Hi Ammabear,

Welcome to the site.  I think here you'll find many parents who are in similar situations.  We know how hard it's been, and how frustrating too, because you've tried everything, and yet nothing seems to work.  Plus, living with BPD places enormous emotional, financial and physical strain on the entire family, and it can put pressure on your marriage, especially when you don't see eye to eye on what to do.  At the same time, parents are usually operating in a FOG of fear, obligation and guilt.  The situation is so tense that parents need therapy as much as their pwBPD.

Maybe your son doesn't have a formal BPD diagnosis, as he's young.  Many people here don't have a proper diagnosis, and yet many of the behaviors you describe of your son sound like BPD.  It's also typical for pwBPD to have co-existing conditions, like ADHD, substance use disorder, addictions, anxiety and depression.

The good news is that your son is very young.  With the right therapy and commitment on his part, he could probably turn his life around.  The bad news is that right now, he's OK with the status quo, even if he's miserable.  He knows that if he has a meltdown, he'll be left alone to do what he wants, which is lie in his bed all day and play videogames.  Unfortunately, video games are so compelling these days that it's all he wants to do.  I think the female equivalent is scrolling through social media all night, which is what I experienced with the pwBPD in my life.  Both situations involve avoiding the stresses of the real world and retreating to a fake one.  In the short term, it feels great, because it's easy and fun.  But over time, what happens is that they miss out on formative experiences--school/college, work, relationships, independent living, hobbies, working on themselves--that provide purpose, structure and identity-building, which pwBPD need.  Deep down they know that, and over time I think they feel increasingly inferior and insecure.  The farther "behind" they fall relative to siblings and peers, the worse they feel.  To cope, they create a victim narrative and blame others, mainly parents, for all their woes.  They'll think, Of course I'm messed up, I had a terrible childhood, it's my parents' fault, they're horrible, I hate them.  I think the more they spew hatred and dredge up grievances from childhood, the more frightened they are about the future.  They are frightened because they don't really know who they are (except victim), or what they want, let alone how to make it happen.  They RESENT you for feeling so dependent on you.  And they think, their parents surely think they are a failure, so why not just live up to that expectation?

If there is one takeaway today, it's that BPD is not your fault, no matter how much your dear son tries to convince you otherwise.  Blaming you is just a deflection, as well as a way to push your buttons so that he gets concessions out of you (mainly freedom to lie in bed and play videogames).  He's also probably projecting his own insecurities onto you.  If you want to know what's bugging your son, I'd suggest reading between the lines of his projections.  Is he saying, "I'm an adult, I can do what I want, stop treating me like a baby!"?  To me that is code for, "I hate feeling like I'm still a little kid and I don't know how to grow up."  Is he saying, "You're lazy/ugly/manipulative/narcissistic/selfish, a horrible excuse for a human and you should be euthanized!"  That's code for how he thinks about himself.

Anyway, my opinion is that you probably need some boundaries.  For me, that would mean that all adults in the home need to be respectful, clean up after themselves and refrain from using illicit substances in the home.  In addition, adults can't be NEETT, short for Not in Education, Employment, Training or Therapy.  The pwBPD in my life was allowed to be NEETT (and nasty) for far too long in my home in my opinion.  She didn't feel the need to work--on herself or to earn any income--because she was content enough rotting in bed.  I think young adults should be 100% responsible for paying for their own luxuries, such as phones, computers, streaming services, Amazon account, etc.  Unless they are severely handicapped, I think adults should be able to earn some income, for example with dog walking, washing cars, doing yard work, babysitting or something.  If your son refuses to do any work, he can choose to go without his own screens, and that would be fine, it's his choice. 

Wonderful, I'm glad it helped!  Your boundaries are about you, and only you can enforce them.  This is about being healthy and doing what's best for you personally.  Others can respect that or not.  But THEY are making the choice when YOU have to enforce your boundaries.

In other words, you're not trying to be mean or ugly.  They are forcing you to defend what you've clearly stated you're not going to do.  You're just following through because they're making you follow through, just like my cole slaw example.

Again, this is about health, about mental wellness.  It's not about right or wrong or anything like that, so there doesn't have to be judgement involved.

Ammabear,  I'm glad you are here.This is such a great place to grow and learn about bpd.  I'm fairly new myself - there are many who will be a support to you. They will share their stories and wisdom hard earned on what has worked for them in dealing with a pwbpd. My heart broke reading the hard road you had to walk over so many years. There is hope you can find peace for yourself and tools to help your son. There's a library on Forum with tools... you can research as well.
I am the main person my 45yr old son splits on. He has said so .many hateful things over the years. I absorbed those words and they crushed me. I continuelly tried to prove how much I loved him. That I wasn't selfish.. I was easily manipulated because of my fear and guilt. .I'm learning  those words are more about him and not me. I'm letting them roll off. Protect your heart. You are obviously a loving mom. I'm a person of faith too. That gives me the strength along with the wisdom and support here to live a good life in spite of my son's issues.

I found this forum hoping to get some insight and help.
My udBPDson is 18 and we have been dealing with his behaviors since he was a toddler about 4 or 5.
I have been a stay at home mom since he was born. I left my career to stay home with my then 5 children.
He had an appointment this week to start the intake process to get assessed and start seeing a psychiatrist to get the help HE asked for. After splitting on me Sunday evening so bad my husband had to restrain him, then had me call the cops. My son blames me for calling them and getting them involved, he keeps ruminating on what one cop told him and us. That if needed they would have to 5150 him. After they saw he was calm and he played it off that he would be better, he later came out of his room and proceeded to continue his verbal barrage and I just left him to be with his own thoughts. Fast forward he refused to go to the scheduled intake this week and cut me off essentially. I told him I love him and hope he does the right thing for himself.
He had not eaten till today, only drinking water and some chips.
So here goes. 
There were times when my udBPDson’s behaviors were so over the top, talking to him, warning him, time outs, consequences, etc. would not work. I still carry immense guilt for not responding to him as I should have, and I didn’t know, all the time that I had to go into therapy myself to gather as much information as I could to get a grip on how I was responding to him and parenting him. I walked with a huge burden eating at me that I was a horrible mom.
We tried putting him in sports, baseball. He threw the bat at the coach and kicked his grandfather, we were told not to take him back. We tried martial arts with a great instructor/mentor and that was a flop. We tried PE classes and he would bully the other boys, we tried martial arts again and the last time, he stayed in the car (while his brother went in) verbally raging at me. That was the last time I was going to waste time, money and effort. He is bigger and stronger than me and yet he menaces me, when he feels safe to do so.

From my knowledge he was never abused or mistreated by anyone other than my meltdowns for his actions when he was younger. Dad was in and out being the disciplinarian, because he worked so much, that is a whole other story. My son would get in trouble, especially when it was malicious or vindictive towards smaller cousins and children, family and friends would accuse me of not loving him enough. I would try harder and buy parenting book after book, if I could only find the right one. I wanted to show him I loved him and others that what they accused me of was way off base.
There were times he was a sweetheart and felt bad for acting up. I had nothing but forgiveness and hugs for him.
He was struggling to read, attention seeking and hyper all the time, that I requested his charter school do a battery of testing before he went into middle school. It was through that that I started seeing a pattern, he was extremely intelligent in some areas and below average in others. The school ended up giving him an IEP for a variety of reasons adhd, OT, and dyslexia.
Out of all my children he was the one that would push, provoke, instigate and rage on me or his siblings, sometimes for no reason at all, sometimes it was jealousy, or a perceived injustice, or he felt he wasn’t loved. We tried putting him in a hybrid school and he ended up getting bullied.
We felt that that was not a good environment since the teachers were ignoring it.

His middle school years were hard but he learned to read and actually excelled our expectations.
While he would do good in some areas academically, he would be looking at things on his school computer that he would get in trouble for constantly or he would just want to play video games and his grades slipped. This became a huge area of contention for us. 
His teachers would call me and I would have to meet with them in person, not my husband.
My son took this as I was the bad one because I would get angry and embarrassed he was misbehaving around computers any chance he took. It later became that it didn’t matter whose computer it was he would sneak around, get caught and I was always told about the content and what I needed to do.

 
His teen years have been a nightmare and I desperately was trying to get help for him throughout, he has been in and out of therapy since he was 10. There are times he has clarity of mind and is exact in explaining all his follies and shortcomings. He can describe to me what he is feeling and how hurt he feels inside and what a failure he feels like, and how empty he feels. I hear him and tell him we will support him in any way we can. Then it turns to me that I have not done enough and I failed him.
He gets upset and then it is all over.

Because I knew about his misbehaving, in his mind I was the bad one, I didn’t understand.
We had to get him a phone with limited internet access and this was also a point of serious contention for him and we were bad awful parents for not trusting him and thinking the worst of him he would rage. He made promises he would be better and he would put it to good use. My husband got him a phone but it had to have a parental guard on it, well he then took it off and his grades slipped further and the addiction to video games grew out of control.

It seems as though I am the one he splits on most of the time. Now that he is an ‘adult’ we are trying to gather family to persuade him to get help. I have no power to make appointments or convince him and he tells me he hates me more than anyone else, that I am useless as a mom, and I ruined his life and everyone hates me. While other times he speaks about how he benefited from the way we schooled him. He didn’t start reading until we hired a specific tutor for dyslexia as the schools were slow to help. He has been angry with me for his learning struggles and refuses to see how much support we got for him.
He hates everything our faith, our choices, our beliefs, our family size, my sisters, my brother, some of his cousins, our home, where we live, where we go to church, who we are friends with, what we talk about, what our interests are, that I don’t work outside the home. 
We are a rather large family and our son falls in the middle. He has been loved, nurtured, supported, encouraged in every which way possible.
There is so much to our lifestyle but at the same time I made sure each and every one of my children have me when they need me, even now. My older adult children find comfort in my presence and I respect them as adults and we have a healthy relationship and boundaries.

My younger children are thoughtful and although not perfect by any stretch they truly are different than this one son. It breaks me because I really thought if I only nurtured and tried harder he wouldn’t be this way, he wouldn’t feel different.
Now I know better, the hardest and I am still learning is I had to learn not to take in his splits deep into my soul.
How I even found out about BPD was through my own therapist. However, one of my older daughter’s had mentioned it after he destroyed our house and especially her personal things 1 month before she was to be married, he was so upset with her over that. My father died last year, and was a whole other issue for me personally and during therapy sessions I would also mention my son because he was raging at me verbally like clockwork once a month even tho I was in the throes of grief. She urged me to have him assessed and we made the huge mistake of waiting and seeing if he would get better. Then we lost our private insurance because my husband lost his job.

We are moving out of our home and he is in his room on his bed playing video games all day. My husband barely has a relationship with him and doesn’t really ask much of him because he doesn’t want to deal with him coming after me as he does.
This has put a giant strain on our marriage and I am wanting out of the marriage because I feel so vulnerable to my son’s onslaught of abuse and my own perception that my husband does not do enough to protect me.
My son hates me with a seething passion and tells me so, but he won’t leave or do better for himself to be able to leave. His siblings kind of just gave up on him too since he is so mean and vulgar to them when he doesn’t like what they say or do amongst themselves. They walk on eggshells as we all do. For instance they can be playing a board game and he will start criticizing and bullying them for no reason.
Since my husband lost his job and we are moving so as to not lose the house, we have to move in with our oldest daughter while we find a smaller place. One condition my son in law and daughter rightly told him was that he had to actively get help or else he is not welcomed, but he refuses to get the help needed and we only have 2 weeks left here. Last thing he told me was that he is ok being homeless and worse.
He did not graduate on time and needs to make up credit. He is angry that he can’t find a job as well.
My post is not an essay, and it is not a well written. You get my point.
We need help.
 

Pook, Your coleslaw illustration was great!  You took a subject that is emotionally charged for me and neutralized it so that I'm more easily able to understand and hopefully apply.  I think if I consider my "no" as simple as a personal choice to not eat coleslaw - I take the shame and guilt out of it for myself.
You gave me something to think about. Thanks.

Look at a boundary this way, maybe it will help.

I hate cole slaw. 

People say, "Try it."  I politely decline.

Then they say, "But this place is different, they have the best I've ever had!!!"  I politely decline once again.

Sometimes, other people get visibly upset because what they think I'm "missing out on."

But they don't get it, I really dislike cole slaw.  And that's a hard "boundary" for me.

I've literally got up to go to the bathroom, when I don't have to go to the bathroom, to avoid arguing about something dumb like this.

You might think, "Okay, they clearly don't respect your boundary."  And you're right.  But my boundary isn't for them or anyone in particular.  My boundary is that I don't eat cole slaw.  An extension of that is I don't argue over cole slaw, discuss cole slaw recipes, etc.  Me and cole slaw just can't be friends, so it's my personal boundary for me.

Others can respect my boundary or violate it, that's on them.  I have nothing to do with that; I'm simply going to do what I always do when pressured to try cole slaw.  The answer is no, and if you can't respect that answer then I'm walking away.  And if you make a big thing about it, then maybe we shouldn't be at places where this conversation has to take place.  Maybe we shouldn't hang out at all.

Here's the other side of the coin though.  I'm not out to punish anyone who loves cole slaw.  Good for them!  If you want to eat it, I hope you enjoy every bite.  My boundary only applies when you try to force your will onto me...that's when I push back.  We don't have to have a lifetime cole slaw battle though once we both understand where the other stands.

Timeline: ~15months since break-up and ~10months since "completely" ending it.

Between the break-up and "final end": I stabilized, regained sense of self. Stopped operating in survival mode.
She held a carrot during this time, promising to "own up" to the betrayal and validate my reality, hoping to try again for the relationship.
She eventually did write something up, but it still contained factually incorrect information continuing to hurt me and flare up the betrayal trauma. I had enough and said I don't want to try again which was the "final end".
After this, she removed my access to the betrayal admission/validation doc  ... confirming it was never about helping me heal (though luckily I made a copy).

Thus all sympathy for her has been lost since the "final end".
The feelings were mostly of disgust towards her initially, but then I started to feel a growing undercurrent of hate that continues to this day.

Reason being, is that we share a community through our passion. After the "final end" she started becoming more and more involved, making friends with my friends in the community and showing up much more than before.

This hobby is incredibly important to me and something I've been into most of my life, where all my friends are.
It's something I can't stop doing, and the social aspects of it also contribute to my well being.

However, it's soooo incredibly annoying that my abuser and someone I think is just unsafe/manipulative overall has become so entrenched in my community.
And there's nothing I can really do about it besides just trying to erase her from my vision.
Sharing spaces couple times a week I continue to be reminded of the suffering endured, but it seems to be the price I have to pay to do the thing I love with the people I love...

There's only a couple folks who know who she really is.
Feels unfair, and tempting imagining the nuclear option of publicizing it all

Related to publicizing: one of the scariest realizations for me was that the confusing wild/false accusations over text during the relationship were potentially a back-up paper trail as evidence of being the victim all along... shivers.
I know not all pwBPD are intentionally this evil, but I genuinely think she is. Especially when feeling 'hurt'... things get reeeeallly manipulative. As another example: a few months after the "final end" I found out she moved to the apartment building next to mine! WTF!

If you haven't been in the belly of this beast you wouldn't believe people can be like this. I couldn't at first, which is why I was stuck in it so long.
But that's again why it's tough to share community with this person. Nobody really sees or suspects any of this, but maybe time will surface it all eventually.

I also wonder if the ongoing 'hatred/disgust' means I am still not fully detached?
I haven't really 'hated' someone in my life before in this way. But it feels... justified. Maybe protective as well which is why I don't let go of it?

I want to start out by admitting I am not perfect and have made mistakes in the relationship. We have been broken up since December, and she has been living with my parents since then. She is diagnosed and is somewhat aware she needs help.

I have been stuck in this push-pull for a while where we might hook up, and then she gets mad at me afterward, or she is very flirty with me and then pulls it back. The whole time she will just say, "I don't want it," or, "I just don't feel the same way," when I ask why we can't try again.

The one time she did leave, she called me and said she loved me, and then walked it right back when she came back. There is a lot more that I won't have time to write today.

Pretty much, what can I do? I understand the "easier" path would be to have her leave and go no contact, but I would like to give it one more try because if she leaves, she is going to end up in another terrible situation. I know most of you guys are probably going to say to run and get out of it, but I am open to all positive and negative suggestions. I really want to try to make it work.

Well done.  You see, leaving the phone off when you're busy is a combination of "slow walking" plus prioritizing living your best life.  You're still available, but not on demand.  You'll talk, but when it's convenient for you.  You'll provide emotional support, but not during a ragefest.  In the meantime, you remain more present in your own life.  Plus, you give him more time and space to calm down and figure things out on his own.

I used to hate the crisis calls, seemingly always either in the middle of the night (because my pwBPD tended to sleep the days away), or when I'm on vacation or doing something fun, and a "rescue" ends up ruining the whole thing.  No more!  (That's easier said than done . . . I haven't really had a summer holiday for the last decade, because my pwBPD needed so much "babysitting.")

Also, I relate to phone calls at all hours. He'd need my undivided attention no matter what I was out doing if he was in a major melt down otherwise he'd wait for a call back. I carried my cell phone with me everywhere.  At the worst times I slept with it on vibrate.  I am leaving my phone now when I go outside.  Turn off ringer when I'm driving or eating out. That's a huge step for me.