What age did they show it?

[Parents! Get help here!]

Starting to worry about dh, who just turned 5. H is BPD, un diagnosed. We are having MC, but nothing more. He rages at me in front of her. She gets scared, and always comes to me. He over tells her off, doesn't like the way she looks at him sometimes, yells alot, but overwise is a good father. I don't know if he will ever rage at her. I try to protect her from this, and we talk about it.

She is very loving, and affectionate, but more recently starts to get very angry when she doesn't get her own way. Sometimes she lies. She has hit me on many occasions. She has time out and usually says sorry. I don't want my beautiful, precious girl to be affected by this. I know that this may be normal for a small child, but none of the other children I know behave like this - with this anger!

[Becs]

Starting to worry about dh, who just turned 5. H is BPD, un diagnosed. We are having MC, but nothing more. He rages at me in front of her. She gets scared, and always comes to me. He over tells her off, doesn't like the way she looks at him sometimes, yells alot, but overwise is a good father. I don't know if he will ever rage at her. I try to protect her from this, and we talk about it.

She is very loving, and affectionate, but more recently starts to get very angry when she doesn't get her own way. Sometimes she lies. She has hit me on many occasions. She has time out and usually says sorry. I don't want my beautiful, precious girl to be affected by this. I know that this may be normal for a small child, but none of the other children I know behave like this - with this anger!

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

[jbmom]

We were told to suspect BPD just before DD turned 13. She was always as sensitive kiddo, had trouble with transitions, social skills, etc.  7th grade it just exploded.

Something I just learned... .  we attempt to parent like they are a part of the 95% of typical people. BPD like kiddos need a different type of parent. You need to learn how to validate her feelings, and be patient, pronto and hopefully you can put off alot of suffering.

Look at the NAMI website. Get into a Family Connections meeting. Not only can you learn how to live better with your H, but you will learn better ways to parent your child.

[Speedracer]

We noticed at 18 months when her new sister was born. She ripped all her hair out. Very sensitive kid, perfectionistic. By 4th gr we changed schools, by 8th grade we were in way over our heads! The past 3 1/2 years have been nonstop trauma for all of us. Plus Her 2 siblings have Tourette's. Agreed they need different parenting, plus a heck of a lot of medical attention & therapy!

[Eclaire5]

For what I know the latest research shows that BPD can be quite genetic. If your husband displays borderline behavior he might have the disorder and your daughter might run the risk as well. I think for a lot of us parents of BPD children, we notice the hypersensitivity and neediness since they are babies, however, the full blown symptoms usually show until adolescence. My daughter was never an easy kid, but neither was she so difficult that I thought she would have more than just ADHD. At the age of 16 I was in for a big surprise when all of the sudden she began to behave very differently. Within a few months she managed to get kicked out of school and to lose the group of good friends she used to have. By the end of the year her behavior was so out of control that we had to hospitalize her. She is now 20 and doing better, but I always have to remind myself that she has her challenges.

[sunshineplease]

My daughter was also extremely sensitive as a small child, but was learning self-control in what seemed age-appropriate ways. UNTIL she was dx'd with leukemia at 3. She'd just weaned and toilet trained, and her big reward was to be held down and tortured with constant shots, intermittent bone-marrow aspirations and spinal taps, and drugs (especially prednisone) that made her feel cruddy AND messed with her head. Add that to the "are you a boy or girl?" questions she kept getting every time her hair fell out -- and being out of preschool and kindergarten constantly -- and you have a recipe for dis-ease.

In truth, she was never the same after that. She became a "good girl" on the outside and miserable on the inside. By second grade, the teacher thought I was crazy. "She's so happy," she'd tell me. But Hope (not real name) was crying at home every night. She couldn't handle the social competition. By 5th grade, her total lack of confidence was showing. "She can do the work," one teacher told me. "She just doesn't believe she can." By seventh grade it was clear Hope couldn't process information at school. We thought it was a chemo-induced learning issue, and struggled to help her with that for three years. Only now do we understand that the noise inside her head was too loud to allow her work.

High school's been a long, slow descent into addiction -- anything to try to mitigate the self-hatred. We just learned, two weeks ago, that Hope "always thought" she should have died from her cancer, and that she felt "incredible guilt" every birthday party. And she hid it and tried to put on a happy face for us. Guilty, I guess, for all the worry she "put us through" when she had cancer.

*Sigh.*

[MammaMia]

As I look back, I knew my son was different from an early age.  Today, I realize he was exhibiting signs of BPD by the time he entered school.  By the time he was 12 or so, he bounced back and forth from being shy, quiet, and reserved to acting out, raging, skipping school, drinking, lying and stealing.  He had an attitude of total disrespect and contempt for everyone.  Thought it was caused by alcoholic father, working mother, violent home, and a divorce when he was 15.  Counseling found teenage angst and not much more.  A highly intelligent, capable but defiant, teen.  By late teens/early 20's it was obvious there were problems most blamed on alcohol use.  I knew there was much more going on but no one would listen.  In and out of jail and treatment several times.  Finally ended up in prison for felony DUI.  Sentenced to 4 years which is mandatory in our state.  While in prison the breakthrough as to what the REAL problem was:  alcoholism, BPD with schizoid personality traits, PTSD, and chronic anxiety.   

After a year of intense treatment in prison and a year of intense outpatient treatment after release, my son finally became aware of what his illness was.  His problems have increased over the past several years and now include mental confusion, paranoia, strange thinking, huge self-esteem issues, and anxiety/fear.  He has a terrible time finding and keeping work. Not only due to psychological issues, but because he is now also a felon.  He has learned self control and how to self-calm.   He regularly attends AA for mental and physical support. 

My son is 38 years old.  Looking back, one can track mental illness in both my father (alcoholism and undiagnosed BPD),  my older brother, and my ex-husband. 

People are so much more aware of mental illness these days.  IF you even suspect BPD in a small child, do not hesitate to investigate.

[GaGrl]

My only observation of a BPD during earlier childhood has been my cousin. She was a surprise pregnancy and significantly younger than the first three children. She was hypersensitive and resentful by age 7. Later years involved drugs... .  runaway... .  her own pregnancy... .  multiple marriages... .  losing children to in-laws due to neglect... .  legal issues/bad checks... .  

[BethsMom]

First would have thought 13 or so but that's just when it escalated with teen stuff. 

Like the others - it was young - very young.  Come to think of it, she could never really self soothe.  She had these rages at as early as 2 that I passed off as toddler tantrums, and we treated it as such.  When she was still having these rages at 7, 8, 9, I thought something might be off but we just treated it as anger and worked through them as you would with any child. But something in her would really change in her during these rages:  Her eyes would change.  She became somewhat paranoid. She didn't realize her fury until much later and then would be desperately apologetic.

I think it's genetic, but I wouldn't disregard early trauma either, maybe as a catalyst.

[Kate4queen]

I thought my son's separation anxiety was due to his disability-he didn't walk at all until he was 4 so I literally carried or pushed him everywhere. He cried every single day when I took him to school at 4 and kept it up all year. Even as an obnoxious teen when he raged if we asked him where he was going or when he'd be back-if we weren't crystal clear about our return he'd get agitated.

Maybe he was traumatized by all the invasive medical treatment to diagnose his condition and the physical therapy? The surgeries when he was 9 and 10? Who knows?

Both our families are weird-we have 4 kids and between them they've been diagnosed as having ADD, Aspergers, OCD, ADHD-so there is definitely a pattern. The BPD is a new one, but in retrospect I think my FIL had many symptoms of it too.

In the last year we finally managed to get away for a few days without our son (he's now 21) and we thought it was a big step forward-until we realized he used the time to fill our house with his lowlife drug using buddies.

So looking back? I'd say the seeds were there from an early age.