Epiphany and helplessness

[halfquarter]

Hi I just realized that my son has borderline personality disorder .    He's had every symptom since he was 3 or 4  and its got progressively worse. He is very depressed suicidal and  is not receptive to SSRI .  He's been to 44 psychologist and psychiatrist  and my husband and I are trying desperately to be kind and get him the help that he needs. I have read every book out there and borderline personality disorder  and I know it's complicated.

I feel tremendous guilt and how I dealt with him in the past  because I didn't know this condition existed until the past few years.  He has a first cousin who was female that committed suicide and was diagnosed with BPD.  Of course that scares me everyday.

He is self loathing one minute he loves me the next minute hates me all and 30 seconds he blames me for everything and then he blames himself we have been living in hell and so is he.  All I've been doing lately is crying nonstop and he laughed in my face I understand this is part of the condition so I'm trying to ignore it.

I have read that some of these kids outgrow it by the time they're 25.  

He is currently doing bio neurofeedback.  No medicine is he has such bad reactions to all of them.  We have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on treatment for him, however I have not had him hospitalized because we don't feel that that will help.

What are some of the coping strategies he needs to learn he has no friends no relationships and is constantly angry or depressed.

Our family is completely worn out.  I have had to quit my job because of this and willing to do what it takes to help him.  

My husband and I and my daughter who is 14 are suffering very much, but the truth is my heart breaks for him the most.

My tears are for him everyday not me.

He hasn't been diagnosed with it but he has been diagnosed with body dysmorphia I think it's all part of the borderline behavior.

Does anyone have any success stories?

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

[lbjnltx]

Hello halfquarter,

Welcome to the Parenting Board and the site!  I'm so glad that you found us though sorry that you needed to. 

I have a daughter, 19 next week, who was diagnosed with emerging BPD at age 12 (also ODD and MDD).  While medications and outpatient did help a little mostly what helped our family and her was how her dad and I parented her and 10 months at an effective inpatient treatment facility.

How old is your son?

lbjnltx

[halfquarter]

He is also 19 and would get angry with BPD as a diagnosis.  Medicines have only made him worse.

[lbjnltx]

Does the neurofeedback therapy seem to help?  This is brain training right?  My d did about 30 sessions after RTC and it helped her concentration and anger.

[Butterflygirl]

I feel tremendous guilt

Wayne Dyer, in his book, Your Erroneous Zones,  said that guilt is a useless emotion.

I take it one step further. It is toxic and only leads to slips when you  set boundaries. My grown son loves to use the guilt card. Whenever I set a boundary I get a blow by blow account of everything I did wrong.

It works sometimes because for years I was a selfish parent. I am a recovering alcoholic and love addict. I really don't know how much I contributed to his Borderline Slip. His major trauma was being left in the hospital for three months. He still remembers his tears and fear which later manifested as anger.

However . . . one day I realized that I have been in recovery and  been an excellent parent longer than I was a selfish parent. So I have made my amends and more. Our major problem now is his entitlement issues and the fact that I am his scapegoat.

Try to resist feeling guilty. We all make mistakes. Once you make amends it is behind you no matter what our kids say. When you say the Serenity Prayer, it is the past that you cannot change and guilt only defeats your progress.

We are here to support you. You are not alone.

Butterflygirl

[Butterflygirl]

He is also 19 and would get angry with BPD as a diagnosis

When I get a diagnosis I am thrilled to have something to work on. I gave my son my copy of Walking on Eggshells and he later swore at me about suggesting something was wrong with him. Classic Narcissistic Denial. He vacillates between being a codependent borderline and a borderline with narcissist tendencies. Both his personalities gives me a headache, although I just read that Carl Jung had two personalities he called No. 1 and No. 2. He also had a temper.

Anyone read anything about intelligence, perfectionism, and the borderline personality.

[halfquarter]

This whole thing is actually consuming my soul.  I have become obsessed with "curing" him and I just can't... .

My heart is so broken and for the first time in my life, I am actually clinically depressed.  This is the hardest thing any mother should have to watch and go through.

His hopes and dreams are shattered he says... I don't know how much fight I have left in me.  I have a sweet wonderful daughter who has been so affected.  My business has suffered. My husband's executive position is being threatened... .

We are all going down... .

I would have never imagined this happening and we are in a crisis. 

We cannot have any friends over to our home anymore, and have isolated ourselves into sadness and despair.

I have reached out to many organizations for help.

Today is a bad day for me. 



How do you mothers cope?

[lbjnltx]

You are grieving, we are all grieving.  Mental illness steals away what we hoped for ... .for our kids, ourselves, our families.  One of the steps of grieving is accepting.  It takes a while to get to this point and when we do, we get relief. 

Learning to cope with the fears we have about the future (tonight, tomorrow, 20 years from now), learning to see our kids compassionately for who they are right now, learning to respond to them in ways that help us and them are things we can do to cope. 

The Tools and Lessons section on the right side of the page has info on how we can cope and how to do it.  We are here to walk alongside you as you learn. 

[Butterflygirl]

This is how you felt when you wrote it. But hopelessness has a life span. It passes and gives way to a glimmer of hope. Hope works better than medication. It is part of a kind of therapy known as cognitive behavioral therapy. Just to be sure your depression is situational and not clinical check with your doctor.

Treat your depression for now and let your child's welfare be in the hands of a benevolent force in the universe.

Your depression is a natural reaction to powerlessness. Power will come from optimism if you can find it.

Let us do for you what you are not quite ready to do on your own. Be hopeful.

Everything is perfectly perfect. Trust the Process. 2015

[halfquarter]

Thank you so much.  You just made me cry for being so loving and compassionate.  I need to be positive for me and my family.  Sometimes it is so hard as I feel so mentally/emotionally abused/drained all the time by my son and it was refreshing to see your response to my pain.

My depression, is indeed situational.

I need to get a grip!

Thank you for being there and understanding.

[Butterflygirl]

You are welcome. I am just passing on what was given to me.

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

[madmom]

Dear halfquarter, you asked for stories of hope and healing and I have one to share.  Not so long ago I was depressed and felt so overwhelmed and helpless about my daughter that I wasn't sure what to do anymore.  Luckily I found this site and my husband and I began to work together on the tools and lessons you see on the right hand side of this page. I couldn't (and still can't) fix my daughter, only she can do the work on that, but when my husband and I worked together on boundaries and communication skills things did get better for us and her.  At one of the worst points of our life with my daughter, after she was suicidal, been hospitalized, lost her job, friends, all of her money and had caused a horrible wreck that just by the grace of God no one was seriously hurt in, and all of this happened within a period of two or three days.  She needed to start over, and some of the things we began with were finding something to do to fill some of her time---she needed to reestablish some type of life, she was in her early twenties, now back living at home and had little hope.  So with the help of the family therapist we were seeing we started by making a plan ---it was simple, she needed to keep her room and dog clean and do her own laundry (she did a horrible job with that one), fix supper for the family a couple times a week (again poorly done on her part), we were to set boundaries and enforce them, but how do you do that when what they have is all gone and they really don't care about anything but we tried since she was dependent on us for money, car etc., she and I looked for activities she could do/try to rebuild her life, so she found a bowling league (she loved it), started some volunteering (that was good for her self esteem), and did a little bit of school (that worked pretty well).  She also joined a group of women for a bible study, she didn't love it, but enjoyed the company of the other females and slowly began to build some friendships.  Anyway, that was the beginning and that was five years ago, today she lives in an apartment of her own (and keeps it very clean, still don't know why she wouldn't do that at home!, cooks for herself on a regular basis also), she has had trouble keeping jobs, but for almost two years she has had her current job and is able to pay most of her bills on her own, she stills bowls, enjoys a singles group from church and the activities they provide, does some volunteering through church, participates in a book club for singles through our public library where she has met friends, and started doing some free exercise classes here in our town where she has met and made friends with people around her age.  Anyway, the road still isn't perfect, she has her ups and downs and so we do too, but it is better and the most important thing is, because her dad and I are working together, we are on the same page in our expectations of her and of our boundaries when it comes to our involvement in her life and choices.  We know that there is only so much we can do, and that most of her life is now her choice, we have truly done the best we know how to do and as we get older, we need to find the peace and happiness we deserve.  Our other two children are married, happily adjusted, and doing incredibly well, so here I am today, offering some hope----you are not alone.  Bless you and all you are doing for your family, but please take care of yourself first and the rest will follow.

[SickOfDrama]

I don't have a success story for you but wanted you to know you are not alone. I feel very helpless too. Sometimes so angry, but more often terribly sad and worried about my daughter. As difficult as she can be, there's a sad scared kid in there, and I just want to protect her. Hang in there, mom.