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.




, and secondly, lmao.