BPDFamily.com

Although neither of us has an official diagnosis, I'm pretty sure both my son (16) and I have BPD traits, probably currently 4 of the 9 for me and maybe 6 for him, mostly not overlapping. I wasn't even aware of BPD until a few months ago, when my son started going into these sudden rage attacks where he would become physically violent, and he would also upon occasion say things that sounded extremely paranoid. He had previously mentioned hearing voices, so I was aware of this. After the violence started, I tried to get family support services involved, and they sent a psychiatrist who seemed to think my son had some type of psychotic disorder such as schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, but this just did not seem to match up with his brief, intense rages and the apparently transient nature of the more extreme sort of paranoia. Most of the time, he actually presents himself in a very logical way, which makes it extremely hard to have any effect on his behavior since...I know, from my adult perspective, that a lot of the things he's doing (dropping out of school, quitting his job, planning to run away in winter with hardly any money and nowhere specific to go) aren't necessarily the best decisions for the long run, but he is acting impulsively, in the now, and he sees running away as some sort of rite of passage which is the only thing that might cure, or at least help, his mental state now - he is vehemently opposed to continuing with any type of therapy, and in fact stepped up his running away plans seemingly in response to any type of intervention.

Although he does not seem to present the famous BPD trait of separation anxiety/fear of abandonment (perhaps in his younger days, maybe), I have this in a very high degree, so I can't just accept his decision to go off on some kind of modern vision quest, seeking his "tribe" of teenage runaways (contacted online so far - it seems there are quite a few online communities where would-be runaways can meet up to make plans). He drops off the radar, I'm calling the police, no way I can do otherwise. If I get my way/desired outcome and they intercept/return him quickly, he's likely to run again. Probably the only thing that would really prevent repeat attempts would be if he tried it and didn't like it (hunger, cold, undesirable travel companions...he's extremely selective about who he considers a real friend, to the point where he doesn't have any offline ones, and tends to have pretty volatile/unstable connections with his online ones), but I can't just say, ok, let's just let this play out, since what if something happens to him out there?

Perhaps the most frustrating part of this situation is knowing that, when it comes to his mental state/motivation here, I am only a part of the problem so no matter what I do, I can't change whatever else is going on with him. I may, in a way, be 100% responsible for creating the conditions that led to this, since I raised him entirely on my own, and, likely BPD that I am (BPD waif mother profile fits pretty accurately), said and did a lot of the wrong things a lot of the time, and, the worst thing I ever did to anybody ever - when my son was 12/13 I was in a relationship with someone who was horribly emotionally abusive to him, this person was just in his life for a few months when he was 12, but I kept in touch, since I kept thinking I could somehow help or fix this toxic person (who was a pretty typical NPD), and at the time, as I've tried to explain to my son, I was kind of...this is horrible and painful to admit, but in a way I was kind of viewing my son as an extension of myself, so anything I could tolerate, he could tolerate, and he played along by being so resilient and loving and supportive for the most part, although at 13 he started to act very depressed and withdrawn. He grew more distant at 14, but at 15 the paranoia and planning to run away kicked in, and at 16 the rage. Rotten timing, or perhaps not, since I think the year he turned 14 is the year I finally aged out of some of my more blatant BPD behaviors. But it is so very, very painful to realize that, at least in this case, I cannot clean up the mess I made. Whatever I do or do not do now - well, I can always make things worse, I suppose, but I just can't see any way I can make things better with him. He might like it if I just said, ok, hasta la vista, enjoy your trip/new life/whatever, but a) I can't and b) what if he wouldn't like it? He wants to be free of me, but what if, having this freedom, he did feel it as rejection? He kind of even admitted that parental love is only important to those who do not have it, so basically the only way he'll care about me is if I stop caring about him, but this is impossible. So I'm stuck in this crisis mode for now, and maybe forever, since I just don't see any way for us to repair things if nothing I do matters to him.

Hello Lupita
Welcome to the parent support group
 I am both glad you are here and sorry for what brings you here. Your son's behavior sounds very familiar. You are definitely not alone in what you are facing. You also show great self awareness so take heart. Things can get better. You are right to be concerned about your son's plans to run away. What do you plan on doing if He follows through on those plans? What are you doing to care for yourself as you go through this tough time? We are all here for you.
Hugs
Faith