A major achievement

Guess what? Our daughter graduated from high school today!

It's been a long road--five years, two floundering in public high school, a summer in RT, the next year spent mostly at home with a few months in a therapeutic day school along with tutoring and squabbling with the school over an IEP, and the last two school years in a small, extraordinarily supportive private school where administration and amazing faculty were way more patient than she or we had any right to expect.

Plenty of kids in her class won awards, racked up huge resumes of extracurriculars, made stellar transitions from teens to young adults, and are clearly headed toward amazing college careers and productive lives. As recently as a week before exams, no one including her was sure she would pass all her classes. But none of her classmates tried harder than she did, I'm convinced. And so many of her teachers and fellow students genuinely loved her and thought she was as amazing as we do, even with her lack of conventional academic stardom. I couldn't be prouder. I know this is one place where everyone will understand our challenges, my pride, and the amazing achievement that this is.

I don't know what the future holds and am trying not to be anxious. She's been accepted to art school in the fall, and we don't know whether she'll get there, or how she'll do if she does. It's going to be a long summer, and we are continuing our policy of trying not to have expectations.

I think the most important transition I made during this whole process was to really accept in my heart that her deficits and difficulties stem from physical differences in her brain. Once I did that, I was able to think about them differently. Just as I would not blame someone who had a stroke for not being able to speak clearly, I stopped blaming her for not being able to drag herself out of bed, or becoming paralyzed when a task seemed too large. (And also stopped blaming myself for not having done a better job of teaching her to deal with life.) Once we get beyond blame, progress starts to be possible.

I would have posted this in the TLC thread, but I thought it might get buried, and I think we all need more good news than we get. This is the biggest good news we have had. She is by no means out of the woods and is still plagued with deep depression far too often, but there are also little signs of hope: she is really trying to take care of herself, and it takes her noticeably less time to calm herself after a stress than it used to. My main concern is that she won't give up on herself. I hope that possessing a high school diploma will be enough of a win to keep her going for a bit.



Diagnosis + Treatment The Big Picture Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? [ Video ] Five Dimensions of Human Personality Think It's BPD but How Can I Know? DSM Criteria for Personality Disorders Treatment of BPD [ Video ] Getting a Loved One Into Therapy Top 50 Questions Members Ask Home page Forum List of discussion groups Making a first post Find last post Discussion group guidelines Tips Romantic relationship in or near breakup Child (adult or adolescent) with BPD Sibling or Parent with BPD Boyfriend/Girlfriend with BPD Partner or Spouse with BPD Surviving a Failed Romantic Relationship Tools Wisemind Ending conflict (3 minute lesson) Listen with Empathy Don't Be Invalidating Setting boundaries On-line CBT Book reviews Member workshops About Mission and Purpose Website Policies Membership Eligibility Please Donate