what is support and what is enabling

[nllmac]

my husband and I are so frustrated w/ our 20 something daughter.  she has been trying to live independently in another city for several years but is unable to hold a job long enough to pay rent.  we have been helping her thinking it would be short term but it just doesnt seem like it will be.  every time we say "by such and such a date you need to be able to pay rent or you need to find sub leasers and move home" she crashes and burns, becomes severely depressed.  she has been to multiple counselors which we have paid for but just doesnt seem to follow thru. feeling guilty about thinking about cutting her off financially.  wondering what other parents have experienced?  (we are talking into the $30K range of support over the past couple of years not a few dollars here and there)

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

[Kate4queen]

With my son my husband and I sat down first and worked out what we were prepared to give him and for how long. Then we wrote him an email stating exactly what amount of $ he would receive per year, and how that allowance would gradually be reduced over the following year. This kind of gave him the opportunity to gradually step up to the plate.

Of course he ranted and raved and screamed and threatened that he was not going to survive, that he'd be living in his car (we signed that wreck over to him as well). In the first few months he regularly called and texted to demand money.

We didn't cave even when he was calling from the car repair shop needing $1K to fix his car. We refused to co-sign loans, we refused to pay $500 an hour for an online law degree and offered him the $ to finish his AA at community college instead.

We just stuck to our plan. It was horrible and we cried sometimes when we said no, but we stuck to our limits and gradually he stopped calling, stopped going overdrawn, got a small job and then another one.

As of June this year he gets no allowance from us. He does live in the apartment we rent for his brother who is at college but that, too will be ending in a year or so. And he's doing okay. He won't speak to us at all of course, but that's also okay.

You've got to make a plan and stick to it. If you keep moving the boundaries whenever your DD has a problem she knows that all she has to do is have a problem and you'll cave. I'm not saying this is easy but you have to make a plan you can live with and see it through.

[Thursday]

For me, enabling is when I do something for my BPD Loved One that either keeps her from trying to do it for herself or allows her to stay stuck in her feelings that she "can't".

She does not learn by my telling her how, she learns by trying (and then trying again).

My support for her is my encouragement, my validation that I hear she is afraid, my hope that she will try and succeed, my understanding when she flops.

Like kate4queen we began to withdraw our financial support by telling her it was our plan. And then we did what we said we would do. And like kate4queen it has been hard but it has also been successful. If we had not stopped bailing her out, paying for her life, supplementing her paycheck she probably would not have changed anything about what she was doing.

Someone wise once asked my husband (the pwBPD in my life is my SD and I didn't meet her until she was 13) if she had been afraid to walk when she was a baby would he have carried her around instead?  He said he supposed he would have. Then they asked him what he would do when she weighed too much to carry her? What if he carried her so long that her leg muscles could no longer do the job they were designed to do? Enabling our kids is akin to allowing them to become crippled because it is so hard to watch them fall... .and support is kind of like standing  a few feet away cheering for them as they struggle to get on their feet.

Thursday

[radioguitarguy]

Welcome Nllmac,

I know exactly what you're going through! My 31 year old son was diagnosed 10 years ago but only owned up to his BPD 6 years ago, which is when he decided to get some help. He has gone through a Dialectal Behavior Therapy intensive outpatient program which helped a bit.

He has never been able to hold onto a job for very long, and he's had many. He's also a recovering heroin addict and is doing quite well! With his BPD comes severe anxiety, mood swings, etc. and currently is not on any medication. I'm trying to find a psychiatrist or a psychiatric APRN to prescribe a mood stabilizer.

Every single day for the last 15 years I ask myself, "Am I helping him or am I enabling him?" I'm the softy and my wife is the hard ass when it comes to our son. I bail him out constantly much like you do, because I can't stand the confrontation plus I hate to see him suffer so.

Without boring you with a lot of details, when he was around 21, he spent 5 days in the psych unit and we had to tell him he wasn't welcome back in our home because of what he had done. He was dropped off on the streets, lost his medication, called us 2 or 3 times a day crying. It was so severely traumatic for my wife and I.

Since that time we've had to ask him to leave a handful of times but always let him return when things got tough. Enabling or supporting? He's outgoing, intelligent, and is a talented singer/songwriter but sucks at the daily challenges of life so we help him with money, a car, truck driving school to the tune of $7,500... .enabling or supporting?

He's on Husky D/Medicaid here in CT. so his health care is taken care of but his anxiety is so intense he has trouble picking up the phone to schedule an appt. to see a therapist, so I do it. I'm currently shopping psychiatrists for him right now because he says he can't do it because it makes him too anxious. He is unable to keep a job because he doesn't perform the job up to expectations.

So here are the questions I ask myself every day:

**What is he ABLE he do?

**What is he honestly UNABLE he do?

I know my son and I truly believe if we cut him loose, he would not survive and I don't think I can roll the dice to find out. Even though he is seeking help for his BPD, he has such a Mt. Everest of issues, my belief is he would shut down and either take his own life or go back on heroin with the same end result.

I wish I had some definitive answers for you Nllmac. I know what you're going through with the "enabling vs supporting" battle. bpdfamily is a terrific support system. If you haven't looked into the "Family Connections" program yet, it is also an amazing support group. My wife runs a group here in our area.

www.borderlinepersonalitydisorder.com/family-connections/

I hope you're able to find some solace and happiness this holiday season. All the best with your daughter and remember we're here if you need us.

Sincerely,

RGG

 

[madmom]

I think we all struggle with this---after all we are parents and we feel that we are supposed to take care of our children, that they are our responsibility and we do love them so very much.  My husband and I still do enable I am sure, but we are much better and so is my daughter because of some things we put in place.  First of all, you and your spouse need to get on the same page and make the decisions together and then stick with those decisions and support each other when the things get rough, you have enough to battle with the issues BPD causes without battling each other also.  One thing my husband and I did was sit our daughter down and say that what we would and wouldn't pay for.  Our decision on what we would pay for were based on things that would work toward recovery from BPD and we wouldn't pay for anything that would help her support her illness.  As an example, we are willing to pay her deductible for her therapist because that is working toward the healthy management of her illness, we would not pay for her apartment rent the time she gave away all of her money to some scummy friends that she had living with her and that we had warned her were problems but she chose to do it anyway (that black and white thinking , we were the bad, they the good).  By not paying, she had to deal with the problem she had created for herself and pretty soon she realized that that we had been wrong.  Anyway, I don't know if it helps you, but things are better, not perfect, but much better.  I hope things get better for you.  You are not alone.