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Children, Parents, or Relatives with BPD => Parent, Sibling, or In-law Suffering from BPD => Topic started by: dancer18 on October 24, 2018, 05:46:22 PM



Title: In the space of a year and a half I lost them both completely from my life...
Post by: dancer18 on October 24, 2018, 05:46:22 PM
Hello!
I'm 19 years old and this is my first time sharing with an online community. I've realised recently that I really need outside support in my life when it comes to my mental and emotional health.
I have a BPD Father and a BPD sister. In the space of a year and a half I lost them both completely from my life.
Which leaves me and my mum. I was diagnosed with OCD 4 years ago and my mum has Complex PTSD.

We have been through an awful lot together and not one bit of it has been easy. My mum at the moment is currently struggling deeply with her mental health. I want to be my best self to support her, she deserves it. But at the same time I find the situation to be triggering for my own mental health and anxiety. As I am not the most stable myself.

I've joined the BPD Family Forum because I think its going to be really beneficially for me to have somewhere I can go for support and to have a platform to share on.

Thankyou

Dancer18


Title: Re: In the space of a year and a half I lost them both completely from my life...
Post by: Harri on October 25, 2018, 07:25:48 PM
Hi dancer18 and welcome to the board.  I am glad you found us though i am sorry for the circumstances that brought you here.

I am glad to hear that you have a supportive mother and are both helping each other.  It is excellent though that you recognize the need to practice good self care.  A lot of us here struggle with anxiety so you definitely are not alone.

I hope you settle in, keep sharing and jump into other threads that speak to you.  It is important that you build a bigger support network and we all learn a lot by interacting with each other.

Again, it is good to have you here.


Title: Re: In the space of a year and a half I lost them both completely from my life...
Post by: Turkish on October 26, 2018, 12:34:57 AM
Hi dancer18,

*welcome*

I'm glad that you reached out to us 

What happened that resulted in you losing both your father and your sister? I hope to hear more and how best we can support you. 

T


Title: Re: In the space of a year and a half I lost them both completely from my life...
Post by: Kwamina on October 26, 2018, 01:59:42 AM
Hi dancer18 :hi:

I'm joining the beagle and wolf in welcoming you to our online community

Having multiple BPD family-members can be a very challenging thing to deal with.

When you say you lost both of them completely from your life in the space of a year and a half, could you elaborate on what transpired?

I am glad you do have your mom in your life, yet I can see how this whole situation would affect you both. Many of our members have struggled with issues in their adult lives as a result of what they've been through with their BPD family-members.

You mention being diagnosed with OCD 4 years ago, how have you been coping with that?

In what ways do you feel that you're not the most stable yourself? Are you talking about your OCD or perhaps also other issues?

Take care and I too hope to read more of your story later

The Board Parrot


Title: Re: In the space of a year and a half I lost them both completely from my life...
Post by: dancer18 on October 26, 2018, 02:37:31 PM
Hi, I'm so grateful for these replies. I feel really welcomed, thankyou

Regarding losing my sister and father... .Well I never had an easy journey or relationship with my sister.
She was very controlling and manipulative and treated me as a burden.
She was actually in control of the family dynamic/over powered my parents. Which isn't the way its meant to be.
Of course none of us knew this when I was younger, but I always knew something wrong was going on. So I grew up with resentment towards my sister. (Which I have no cleared and let go off.)
5 years ago, my mum and I began to put recovery and inner well being as our main priority. My sister made it very clear she did not want to do the same. We had to set boundaries with her to keep our self safe emotionally.
My sister also admitted that she did not love us and she always thought she was better than us. (me, my father and mum.)
This in turn resulted in my sister choosing to live without us.

My mum and father are separated and the story with him isn't much different. He refuses to put any work or effort into making our relationships work or healing our past wounds and he'd rather walk out of our lives. So that is whats happening.

Regarding my OCD... .Overall I would say I'm managing my OCD great. But I do have dips in my mental health when I'm tried, stressed or too busy (which seems to be frequent.)
Especially if I get triggered with trauma or if I have an emotional flashback, that sets me off into a loop. But I've gotten good at defusing my mind when I'm triggered.
I'd say that where I feel unstable is mainly emotionally speaking. Sometimes I feel so fragile and I can become overwhelmed easily.

Thankyou everyone for your words of kindest. I'm glad to be here

Dancer18


Title: Re: In the space of a year and a half I lost them both completely from my life...
Post by: Harri on October 26, 2018, 03:05:07 PM
Hi Dancer!

I am so sorry for what you went through with your sister and father.  Losing them is a big loss indeed.
 
Excerpt
I'd say that where I feel unstable is mainly emotionally speaking. Sometimes I feel so fragile and I can become overwhelmed easily.
This, as uncomfortable and troubling as it is, makes sense to me.  Learning to manage emotionally like you have is good as is talking about it all, which can be done here.  Reaching out to others can also help with this.  As you help others you help yourself too.  It helps to see that others are dealing with similar emotional struggles and seeing how they cope.  It also helps to give input in another persons situation as you work on your own.

We do have tools that can help to keep you centered and help you strengthen yourself emotionally.  One in particular I am thinking of is:  Triggering, Mindfulness and Wise Mind (https://bpdfamily.com/content/triggering-and-mindfulness-and-wise-mind)

Let me know what you think.   


Title: Re: In the space of a year and a half I lost them both completely from my life...
Post by: JNChell on October 26, 2018, 07:24:08 PM
Hello, dancer18, and welcome. With what you’ve stated thus far, I’m glad that you found this community. It’s a great place and I hope that you’ll stay with us. This place is peer based, and we all help each other here. We’re all at different points in our journey, but the support and knowledge is very solid.

Your situation sounds tiring and stressful. I imagine that it’s hard to be in a split situation when it comes to your family members.

It’s great that you and your mom decided to take the proper steps towards healing 5 years ago. How did that come about? Are the two of you in therapy together/separately?

my mum has Complex PTSD.

dancer18, a few of us here have the same thing. Perhaps we can give a little advice here and there to help you out.







Title: Re: In the space of a year and a half I lost them both completely from my life...
Post by: Panda39 on October 26, 2018, 07:59:13 PM
Hi  dancer18,

I'd like to join the others and say welcome  :hi:

I'm sorry to hear about what is going on in your family, I'm glad you and your mom have each other.   Now you have us too 

I would imagine there are a lot of mixed feelings around your dad and sister leaving one of which is likely grief.  Grief that they have chosen to leave and grief about the mental illness that is so much a part of them leaving. I wanted to share a link to more on Grieving Mental Illness in a Loved One.  I don't share this to make you more sad, but share it so you can see that others have experienced similar things and that you aren't alone.  I share this so you have an awareness of what grief is and the various stages you might go through (in no particular order and you may move between them), this information might also help in terms of recognizing where your mom might be in terms of this too.

I hope this helps... .
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=272538.0

Keep us posted on how you're doing.
Take Care,
Panda39


Title: Re: In the space of a year and a half I lost them both completely from my life...
Post by: Woolspinner2000 on October 26, 2018, 09:07:17 PM
Hi dancer18,  :hi:

Just wanted to join all the others and send you a big welcome! I think you'll find lots of understanding here. 

Wools


Title: Re: In the space of a year and a half I lost them both completely from my life...
Post by: Harri on October 27, 2018, 01:20:19 PM
Hello there!

I wanted to link this thread for you:  Acceptance, when our parent has BPD (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=111415.0;all)

No rush to reply or even read right now.  Just know it is here for you.


Title: Re: In the space of a year and a half I lost them both completely from my life...
Post by: dancer18 on November 07, 2018, 05:11:50 PM
Hello everyone :hi:

Again I want to say thank you so much to each and everyone of you. I'm really feeling the love and support vibrating from you guys and that's been so lovely for me.

I want to apologise for taking a little while to reply. I've had so much going on, its been a very hectic couple of weeks for myself with college, work, my dancing and shows coming up.

In response to how my mum and I began our recovery journey... .
My mum and I have never attended therapy. Although when I was first diagnosed with OCD I did receive some CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) for that.

My mum has been recovery focused since I was 6 years old and that grew stronger as I grew older. When I was 14 yrs old that's when everything in the family of origin kinda 'kicked off' for real. My parents were officially split. - My father living with another woman. And my sister was living with him.
I was having a real tough time at secondary school and that only got harder.

My mum did her own research, and along the way found people like Brene Brown, Eckhart Tolle and Pete Walker who are all actively in recovery from trauma and dysfunction.
When my mum did the work, I did the work right along side her. But it wasn't without struggle. My mum had to set boundaries with me the same way we both did with my father and sister.
She set an example for me. The boundary was to no longer allow old patterns of dysfunction to continue in our relationship.
This was real hard for a few years. I was constantly meeting resistance within myself, because I didn't want to do the inner work.
I mean I did want to do it because I knew I needed to and it would lead to a better life, But I didn't want to do it, because doing the work meant feeling the pain, and that felt like too big a burden to bare.)

We both have grown a ridiculous amount and I am super proud of us.

Boundaries is definitely the thing which motivated me to get responsible for myself and begin my recovery journey.

 

Thankyou 


Title: Re: In the space of a year and a half I lost them both completely from my life...
Post by: Woolspinner2000 on November 07, 2018, 07:10:11 PM
Dancer18,

It's so nice to hear from you.   School will keep you super busy along with all the other activities you are involved in, and it sounds like you have a lot going on!

I think you were/are very brave to work on the hard things in your life, especially when you were younger. It takes a lot of courage to face the pain and fear, and I always tell a young person that I admire them so much for working on their "stuff" so early in their life. I waited until my children were nearly all grown up before I started. I think you have a lot of self awareness to see that you had hurts to work through. Keep going strong!

 
Wools



Title: Re: In the space of a year and a half I lost them both completely from my life...
Post by: Panda39 on November 09, 2018, 08:00:41 AM
Dancer18,

I want to echo Wools, your doing an awesome job... .processing things, working on things, and facing things.  It's excellent that it's all out in the open, that you aren't stuffing your feelings.  Stuffing and ignoring those feelings only puts off the inevitable... .they all just surface later.  :(

You and your mom sound like quite the team! And you my dear are doing just what you should... .busy with school, work, and dancing.  In spite of all the things that have gone on in your family or maybe even because of them, you are moving forward in a healthier way.  It hasn't been easy but what's great is that you can see your own hard work, your progress, and appreciate it.  Life's a journey and from where I'm sitting your's is going in a good direction.

Panda39


Title: Re: In the space of a year and a half I lost them both completely from my life...
Post by: dancer18 on December 09, 2018, 10:29:00 AM
Hello everyone,

Thank you very much. I truly appreciate reading your words. I think my mum and I definitely are a great team. We're also incredibly close and almost intertwined, so things that effect her, also effects me, and same goes for what effects me also effects my mum.

My mum is currently uncovering some very dark wounds from her own childhood. I'm finding it equally as upsetting and shocking as my mum. This can be difficult to meet. I think we're both gauging it really well.

This past week I have been meeting some inner wounds and lessons of my own.
One big one regarding my OCD, It appears I haven't been fully in contact with how much my OCD still effects me on a day to day basis.
I opened up to my boyfriend about it, when he noticed I was coughing a lot and thought I was getting ill.
When I am triggered I have the desire to act out through compulsions and these compulsions often manifest as things such as obsessive coughing, repetitive behaviors, twitches or certain movements that help me "feel safe".

For the past few months, whenever Ive become triggered I cough. The "logical" thinking behind it is that I can cough the thing that triggers me away. It's a form of trying to separate myself from what's triggering me.
This past week I have been training myself. Whenever I become triggered or uncomfortable, instead of proceeding with the compulsion, I stop whatever it is I am doing and I start deep breathing until the need to do the compulsion has passed. It regulates my breathing and reduces my anxiety.

This is my practice for now.

Thank you.


Title: Re: In the space of a year and a half I lost them both completely from my life...
Post by: Harri on December 09, 2018, 11:36:20 AM
Hi dancer!

Excerpt
This past week I have been training myself. Whenever I become triggered or uncomfortable, instead of proceeding with the compulsion, I stop whatever it is I am doing and I start deep breathing until the need to do the compulsion has passed. It regulates my breathing and reduces my anxiety.
This is some really difficult work but it can lead to a lot of wonderful things.     Do you find the need to do the compulsive acts are lessening as you do this?  Or is it more incident management at this point?

Do you practice mindfulness (Triggering, Mindfulness and Wise Mind (https://bpdfamily.com/content/triggering-and-mindfulness-and-wise-mind))?  Where you simply observe without judgement as a way to help manage emotions?


Title: Re: In the space of a year and a half I lost them both completely from my life...
Post by: JNChell on December 09, 2018, 12:05:36 PM
Hi again, dancer18. First off, very well done! What a shining example of a successful team effort. I’m happy for you. It sounds like you’re busy with your life and doing the things that you want to do. That’s a good thing. No need to apologize. You’re doing what is best for you. Kudos!

Your mom definitely found some great resources in the people that you’ve mentioned. I’m curious, how was the CBT? I’m currently in therapy with a trauma specialist so I’m intrigued as to what your experience was like.

Isn’t it something how boundaries have actually brought you and your mom closer together? This is very interesting. I’ve not once read a testimony here quite like your’s. I’ve never seen boundaries explained the way that you have. I’m glad that you did because it served me a lightbulb moment.

Harri raises a good question and has linked you a great article. This is a great thread, dancer18.