how to handle an adult child living at home

[rhapsody4]

My son lives in apt attached to our house. He is 25 and def has BPD.  He is very distraught about his life and this has been going on for years.  He wanted to be a music producer and hasn't made it.  He feels like a failure and a loser.  My crisis is that when he gets to a breaking point, he will throw things in his apt.  I am terified when he does this but don't know what to do.  I can't tell him to leave.  He has no resources to live on his own at this time.  He will not go into any inpatient treament.

I feel powerless when he does this, scared that he will hurt himself.

How do we continue to live with this volatile person?  We love him so much.

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[hopeforhappiness10]

Your story sounds like my upcoming future with my daughter.  She is 3 weeks away from graduating from a major university with a lot of help from me the last 2 semesters. This last semester she has threaten to kill herself, drop out of school and even kill me. All because I can't make a guy like her or get her into law school.   So god knows what we are in store for when she moves home and is not happy due to her inability to get into law school and her refusual to seek jobs that she could realistic start out at.  To my daughter, its all about how it sounds to someone. She tell people she is going to law school even though she is a long shot.   I say all this to you because my husband have had to really make some harsh decision about her coming home to live with us.  I have done everything I can to try to get her to accept counseling and consider medicine.  She refuses.  I have taken her abuse the last six months to try to keep her calm so she will stay focused on school.  So if she comes home and acts "crazy and abusive, she will be asked to leave.  We have no choice.  I'm not telling you to do this but we are at our end and feel it might be the only chance for her to seek help if she is hits rock bottom.  Don't know what else to do because, I have sacraficed so much for 22 years for her and emotionally her behavior is affecting my health and relationships with other friends and family members. They can not stand that we have allowed her to treat us with such disrespect and abuse.  It is also not fair to my other daughter if I'm not around for her because I'm always dealing with her sister's temper tantrums or suicide threats.

In some ways I've decided to treat this like someone who has an alcohol problem.  I cant continue to be their enabler if they don't want to seek help.  Good luck.  Regardless what you decide to do, just don't beat yourself up over your decision.  Take everyday as they come.  No one really knows what you are going through until they walk a day in your shoes.

[Kate4queen]

My son lives in apt attached to our house. He is 25 and def has BPD.  He is very distraught about his life and this has been going on for years.  He wanted to be a music producer and hasn't made it.  He feels like a failure and a loser.  My crisis is that when he gets to a breaking point, he will throw things in his apt.  I am terified when he does this but don't know what to do.  I can't tell him to leave.  He has no resources to live on his own at this time.  He will not go into any inpatient treament.

I feel powerless when he does this, scared that he will hurt himself.

How do we continue to live with this volatile person?  We love him so much.

I love my BPD son very much too, but we decided almost 2 years ago that we had to look to the future, both his and ours and we concluded that we had to start weaning him off depending on us for everything, because a) it was so stressful for us, our marriage, our other children and b) we weren't helping him, we were enabling him to not help himself and c) we couldn't keep doing it until we died because=what then?

So I think I'd be asking myself, what do you want to change in this situation? And if you want to change things how can you help your son? There are some great resources of the side bar on the right about these issues. Every family and every parent has to decide what they can live with and try and help their child like that.

[chooselove]

hopeforhappiness10,  please be careful.  Living with our uBPD adult child has been the most harrowing time I've ever been through.  Like others here, prior to letting her come back home there were many many years of assistance, support, unfruitful conversations, heartbreak, sadness, fear, physical attacks, cleaning up messes, public rages, money down the drain, dashed hopes, abandoned plans, lost sleep, worry, and prayers.  We feel used and abused and are approaching the weary place of "let go and let God" simply because it puts relief in sight for us.

[hopeforhappiness10]

Chooselove,

Thank you for your comment.  You are right about being careful. I am very scared for the explosive outcome when she comes home.  Last week  was another difficult week, trying to keep her in school.  3 weeks from graduating from a major university. (I think  she will make it). I think part of the problem is  I have allowed her to abuse me and not set boundrdies all for the sake  of trying to keep her  in school.  She call me horrible names one day and acts sweet the next which is such an emotional roller coaster.  My husband (her bio dad who  has always treated her like a princess) will no longer tolerate her explosive behavior. We promised each other that we would do everything would could to get her through college but if she can not act respectful, then we be forced to tell her to leave and we are prepared to call  the police if I have to.  We have a few relatives who would take her in for a period of time until she decides to get a job or seek help.  Since she does not have a job yet, I can not sign another lease and be hostess to her mood swings due to inability to deal with rejection from men. So my family's furture is very unclear.  Since I have read very few success stories of family dealing with BPD, I would love to have a success story to give hope  on these boards.

[qcarolr]

We have a thread for success stories on this board. 'Good News, Breakthroughs & TLCs'. ['TLC' stands for Tiny Little Changes]

Here is a link:

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=210800.0

I can hear your despair and exhaustion. As parents of our difficult BPDkids, we just get worn down. I encourage you all to work through the TOOLS on the right sideboard. They have rescued me often. Here is how it has worked for me.

Take care of myself - so I can regain strength and courage to find ways to create a better r/s with my BPDDD27. I search out some moment of joy in each day - it is hiding there.

Figure out my core values and set boundaries that protect those values. Boundaries are different than setting limits that attempt to change my DD's behavior or beliefs. The only person I have control over is myself - a hard lesson for me to learn.

Learn the communication skills and validation skills. This is a giant step to a better r/s with everyone in my life.

Build a network of support in my life - here online and in my community. There are many that struggle in ways so close to mine when I have courage to gently ask.

Being consistent - if there is violence or threats I call the police. Then don't rescue DD from the consequences.  I have often failed to follow through on this. I am doing better. DD is doing better.

Remember that our kids live in a very fear based place, even if it only shows up as projected blame, anger, hostility, rejection ... . When we are able to protect ourselves, learn to communicate better, then we can give the compassion and love that they so so need from us. It takes so much energy to hold things together away from the structure of home when away at college. Can you think of ways to help build some structure for your kids as they transition either into college or on into adult life?

qcr

[yogablue]

Very good points qcr, and I so agree with you.

For my BPDdd23, I've experienced all the rage and anger, physical violence, blame, enabling etc. which were worst through the teenage years, by far.  A complete nightmare.  I reached a point where I couldn't take it any more and made her leave home when she was 19yo.  I was often afraid for my own safety when I lived alone with her and she physically pushed me over once, called me all sorts of terrible names, belittled me, broke plates, grabbed things off me etc. I really empathise with you chooselove, 'harrowing' is a very good description and with you, Kate4Queen as well.

She was studying at university at that point, and as we live in Australia she received a pension from the govt. to support her when she studied.

I helped her find her first shared house with other students, the other house-mates were very decent.  I think this is the first time I stopped enabling her.

Things did change, and my r/s with her improved tremendously over time.  When I look back now (and there've been plenty of dramas over the years) her focus has shifted to her friends and I've experienced no direct rage or anger towards me in years.   Whether she still rages with her partners I don't know, but suspect she might.

It does happen gradually and while my dd knows I'm here for her and I see her regularly and she communicates quite openly with me now which is such a blessing, she has started to sort out her own problems and no longer runs to me every time some drama happens like she used to.  Perhaps this is the opposite of enabling (whatever that is.)

I'm not sure what the situation is where you live, but my dd has dropped out of university 3 times, is now living on a pension with very little money.  She scrapes to pay her rent and buy food and has learnt to budget through sheer necessity, although she still blows money on who knows what, but no-one bails her out anymore.

I now wonder whether she did hit rock bottom at some point, as a few months ago she decided she'd like to start therapy.  I'm willing to pay for this, even though it's expensive (very) and it's hard on me financially.  She is trying very hard and so far doing okay in DBT.  I admire her for trying which is very difficult for her sometimes, but she's making the effort and doing the hard yards.

This is just my experience and I hope it helps in some way.  It is such a difficult journey for us parents, making decisions and not being sure  if what we're doing is right for our child wBPD at any particular time.  It's very hard to do.   Few people understand unless they've been through it.

I understand your concern and focus, rhapsody, that your daughter completes her study, which is very important and she'll need it in her life ahead.  But perhaps it's time to take a look at what the future holds for you and your other loved ones as well.  It may make her look at reality if things become her responsibility and take away some of her sense of entitlement, and that someone else will 'fix' her problems.  My dd did this for SO LONG.

Best of luck, and hugs to you.

[hopeforhappiness10]

Thank you all for your kind words and recommendations. I know that the person who originated this board is equally struggling to make decisions to benefit themselves and their son.  Since my D21 is three weeks from graduating college with a lot of recent help from me, I do believe she will walk across that stage kicking and screaming to avoid dealing with her self and life responsibilities.  The person who wrote about what tools and language to use is so on target and I am trying (every day I am careful with every sentence but it so hard). Through therapy, I am working on short term (getting her to graduate because we may be forced to tell her to move out after she returns home from college) and long term after graduation in which I am parpared to set boundries of her treatment of this family.  My daughter is extremely spoiled and we do not want to force any hard line about needing a great job and want to give her the opportunity to take her time and find a good job but if she is going to threaten us on a daily basis, we will have no choice but to make her leave. I guess one of my biggest guilts is I have allowed her to abuse me for the last 6 months  for the sake of trying to keep her calm and not  screw up graduating. Every week she threatens to quit but only has a couple weeks left. Who does that? Nobody with a right mind.  My daughter is an extreme extrovert and a charmer so I know with a degree she could survive if she can control  her crazy emotions and insecurities.

Thank you so much for the info of success stories, I need to read a few to help me hold on to the possibility that my daughter can manage her problem.  I know it may never go away but I would like to believe that she could learn how to better control her insecuties and rage towards me and our family.

[jeb]

My dd25 cannot live with me because I live in a 1-bdrm condo so there is no question of that happening.  My ex though lives with his wife of one year in a house with a bedroom designated for her when she visits, but it is quite a distance from where dd attends school.  There was a situation last yr where things got messed up and she didn't have a place to live for her 3rd year.  She asked my ex if she could live with them.  His reply was that it would be too far to travel to university BUT he also said that "she would be too disruptive".  I don't think she liked hearing that but he is on marriage #3 and my T once said half-jokingly "she ruined one marriage, he is not going to let her ruin another".  Often when she went there within 5 minutes she would be screaming and yelling and during those periods I became the go to parent but now that I am in the doghouse, she turns to him but knows she will never be allowed to live there.  Because we have split (as of 2011) she alternates between us as to who she feels she can "trust" but many of my friends have said we are enabling her because how can she treat both parents and her brother so poorly but be so charming and caring with all the other people in her life?  I do agree now that if she starts to be abusive, either on phone or in person, I will state that I do not find her words/behaviour to be tolerable and will say good-bye and hang up or ask her to leave.  Such a fine line between "enabling" and being supportive.