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Our daughter, age 23, moved out  nearly 2 years ago to live with the boyfriend's parents. The parents just got their first apartment and are 58 years old and are divorced for the last nearly 20 years but live together now. I could go on but is extremely dysfunctional.  She moved in with them basically because they gave them a bedroom and she feels like she is playing house. She has been in and out of the hospital and doctors offices for probably the entire two years. She has lied to the  therapists  and has told everyone that we threw her out, disowned her and cut her off financially and that is why she had to drop out of nursing school. She was doing fine and had a 3.5 average. I think when it got to clinicals it got too stressful for her and it was her choice to leave. I am feeling helpless,  because the people she are living with are not communicating with us and our daughter is an adult and our hands are tied. She has gotten progressively worse and worse since she left the house, has been on numerous medications, her smile is rarely present, and the very few times we do see her she has almost a blank stare, and has put on 100 pounds . I am afraid if she keeps on the same path she will not be living much longer. Any advice would be appreciated I am heartbroken. She has said that her most recent diagnosis is bi-polar disorder and PNS-psychogenic non-epileptic seizures.

Hi Dogsaregreat,

*welcome*

I'd like to welcome you to  bpdfamily. I'm sorry that you're going through this

I don't have a child with BPD, I do have an ex wife that I co-parent with and we had tremendous difficulties in our marriage. It helped when I changed my communication style after we split, feelings = facts to a pwBPD whereas feelings are followed by facts for non's. A pwBPD have low self esteem, low self worth, self loath and it helps to communicate using validation.

Communication using validation. What it is; how to do it (https://bpdfamily.com/content/communication-skills-validation)

TOOLS: S.E.T. - Support, Empathy and Truth (https://bpdfamily.com/content/ending-conflict)

It sounds like for the time being you're split black. A pwBPD have difficulties seeing people as an integrated whole, good people have bad qualities and bad have good qualities. Has she done something like this in the past?


PS The lessons are on the right side of the board  :)

Hi,
I guess I won't sound very optimistic here, as my ex (as his mother) is untreated bipolar.
A psychiatrist has explained to me the co-morbidity with narcissic personnality and just concluded with "stay away" (cheers mate, I just happen to have a child with him so it's not that simple).
I also thought he was borderline until things just went totally crazy. He became really delirious, fast speech, total change of personnality etc.

The future (bright or not) will only depend on her treatment. I know of a woman who's finally treated at 45 and doing fine, after 15 years of hell to her family.

Good luck
(and -sorry- I don't believe in S.E.T with bipolars, I think they just twist everything around and make use of your kindness).

I'm so sorry to hear she has gone downhill

You are probably right that her living situation is contributing to things getting worse for her.

It's a good sign that she is staying in contact with you.

When you see her, what are your interactions like?

SO's D19 (dx bipolar with psychotic depression, uBPD) also has a blank stare that I suspect is disassociation. She eats to excess as well, probably to numb her feelings. This week she reported feeling suicidal to her psychiatrist, who called SO with D19's permission. D19 is able to articulate that her current living situation (with 3 roommates at college) is contributing to her feelings of despondency, probably on top of chronic feelings of depression that she battles.

One thing I notice with SO is that if he treats her like she is incapable or dependent, then D19 regresses. When I ask her validating questions or focus on her ability to self-activate, she changes into an adult right before my eyes. The validating questions are particularly useful with her, although I am not her bio parent and may not trigger the same degree of attachment anxiety.

There is a book about validating questions called I Don't Have to Make Everything All Better by the Lundstroms that helped me learn this skill.