BPDFamily.com

Hello. I am new here. My daughter lives alone out of state and suffers from BPD with many suicidal threats and extreme mood swings. She cannot take SSRI’s and has chronic migraines. She has lost her job and her father and I are having to pay all of her expenses. She is seeing a trauma therapist but also sufffers from PTSD from the situations she has gotten herself into in the past 3 years. There seems to be little hope as she takes no accountability and blames “life” and other people for her situation. Everything is an emergency so I get numerous calls and texts each day. My life has become riddled with fear. How can a parent cope with this without having physical and mental health problems of my own? It just can’t go on this way, and I don’t want to abandon her. I just don’t think I can do anymore to help her.

Hi LK

I'm sorry you're going through all of this. It's so hard to care for a loved one who is continuously moving from one chaotic situation to another.

When did these situations start happening? How have you been dealing with this up to now?

Sometimes as caretakers, we can find some good tools and modify our own behaviors to improve the situation (and sometimes not).

Hang in there.

TFP

I'm so sorry that you are going through all of this.  My first piece of advice is to get your own therapist.  That's helped me a lot in learning to let go, take care of myself, and figure out how to be supportive while setting boundaries. My therapist is also helping me to support my step daughter in becoming as independent as possible. Mine is 23 and hitting bottom right now.  She's deeply anxious and stuck in a deep helplessness mode. She was crying to me nightly for a couple of weeks for a few hours and I had to set a boundary.  I told her that I love her and will walk with her on this journey but I can't fix this for her. I reminded her that she has a great support team of family (including me) and healthcare providers that can help her think about how she might heal herself, but this journey is hers and she has to do the work.  No one can do it for her. I asked her what has worked for her in the past and how she might apply what she is learning from her therapist to help herself feel less helpless. I told her that she's an adult and it's our goal to help her to be as independent as possible. She gets to make adult decisions and experience adult consequences. She's angry with me and not speaking to me because of this conversation. There wasn't a blow up.  She just quietly started staying at her BPD mother's house and is ghosting her father and me. Setting boundaries with people with BPD is difficult and there will likely be quite the angry backlash or they will withdraw from you for a while. However, in our case, she eventually comes back around and mostly respects the boundary.

The other piece of advice is to truly understand and believe a saying from the co-dependency community, "I didn't cause this, I can't control it, and I can't cure it." It sounds mean, but too much help is likely holding her back. I know that you would hug her and make it all go away if you could, but you can't.  This is her journey and if she's going to get any better, she will need to learn to work with her therapeutic team to do the heavy work herself.  You can love her and encourage her, but ultimately, it's her work to do.

Hi Leslie,

     I really thought I was the only one going through this until I read your post. My life is pretty much a mirror of what you are experiencing with your daughter.  My daughter is 23 and will be 24 this October and she has been hospitalized 6 times in the last 2 years. I too pay for everything over the little amount of Social Security she gets every month.  I was told something was going on with my daughter at age 9 but now flash forward all the therapy in the world has not helped or medication never calms her anger and agitation issues. My daughter just tried to commit suicide a couple of weeks ago after another breakup with a boyfriend in which it is a spinning wheel of men in and out of her life. I have asked her to work and she breaks down and starts screaming like I am talking about working for the first time, and does not wake up until 3pm in the afternoon. I keep searching for help and assistance and we so many therapists and psychiatrist but we just keep going through them trying to find one that will stick. I get how draining it is and I too have physical issues - I can definitely understand the drain you are managing your own life and your daughters it is really a juggling act. I get it just exhausting ! I have been learning to try to take care of myself more and not give into my daughters every request and I am now searching for a life skills mental health coach for more advice to help me out with my daughter. Take care of yourself.

Just chiming in to say that I can relate to all of this almost 100%. My daughter is 20. Reading your stories helps me and saddens me. I'm trying to learn to set boundaries and it's really hard for me. I like what KBug says about her conversation. That's the kind of communication I'm trying to work up to. I know it won't go well. But - nothing goes well, so it's time I learn to stand up for myself.m

M-T, exactly, "I know it won't go well. But - nothing goes well, so it's time I learn to stand up for myself" and to also push her into doing the work that she needs to do for herself.  I can't fix this and it's emotionally and mentally draining/not healthy for me to carry a sense of responsibility for all of this. She's going to be angry whatever I do, so I might as well push her in the direction of taking responsibility for her illness and doing the work that she needs to do to get better. 

I also think that my SD uses being stuck and the nightly drama as an attention seeking device. I truly know that she's struggling but I also think that she relishes being center of attention and my response to the drama feeds her need for validation. In a way, I am reinforcing her dramatic behavior.  I need to find ways to give her more attention for taking steps to help herself. One of my friends is a director of intensive outpatient therapy for people with severe mental illness.  She keeps telling me that BPD is one of the "easier" severe ones because people can get better. She encourages me place the responsibility for SD's healing on her.  My therapist is helping me with this.