plans weekly. He had a meltdown last weekend for no apparent reason and stormed out and was gone for days. I think he started checking out on me when I confronted him on his

Lies and stories. He tells girls he tries to date that my home and vehicles and property are all his, and fabricates stories that promote grandiosity that aren't true.  He blew off his VA appointment, and I made him reschedule another. I'm making him go. I love him the same as i would my biological son, but I know he's been subjected to horrific physical, emotional, and sexual abuse as a child when he was in the custody of his druggy mother who was 14 when she had him. I love him so much, and I am so deeply saddened. I want the best for him, but he runs away from me and doesn't listen.

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

[AVR1962]

KennyBoy, your 22 year old son is your adopted son? How old was he when you received him?

For one your son has abandonment issues, most children who have lost a parent one way or the other have abandonment issues. If you have not read on abandonment it might be helpful. It is not uncommon actually for a child who was abandoned to have BPD. My counselor described it this way... .the make up of the disorder exists in the person but may never show its ugly head but trauma in that person's life will bring the disorder to a forefront. My daughter was abandoned by her biological father and when he left her world crumbled, she was 6. When this happens they are set in their brain. What I found odd too is that bringing the person who abandoned them back in their life does not always change them,or make the damage go away. There might be a calm with this parent (perhaps not) but the neediness is still there. It is like they can not quench their thirst to resolve the past with the presence of this person in their lives BUT this person who abandoned hem can many times become very glorified (not always). It sounds twisted but they cannot face the abandonment, it is too hurtful, so hey cling o the parent (o the idea of the parent) so that this person will not leave them again. Not the case with all, I am sure but I do know several children who were either adopted, were fosters or came from divorce where this scenario fits well.

It is no uncommon for these grown children to seek out destructive behavior like you are speaking about in your post, it is actually quite common. The lies too are very common. He is creating a world to protect himself even though you can see that it will only hurt him. He feels terrible inside, scared and unsure so he engages in destructive behavior to ease his pain without the realization that it is making his pain worse, much like an addict.

Being in the military takes on another element. I have spent 26 years dealing with military so this is my personal view from what I have seen. Among the military members (not all) there is a great deal of partying, alcohol abuse, and plenty of sexual experimentation. The military is still primarily men and when these men get together they do what pleases them, they have their fun which included over indulging in alcohol and seeking females for pleasure. The men accept this of one another, they accept the talk about the parties and the women. This is what they do in their free time. Again, not all, I have seen both sides. Military families have the highest divorce rates and the have some of the highest crime rates against women.

Did your son serve at all in any of the wars? Even if he did not serve time in combat but was deployed, many times these military members experience PTSD. If your son was deployed I would look up PTSD and see if any of it fits. Much of what you describe describes what an outsider (meaning, not in his body, as PTSD is much more than what we on the outside see) would see of someone with PTSD.

So, it seems to me that your son has a full plate. You say he will not listen to you. If he was deployed at some point there should be programs available for guidance for counseling and job searches. However, I have that these programs are struggling, but it might b worth looking into. This is the hard part of all this though is that you cannot make him do anything and you cannot make him see his world from your point of view.

What you can do next time he storms out and does not come back for days is tell him that this that you love him and support him and ask him what his plan is for for his future. He may blow you off, he might feel it is none of your business but as long as he is living with you there needs to be some structure for his behavior. You don't even have to wait til he blows up and walks out. If he will sit with you over dinner and you guys can talk, great. Somehow if you can support a plan for the way forward... .seeking employment, etc. this could help you both. At the same time you can both agree whether days at a time where you don't hear from his is acceptable or not. If you are comfortable with him having that freedom that is good too. Just remember you are not responsible for his behavior and you cannot control him in any way. He has to be the on to find himself and he is the one who has to pay the price for his behavior. So you have to figure out where those fine lines are, what you can and cannot accept, and what you feel is fair for an adult child who has been on his own previously. Some adult children do well with contracts while others do not.

Don't be disappointed if he accepts nothing from you. You can offer guidance but you cannot expect for him to follow it, that is his choice. You will have to be the one that has to place the boundaries of what is acceptable or not in your own home and you are the one who will have to establish that.

My stepson's bio mom left him when he was 4. I came into the picture 3 years later and by this time he had been bounced around a bit. The behavior you described, describes my stepson who is now 33 years old. I was the mother figure to him and he called me mom. He has lived a very destructive life and there was nothing I could do to hep him. He was/is very angry and has been since he was a small child. I eventually had to let him go.

Keep your sanity and seek your own therapy if needed. I found it has helped me a great deal.

[Kennyboy]

I met him years ago when he was around 9, he was my neighbor at my summer cottage and was being cared for by extended family, his great aunt and uncle.  I would see him often, and we developed a fondness for each other.  As he grew up there, and myself back in the city, we had always kept in touch, and as he got older, around high school age we spent more time together.  We did lots of father/son things, rode dirt bikes, went fishing, repaired small engines, and just hung out when I went down to the cottage. At that point I was an important father figure to him  His biological father died in a tragic accident before he was born, and his aunt and uncle kept him from seeing his mother. As she went through stages of getting clean and relapsing.  His mother would make plans to see him and not show up, she did this numerous times.  His aunt and uncle got him when he was 8.  His mother was a severe drug addict, and he was severely abused, often times living in homeless shelters and living on the fringes of society.  He also recalls living in a filthy flop house iwith other drug addicts in and out.  He was often times locked in his room for long periods of time, and was left to wander the streets of the ghetto without any supervision.  He also recalls his mother being incarcerated many times for drug related/ shoplifting charges.  He has confided in me that he was physically and sexually abused by one or more of his mothers friends who came to stay with them.  His aunt and uncle had a difficult time controlling him when entered adolescence, and he moved out of there because he had difficulty following their household rules, and went to live with friends. He managed to graduate high school and decided to enter the military. he served and was deployed to Aghan in an infantry role, and the MRAP (armored vehicle) he was driving was blown up on multiple occasions by an IED. (Improvised Explosive Device).  He has difficulty concentrating now, and numerous physical disabilities associated with the explosions.  I feel that we have a great relationship, and I have done everything to provide a safe, loving and stable home for him.  I know that he is frustrated with himself because he is not the same person as he was before the accident.  He has burned through all of his friends, due to his manipulative behaviors in which they view him as one who takes advantage of their friendship. He is desperate in trying to seek a relationship. There is always a revolving door of new friends/girls he is trying to date since he has been home. he has been having reckless sexual encounters, and frantic efforts to find any girlfriend, and quickly sabotages his efforts by dropping everything and running off to spend all of his time with them, only to be rejected by them for being too needy, clingy, and suffocating.  This has happened 6 times since he returned home this April.   All he does is fantasize about the future. changing his career paths constantly. He drops friends because of silly disagreements.  He has told me that everyone in his life abandons him, and leaves.  Its like a self fulfilling prophesy most times because of the way he treats everyone so poorly.  His aunt and uncle are old, they are tired, and frustrated of his behavior, and he has burned them out as well.  Although this pattern of behavior started before he joined the service,  I believe that it exacerbated the trauma from his youth. It is like problems compounded on top of new problems.

[AVR1962]

KennyBoy, it sounds like you are this young man's safety in his life. He certainly could use some help. It really sounds to me that he has stress on top of stress and when a person experiences so much stress, even though hey think they are handling it, eventually it feels like you are blocked into a corner and you are fighting your way back out. Things can rigger you and you won't understand why you are reacting, others don't understand the behavior. People with PTSD, which I cannot help bu think this is what he is dealing with due to the vents in his life, has what is called a "fight or flight" response. They can blow up and can become quite hostile and not understand their own reactions. The fight or flight response is a natural reaction the body does in response to what the person is triggered by. It comes from past experiences the person has found painful to deal with and the body takes over to protect the person. It doesn't look pretty but with so much stress the person can no longer handle stress like the average person.

If there was a way to encourage therapy and maybe ask him if he thought he might be dealing with PTSD, I would do so. A professional can make the determination as to what is going on and how to help. If you can continue to be his strong trusting support, great! these people need a strong support system, people they can count on. Too much abandonment makes this worse. His world is fragile and his behavior is a product of that.

[Kennyboy]

AVR1962 thank you so much for taking the time to share your thoughts with me.  I agree with the PTSD assessment.  However, I also suffer from PTSD as well, and severe abandonment issues, as my son's early childhood experienences are shockingly similar.  We are both only children to parents that were unavailable and abandoned us. The only difference is that both my mother and father were diagnosed with Paranoid Schitzophrenia and I was removed from the household because they could no longer care for me and for the grace of God at the age of 5 was also sent to live with my great aunt and uncle in a loving home.  I understand completly the disfunction that my son has witnessed, as I had witnessed severe physical violance between my parents, and I was left by my mother unsupervised to roam around the streets at 4 years old and was beaten, and was molested by older boys,  which one of theme turned out to be my cousin a few houses down, while my mother was at home on the couch in her own world, and trying to fix a broken marriange. She succummed to an complete nervous breakdown and then was later diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia like my dad. At 5 years old after my father beat the ever living s*it out of her while in my presence, for the last time,  I was the voice of reason and suggested to her that we make an escape plan to take off when my dad was asleep and drive to the safetly of my aunt and uncles home I had to convince her to steal the car keys and go.  As far as I am concerned, the emotional damage to me was already done, i sometimes still feel weird and unsure of myself till this day. it is NOT the same to be taken away from your parents and to live with surrogates.  My father got progressively worse, he took off all the time, running from himself,  and was found in mental hospitals and homeless shelters all over the country. My mom got worse, moved in with my aunt and uncle also, and basically failed to take very much interest in me, trapped in her own mind, more concerned about her friends and going out with them. My aunt cooked for me, got me off to school with a good breakfast every morning, was concerned about my appearance, clothes, did my laudry, while my mother spent most of the time in bed or out with freinds. My paternal grandparents were under this notion that I could somehow be the answer to my fathers cure, and dragged me off to mental hospitals from here to Timbuktu visit him,without any regard to my own mental health and feelings. This was done in spite of the protest of my great aunt and uncle who did not have authority to stop this. My grandparents were obviously more concerned about him than me.  My dad got progressively worse and was best described as an individual posessed by the devil himself.  When my son came home, we both shared alike our horrific childhood experiences. I am 45 years old now, and this has brought all of this pain back to me to the surface again, re-opening deep wounds that I had to veneer over in order to survive. In my lifetime I  have been through two failed ten year relationships in my life, the first of which was a severe borderline in which my now 20 year old daughter was aiienated from me, and I do not have any contact. I understand the pain my son is experinecing firsthand, and I hope that I am able to make a postive difference in his life.