BPDFamily.com

Hello Everyone,
I wanted to start off by saying that while i do understand that BPD can be a genetic link between immediate family members.
Does anyone think there is a possibility for it to be herititary through other family members such as grandparents?
My daughter has a recent diagnosis of BPD. (15 yrs)
But for years i have been saying that it feels like i am raising my mother.
My child and my mother are extremely similiar although my mother has never been even a semi regular part of my DDs life.
My mother is in her 60s so therefore has never gotten diagnosed. But she checks off the symptoms list to a T.
I was also talking to my 2nd cousin (on my moms ) and he was telling me that his daughter also has BPD.
Im wondering if its possible to be passed down through generations?

Hi SammysMom,

I remember reading a psychologist's description about the hair-raising developmental process we go through in our toddler years to individuate and become autonomous from our primary caregivers.

Like you say, some children seem genetically predisposed to experience greater sensitivity, and struggle more than others with this developmental process. According to the psychologist, these kids can have trouble overcoming the "abandonment depression" (overwhelmed by their own feelings) triggered by separation stress.

It then takes counter-intuitive skills to parent these kids, and these skills may not be passed down through families.

I notice that BPD seemed to jump a generation in my family, with a waif/hermit BPD grandmother and a uBPD brother.

My dad was the golden child and not emotionally available. My mother is pathologically codependent, an "adult child." Both were unskilled in the face of parenting challenges presented by my brother.

Then I sought out a BPD husband and together we had a child who seems to have the same genetic sensitivities. I remember when S15 was 2 years old at daycare. For a week straight, he was inconsolable, wanting to be held and comforted by his caregiver, wanting to also play independently. They called me each day to tell me he could not be comforted, and I when I went to see him, he barely recognized me and would vacillate back and forth between weeping uncontrollably, seeking comfort from any of the caregivers, and wandering about looking lost

No one was doing anything to harm him, he was having a difficult time separating and dealing with his overwhelming feelings. Then added to that was a difficult uBPD father. At 8, he began talking about not wanting to live

I wish I knew then what I know now. I was loving and kind, and I also did not understand how emotional dysregulation can interfere with normal personality development.

I think if S15 ever has kids, he will need these specific skills in case his children have the same vulnerabilities.

That's the piece that seems to be transmitted through our transactions, so in some ways hereditary tho not in the traditional sense of genetics.