BPDFamily.com

I stumbled on this site trying to find reviews for the Gundersen Center at McLean before we sell our souls to save our daughter.
Her issue as I’m sure many are, is complex…we’ve heard that a lot lately. She’s been in and out of treatment starting after a traumatic event her first semester of college 2022, which led to catatonia. As of her most recent stay at McLean impatient, she was diagnosed with underlying Bipolar but more specifically BPD due to trauma. We definitely see the borderline patterns and she seems more stable on current meds but unsure at the same time. She was discharged from another program 2 days ago for behavior issues ( in our opinion due to some medication changes) that I believe could’ve been handled differently. We are at our wits end, the last program told us she needs intensive, residential DBT. So we are looking for a program, again.  Our once very bright, very compliant and successful daughter is someone completely different now and we just want to find healing.
So I’m hoping to feel less alone and maybe find some direction. I’m sure many are aware the system is difficult to say the least and we have had some terrible experiences, unfortunately piling on to a family already in crisis.
I will add that we do believe smoking synthetic THC over the last 4 years has complicated this situation drastically.
She also experiences FND seizures.
Thank you for this space.

Hi there,

I'm so sorry about your daughter, the situation must be really scary for you.  I had a similar situation when my adult BPD stepdaughter attended college, right around the same time that I married her dad.  She started using marijuana daily, experienced a crisis, made a first suicide attempt and landed in the hospital.  By the way, after around a year of self-medication with marijuana, her executive function declined precipitously, and on top of her wild mood swings and bouts of unbridled rage, she was paranoid and delusional.  On some occasions when under extreme stress, she seemed to lose touch with reality.

Like your daughter, my stepdaughter was in and out of McLean.  I felt that the treatments there helped stabilize her, and yet, she wasn't really "ready" to do the real work of therapy at first.  Since she was technically an adult, she felt she could do "anything she wanted," and she generally didn't want to do the recommended follow-up, because she wanted to do other things.  I'm not sure if her executive functioning was intact enough for her to apply for treatment programs, make appointments or execute the administrative side of arranging for her own care.  In a way, I felt like McLean "dropped the ball" once she was discharged, believing that a young adult can manage her own care by herself, and make rational decisions about follow up.  Sure, her dad and I wanted her to get follow-up care, but at the time she was belligerent and uncooperative.  Her dad, in a FOG of fear, obligation and guilt, allowed her stay at our home for an extended period, basically on "vacation," while sleeping the days away, using marijuana and being disrespectful to us.  Eventually he let her re-enroll in college, because that's what she wanted to do, but against our better judgment, because she wasn't demonstrating that she was in a good place when living with us.  Alas, that was basically setting her up to fail.  And this cycle--falling apart, withdrawing from college, getting a little treatment to stabilize, living at home on "vacation," going back to school, repeated.  Each repeat was worse than the last on.

I will follow up with more later.  In the meantime, take a deep breath.  Things can get better if your daughter takes therapy seriously (and stops using marijuana in my opinion).  McLean has great programs, provided that she's "ready."

I’m so sorry you’re going through this. If your daughter is willing I’d get her into the residential program and let the professionals lead the way. Trust them over your daughter, as hard as that may be.

I think the best thing we can do is hold our children accountable for their actions. Using substances is unacceptable, imo, and will only complicate things. Marijuana increases the likelihood of mental illness. The book “Tell Your Children the Truth About Marijuana” by Alex Berenson is eye opening on the subject.

She’s an adult and has to want to get better for this to work. I hope she chooses healing.