BPDFamily.com

My teenage step daughter has BPD and is trying her hardest to make our family miserable. Looking for advice on how to protect my two younger children (ages 10 & 11). Any practical advice? She recently threatened to "kill everyone and burn the house down" and now the younger girls have had problems sleeping and are very clingy and needy.

Hi ladytremaine,

Oof. Being a stepmama to a BPD child is tough.

I'm sorry for what brings you here and glad you found the site.

What led to the BPD diagnosis? Is SD14 getting any treatment for her symptoms?

Are the younger kids getting any therapy?

BPD is a pretty tough disorder for family members and caregivers. There are skills, but they are not intuitive and must be learned.

What are some of the behaviors you are most concerned about?

As is the case with everyone else here, we all are here in anonymous and remote peer support.  While we do have tons of collective experience and have "been there, done that", we can't always have a perfect solution.  However, we often do have time-tested strategies that worked for us.  Sometimes you have to ponder all the thoughts, ideas and strategies and then pick and choose what may be best for your blended family.  With that disclaimer stated, here are a couple ideas.

When someone posts here reporting suicidal threats we often consider them either (1) real pleas for help or (2) threats to manipulate or control us.  We are guilted thinking, maybe it really is a plea for help.  Well, we who are John Q Public are not expected to figure out what is real distress and what is slick manipulation.  That is a job for the first responders or professionals.

Similarly, the same probably goes for SD's threats to kill and burn.  Rather than danger to self, this is danger to the rest of the family.  Hard as it is to accept and deal with, this is not something to hide or minimize.  Inaction is not a good choice.  SD is pushing boundaries, a vital boundary of family safety.  What has been done to deal with this threat?

But keep this in mind... .no one likes to admit fears or look bad to others, and that reluctance is supercharged with a person behaving with BPD (or other acting-out PD) traits.  The Denial, Blaming and Blame Shifting will ramp into overdrive if exposed to professionals.

• The older this threat gets, the less urgency the professionals may assign to it, at least as to whether it is an emergency or not.
• She will very likely Deny making threats, so if it is not recorded then you may need witnesses to step forward.

A truism sometimes stated here is that if a threat is made or contemplated, then it will occur given enough time.  Usually that perspective is applied to misbehaving spouses, it may not be applicable to minors.

Another theme often repeated here is that it is good for the children to have counselors, trained persons who can be on the outside looking in from a different perspective.  It lets the kids have someone to confide in, someone to pick up on concerns and address them in practical, objective ways.  If SD is an older teen, there may not be much time to start her with counseling, once she's an adult courts usually can't order counseling on a parent's request.