Mom to newly diagnosis BPD adult daughter

[Parents! Get help here!]

Hi. My adult daughter was diagnosed recently!with BPD. I had suspected for several years she may have a personality disorder but hearing she did relieved a bit of stress and made it easier for me to see things a bit clearer.  However she is not receiving therapy and she has small children that have been impacted by this. I use to see them everyday, and was their safety net so to speak. I can't provide that for them now and I'm worried about them and my daughter because her husband just brushes this all under the carpet and does nothing to help her. Her behaviors towards me and the situations she always put me, her explosive behavior attitude and physical threats, the neglect of her children and  her lies have put me in counseling.

[Dolphingirl]

Hi. My adult daughter was diagnosed recently!with BPD. I had suspected for several years she may have a personality disorder but hearing she did relieved a bit of stress and made it easier for me to see things a bit clearer.  However she is not receiving therapy and she has small children that have been impacted by this. I use to see them everyday, and was their safety net so to speak. I can't provide that for them now and I'm worried about them and my daughter because her husband just brushes this all under the carpet and does nothing to help her. Her behaviors towards me and the situations she always put me, her explosive behavior attitude and physical threats, the neglect of her children and  her lies have put me in counseling.

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

[badenergytroll]

Hello! 

Unfortunately there's not much advice I can offer. Hopefully somebody who has experienced your situation will drop by soon.

[Lollypop]

Hi there dolphingirl

I want to welcome you to the forum. I'm very glad you found us but sorry to hear about your troubles with your adult daughter. BPD is devastating to families and totally exhausting to cope with.

I have a BPDs26 who returned home at 24 following diagnosis. Just like you I suspected something was always wrong, he was a tricky to manage child and very sensitive. The diagnosis came as a relief to him but then he got himself in a black place fearing his life was messed up forever. It took him time to adjust to this new reality.

I encourage you to read all you can about BPD. You can find everything you need for now in this page, top right hand side. The more I learned then the less I reacted to his behaviours. I learnt how to interact in a better way and we got calmer. I learnt better communication and validation skills and slowly my BPDs started to respond positively. By demonstrating to him behaviours I wanted to see in him, he responded in the same way back (without even being aware).

There is hope. 16 months on and we have a good relationship with our BPDs26 and he's functioning and learnt that he has to problem solve himself. His life is his responsibility. He has done this without treatment. Fortunately, he has finally decided to get help.

How old is your daughter and her kids?

Raising a family can be stressful and it sounds like her husband isn't being supportive. Perhaps he's reeling from the diagnosis?  I wonder how he's coping (if at all) with your daughters behaviours?

I'm so sorry your having to deal with this. You're not on your own. There's many in the forum dealing with their daughters and grandkids. I encourage you to start building up yourself with a toolkit of skills.

Sorry for all the questions, one last one. Does your daughter make physical threats to you?  Did I read that correctly?  In which case, you might want to start thinking of some boundaries. We can help.

I'm sending you a massive hug, I think you need it.

LP