Welcome Welcome,

You've come to the right place.  It sounds like you've been on this journey for some time, and that you have a pretty good sense of what is going on.  Yet it still hurts to see your son suffer, as well as be the target of his blame.  I imagine that by now you understand that you aren't to blame for your son's BPD, no matter how much he tries to convince you otherwise.  Here we talk about the FOG, operating in a cloud of Fear, Obligation and Guilt, which clouds our judgment.  I hope you're mostly out of the FOG by now.

Though your son is struggling, I see a few good things going on here.  First, he got undergraduate and graduate degrees--in spite of his addiction and emotional handicaps.  He might be a "high functioning" BPD type.  It seems to me that he can control his emotions and focus on the tasks at hand well enough to get the job done.  It may cost him enormous emotional energy, and yet when he interacts with you, he feels close enough to you that he doesn't have to fake it anymore, and he'll let his guard down, while letting rip his pent-up negative emotions.  Still, it sounds to me like he does have capacity for self-control and executive function, and that would be reason for hope in my opinion.

Secondly, he's young, and he's getting some psychological support.  With the right treatment, my bet is that he could learn some skills to manage his negative thinking patterns and emotional outbursts better, before negative BPD behaviors derail his entire life and become deeply ingrained.  If he's actually attending therapy sessions, that's sign he's working through some issues.  Now, sometimes I think that talk therapy might not be the best type of therapy, if he recounts negative incidents over and over again.  With BPD, the gold standard for treatment is DBT, which I understand focuses on distress tolerance, mindfulness and emotion regulation.

Thirdly, your son has YOU.  Even if he rages at you sometimes, he's still communicating with you.  And it sounds like you have some good boundaries in place, such as not responding to raging texts right away, while you keep the the lines of communication open.  I think that's a great way to handle things.  In essence you're giving him an "adult time out" whenever he has an "adult tantrum."  But you're still available to him when he calms down.  Even if he blames you for his problems, you are his greatest ally on the road to recovery in my opinion.  You sound like a savvy ally, too.  I really like that you ensured your son had "skin in the game" when working on his degrees, to keep him motivated to continue to move forward, but without making the cost of education becoming an unsurmountable obstacle.

However, your son is still raging at you, probably over ancient grievances.  My guess is that he's so fearful of the future that he regresses to the distant past, not only to deflect/distract from his current issues, but also to blame his family in the process.  My general opinion is that the farther back in time the grievance is, the more frightened your son is about the future!  And by blaming you, he's basically abdicating responsibility for himself and his own life.  That's why I think the "victim attitude" is the worst part of BPD--because it renders him powerless over his own life.  It seems to me that pwBPD spend so much mental bandwidth feeling aggrieved and angered by others, that they can't solve their own problems.  The result?  A life that looks dysfunctional, and fractured relationships all around him.  Does that sound about right?  That's classic, untreated BPD.

Anyway, I'd encourage you to read some of the posts in this section.  I bet many themes will resonate.  If you care to share more and ask questions, we will try to help based on our personal experiences.  Granted, everyone has their unique journey.  But many aspects of BPD seem to rhyme.

All my best to you.

Hello, this is my first post. I have been tearing up as well as finding strength in reading other parents' posts and the community support. I have a son who just turned 28—had alcohol and prescription med dependency since 2018. Managed to graduate from top schools with an undergrad and graduate degrees. We paid for college tuition while he received some scholarship money. We (I) required him to take a de minimus amount of student loans during grad school with the intent that he has some skin in the game. Especially, since roughly 2.5 years, under influence sometimes, or even otherwise, he would flare up, would rage,  via text messages, and incessant phone calls (30-40 rings, one after another). The anger is primarily centered around various grievances from the past - childhood, teen years, and present. He has a formal diagnosis of anxiety and ADHD. I was worried and wondered if it was intermittent explosive disorder, and was encouraging him to discuss with his Psych. Once he is done expressing rage with me, starting 1.5 years back, he would disparage and use extremely hurtful language to the younger sibling, claiming that would get my attention. Over the last 12 months, he was exhibiting classic symptoms of BPD. As I learned more about it, his symptoms - victimhood, childhood, past, suicidal ideations and attempts, became very cyclical. Every 1-2 weeks, emails, text messages (I stop picking up the phone now when he is in that state), I do not check or respond to text messages, in a way to protect my calm. This lasts for 1-3 days, then he goes back to his normal self. We have communication still via email (only) about current matters; he is respectful, says thanks, and such. During the splitting phase, the words are so offensive that I am stunned and pained that he could utter them.  The saga continues. I have encouraged him to join family therapy so he can express his grievances and listen to our side. We can all heal. It is correct, he has anger at the dad because the dad was not around, he had to witness conflicts between mom and dad as a child, and I neglected him because I was at work, leaving him with the dad during a school break. His relentless bringing back of the past and episodes in his life, we are bad parents, or you didn't leave dad, and hating me for that now. He sees a therapist and has a psychiatrist, but I'm not sure how much he truly shares about his struggles with his relationships. I do not respond to his emails when he is splitting (with threats, cursing). and briefly state that I cannot engage with him, and we can have joint therapy if he accepts it. I attend NAMI, BPD Alliance forums, read every book out there on BPD, and take care of myself. I am ok to support him financially for 2-3 specific things for a certain time period until he gets a full-time job after he gets a license. The dad doesn't know how to "manage" the onslaught, so he doesn't want to do anything with our son. Our son's grudge grows further. When our son is himself, he sees all the relationships he has lost, how lonely he is, and he appreciates that I am still around for him. As a parent, more than the FOG (because I think I have already endured those stages during the height of his addiction), my love for him, the sadness from the loss of things that could have been, his pain, and his adult journey, pull me down sometimes. I pray for his healing, I try to cultivate meaningful boundaries (which I break sometimes), and I introspect if I am a codependent and continue to fine-tune my role to the best of my ability on a daily basis.  Thanks for listening. Any words of support and sharing are appreciated.

Going slow, taking time to know a person, and not being desperate for contact (either the person or myself) can really be the keys to discerning a person's character. The best relationships I have ever had come from knowing a person over time and seeing that this person pretty much never deviates from being a decent kind human being with firm boundaries no matter how difficult life is in the moment. I have a neighbor who has had some of the most terrible betrayals happen to her with close family members and significant others, yet she stays grounded and remains the kind caring decent person she has always been. I have told her many times how much I respect her for how she handles herself in different heartbreaking situations.

It's sadly ironic that we, who loved the BPD partner, go through mental and physical hell when it comes to ending the relationship while the BPD is able to simply 'switch off' from us and head for the next partner in very quick time as though we never existed. Just doesn't seem fair at all.

Time is a great healer but that's no comfort when you're going through the breakup now - and you'll probaby always have some feelings for your ex-partner because this relationship was so intense and seemingly perfect. You will remember it far more than 'normal' relationships but it needs to be in its own little box, which you only open once in a while.

You will find massive relief when you do form a non-BPD relationship with someone. It's wonderful to not have to walk on eggshells in case it triggers a meltdown. The mental relief is amazing.. to actually be with someone who appreciates you the same way and have a good time. This is what we were meant for.

Stick with your hobbies and friends and socialise like you used to. You had a life before and you'll have it again. Often nice things happen when we least expect them, such as meeting someone new. Happened to me loads of times so stay positive and hopeful.

Best wishes.

Total manipulation and gaslighting.. and completely standard from someone with BPD for whom nothing is ever their fault. Making you the apparent cause of all their faults both appeases any guilt they feel and also triggers your natural instinct to stay in the relationship in the hope of bettering it. BPD are masters of this - if there was ever an Olympic Guilt-Tripping team, they'd all be BPD sufferers.

The hardest part is getting past our desire to keep going and finally see we're facing an impossible task; there will never be a 'win', just endless clashes and dashed hopes for us.

Hello and welcome back- you've been doing a lot of soul searching and I can't disagree with anything you said.  Even in a healthy relationship that's being built the right way, it's not always healthy yo lump everything into "us".

I would only add for your comment, "I should have known...."  Well, we all should have known.  I saw signs too early on and I thought "love will conquer all."  It fixes a lot, but certainly not all.  Love certainly not fix mental illness in a relationship that's meant to be 50/50.  Either you'd have to do a large part of the carrying and forgiving, or it would have failed regardless.

Hopefully you can see that this wasn't on you.  And while I don't want to give your ex a pass, mental illness isn't completely on him either.  He's sick, he thinks differently than us, and he does impulsive things without any form of logic involved. 

To have integrity, you have to have core values that you stand by.  BPDs are likely too emotional for that and they do so much in the moment based on what their feelings are telling them.  The problem is, those feelings lie all the darn time.

Popcorn, thank you for sharing your feelings so honestly.

I am in a similar place in some ways. The loss of a shared life, shared values and a shared future is harder to deal with than the loss of the relationship.

One reason why these relationships are so compelling is the mirroring. They offer you something that looks perfect for you, because it is a mask that was constructed to please you. It isn't real. But the plus side is, you can look at what was in the mirror, or mask, and recognise qualities that you, as an independent person, have. There must be something there, or else they can't reflect it back.

'Make all my hopes and dreams come to life just to lay them to rest' - OK, but you *have* hopes and dreams. You have a life that you want to enjoy and work towards. You have feelings and needs and goals of your own, not just a desire to be pleased and validated by a partner. Isn't that a wonderful thing? Even the pain you're experiencing now shows that you *exist*.

People with this disorder aren't so lucky. Often, they don't know who they are or what they want outside of reflecting someone else. You are moving forward, going to school, finding momentum. You are alright

Well, an update from this: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=3062208.0

Yes, he cheated on me with our mutual friend/ workmate.

Yes, he lied to my face about who he had slept with and about conversations they had afterwards.

Yes, he/ they concealed this from me the next couple months, while we still worked closely together.

Yes, it is the second time he has done this.

I say firstly: , and secondly, lmao.

But thirdly: there were always signs he lacked integrity. And honestly, I knew this. I learned of actions he undertook which lacked integrity before our relationship, and now after. There were also things that contradicted our values that he would have done while we were together, but he told me he didn't, because I was guiding him. But also - because he was 'afraid of me'.

Fear and being guided by another person are not a basis for integrity. They can only come from oneself.

I knew this, or should have known. I chose not to look, or to construct a story where I would be some kind of saviour or hero who would teach him to be different. And wasn't that my own responsibility, a wilful blindness from my own needs and ego?

I'm not sure why I still find it hard to detach. Honestly, I knew what I had with this person was not the 'great love' I had believed in the beginning. There were too many discrepancies between what he said and what turned out to be actual. And that caused great instability in our relationship and in my sense of what was going on.

I don't want to be with this person. I can't live with manipulations and lies, or even with the exhaustion of being his daily keeper and caretaker. But I feel great grief for the shared life and shared values we were building (I thought we were building) together.

There are some steps I am taking where I am moving towards goals and a future which I thought were shared goals - things he said he deeply, desperately wanted. But I don't know if they were really his goals, or my mirrored goals. But in the end, I'm moving towards them. And it turns out I was by myself in this all along.

 

Normal.  What is normal?  Too many of us felt we had to normalize our relationships, even when they became increasingly abnormal.  What we initially would not have tolerated in our lives - whether conflict or even abuse -  eventually was tolerated when repeated over and over.  This is an aspect of how we humans adjust to our environment.  It is strange how our reaction to our experiences tends toward it being a "normalizing" factor.

As an example, many readers would be shocked and stunned to experience a hurricane or earthquake.  Yet for those who live in hurricane or earthquake zones they would be accustomed to such possibilities.  More than that, they would also make preparations and use strategies to minimize the impact on their lives and welfare.

This may or may not help, but when my BPD ex suddenly broke up with me, I felt like the world had ended.  I couldn't imagine a life outside that relationship since we had been together for so long, raised kids together, etc.  So I went through similar patterns, not as bad as what you describe, but the same things over and over.  The same arguments and accusations.  The same whispers behind my back with sideways glances.

Maybe 6-9 months after the relationship ended, I realized that what I clung onto so tightly was the comfort of our relationship.  Sure, it was bad sometimes, but she knew how I liked my coffee, we had the same hobbies, we could finish each other's sentences, etc.  Even though the stuff that really mattered wasn't there, I stuck around because it's what I did for 20+ years and it now felt entirely normal.

I'm not trying to say for you to stay or leave here, so please don't take my story as inspiration on what to do.  Instead, I just wanted to show that what I thought was a normal relationship in the moment was actually a disaster once I had some distance from it and enough time to process.  You can't truly evaluate your own relationship because it feels so darn normal.

If you're unsure, some time apart would do you wonders.  I'm not saying to end things or even separate, nothing that drastic.  But stepping back even for a short period of time can really open your eyes to what you have and how it completes you as a person.  Maybe her occasional rants are normal, maybe they're completely abnormal.  I can't say as an outsider looking in.  But you can find that answer on your own by putting some distance from the fighting and anger.

One more thing- nobody wins an argument when BPD is involved...absolutely everyone loses 100% of the time.  So if you can hold back from exploding or find a different way to avoid the fight, then it goes a really long way to stabilizing the relationship.  Likewise, finding different communication patterns is massive since it allows you to discuss sensitive topics without declaring war. 

I'll admit, I was lousy at it most of the time, and I got so much better after we separated.  Why?  For the reasons I just discussed...I saw things from a fresh perspective and recognized the mental illness patterns.  I realized that the fighting had nothing at all to do with me and was 100% about disordered thinking with my ex feeling horrible inside.  That changed my anger into compassion and the arguing completely stopped naturally.

I hope that helped, I tried to hit "both sides of the fence" there.