Exhausted mother of 17-year old Borderline daughter

[HealingSpirit]

How do you all cope with Borderline teenagers?  I'm at the end of my rope.  Our only-child 17-yo daughter has brought most of the drama in her life upon herself.  She has been diagnosed with either of Borderline or Histrionic Personality Disorder.  She fits under both profiles.  We have had countless dramatic incidents with her to the degree that our family therapist says she stands out in his mind as his most dramatic patient in his over 30 years of practicing psychology and psychiatry.

The most recent series of drama began when our neighbor's dogs got out, came onto our yard and bit her on both legs.  The trauma from that plus the fact that her boyfriend was moving out of state, and all her high school friends were graduating sent her into a downward spiral. (She got her GED last year and finished high school early because she was failing most of her classes.) So, to deal with her flood of feelings, she cut her wrist with a razor blade about 20 times.  She is a cutter.  She wasn't trying to kill herself, but she did need stitches.  She did this secretly, so we didn't know how bad it was until the next day.  We took her to the ER for stitches and a 72-hour hold.  There wasn't an open bed in any of the pediatric mental hospitals anywhere in the lower half of our state.  So, we had to bring her home with us until we could find an open bed.

She was admitted 2 days later and she stayed in the mental ward for 72-hours.  She's home now, and doing okay.  But I've been walking on eggshells for so long, I just feel I can't do it anymore.  How do you carry on and continue to be loving and supportive to someone who is angry and hurtful towards you almost all the time?  Our daughter can't see the love and support we have given her all her life.

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

[arn131arn]

4joy,



We all want the best for our children. Seeing them in pain and agony every day and resorting to acts of self-harm must be tremendously painful to watch. My heart and prayers go out to you.

There is hope. And we are so glad you found us here at BPD family. I encourage you to look at our parenting board. It can be found here:

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?board=4.0

The biggest lesson I've learned in my life is that I can become better equipped at understanding and learning life lessons from those who have walked in my shoes, done what I have done, and felt what I have felt. I do hope the best for your daughter and for your family, as well.

Don't be scared to ask questions, we are here for you.

Peace and live,

Arn

[Thursday]

hi and welcome---

I encourage you to come over to the parenting board and copy your introduction so everyone is up to speed.

Sorry to hear how thing are going for you. I am step-mom to BPD23 and have been in her life since she was 14. I thought we would never survive her teenager years. We've have lots of downward spirals since she graduated from high school but I'm here to report she is doing much better now. She is more stable and if I'm right it has been more than a year since she has done any cutting.

There are many tools to learn here to help you to communicate with her, tools that can make your relationship better and tools that can help reduce the ongoing stress that you are feeling.

Hang in there! You will find so much wisdom here. I'll look for you over on the parenting board!

Thursday