I have been supporting my adult son

[dafpri]

I have been supporting my adult son forever-emotionally and financially—Even though we asked him to be more careful about his spending habits, he is totally taking advantage. We pay for his rent, phone, gas, etc. He has a credit card that I gave him and I see how he uses it. He orders food every night, at least $45 a pop. Now he has a girl friend and he pays for her too. He relies on his BPD to get what he wants, that’s what it seems.As an example, he has to order in because it is very overwhelming to him to cook or clean or work.  As of 2 weeks ago I  have not heard from him ( he usually calls at least twice a day) Not only does  he use us financially but he his also treats me very disrespectful and hurtful. I need to set boundaries but I am afraid of his reactions, his typical  response is ( I knew you never loved me, you don’t care about me or how hard I’m suffering) . I  won’t cut him off completely but he needs to get a part time job,  have respect for us, and watch his spending. Any suggestions?

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

[kells76]

Hi dafpri, great question about boundaries. I think you're on the right track with thinking of boundaries as something that could help you when you're in this place of feeling extended past your limits.

One aspect of boundaries that is important to consider is that they are different from requests, desires, or demands. Boundaries are rules we have for our own lives, that we are 100% in control of. A true boundary doesn't require anyone else to agree, cooperate, understand it, or think it is a good idea.

I bet we can reframe your desires for your son's behavior into boundaries for yourself 

For example:

Desire: I want my son to watch his spending

As good as a desire as that is, because you cannot control his actions, it isn't a boundary.

We can convert it into one:

Boundary: I choose to give my son $200 per month. If he runs out of money, I respect his choice, and I do not rescue him. I choose to wait to give him more until the next month.

Notice how that is fully under your control?

I wonder if you can translate your other desires for him into rules for yourself that you control?

[Pook075]

I need to set boundaries but I am afraid of his reactions, his typical  response is ( I knew you never loved me, you don’t care about me or how hard I’m suffering).

Hi Dafpri!

Kells already gave a great answer and I wanted to echo off it for the part above.  You have no control over how your son responds or what narratives he creates, and just about everyone here has been told that we're a horrible person for standing up to a BPD in our life. 

You can't take the bait, so to speak, because this is a common manipulation tactic to use your empathy against you.

In these situations, when I was told exactly what you shared (you never loved me!), I would make a statement like, "I do love you very much, but I can't help you when you're treating me this way.  Maybe we should talk another time."

As Kells pointed out, that's flipping the decision back to your son.  You're willing to listen and potentially help if you're treated properly...but you won't help (and will end the conversation) if you're treated badly.  Your son decides how the conversation plays out since the choices are all his.

[dafpri]

I didn’t even had the chance to talk to him about boundaries, we sat down to talk and he tells me he does not love me and never will. When I die he can’t think of anything nice to say at my eulogy. He continues with a list of why! I never show him affection, I don’t get excited for the things he does, he is only a hole in our packet, etc. everything he is saying is his prospective but extremely exaggerated.  I don’t know if this is  his OCD talking, but I feel totally defeated . I love him with all my heart and always will. For 29 years he was the first thing I think about when I awake and the last thing a I think about of before I sleep. I know he can’t cut us off completely because we are still supporting him, but it looks like it is heading that way.  I don’t know what to do with all this, but for now I am shutting down in order to preserve myself. I know this is not the way for healing  but is all I can give right now. Thank you for letting me vent.

[dafpri]

I didn’t even had the chance to talk to him about boundaries, we sat down to talk and he tells me he does not love me and never will. When I die he can’t think of anything nice to say at my eulogy. He continues with a list of why! I never show him affection, I don’t get excited for the things he does, he is only a hole in our packet, etc. everything he is saying is his prospective but extremely exaggerated.  I don’t know if this is  his BPD talking, but I feel totally defeated . I love him with all my heart and always will. For 29 years he was the first thing I think about when I awake and the last thing a I think about of before I sleep. I know he can’t cut us off completely because we are still supporting him, but it looks like it is heading that way.  I don’t know what to do with all this, but for now I am shutting down in order to preserve myself. I know this is not the way for healing  but is all I can give right now. Thank you for letting me vent. ( I did not get any response so I am reposting)

[js friend]

Hi dafpri

I dont think that you should take what your son says personally  as it is not coming from a sound mind. He knows how to hurt and disrespect you and still gets what he wants from you and will continue to behave this way until you are the one to make the change.

The endless push-pull in bpd r/s can be so wary on our physical and mental stability that we can often shutdown to protect ourselves. In my case my udd would see this as a green light to verbally abuse me more  and became even more aggressive towards me because she wasnt getting the normal reaction she was expecting from me. enforcing very firm boundaries is really the way forward but just know that things WILL get better for you in the longrun when you stick to them. Your son is an adult and is probably well able to look after himself....so let him. You need to get out of FOG (Fear, Obligation, And Guilt) and let him become an adult.  Have you read the book  " I hate you dont leave me"?  I found that it gave me more of an insight of why my udd said and did the things she did. I think the author has a newer version than the one I read many years ago and may be worth a read.

[CC43]

Hi there,

I will echo what other posters have said, and counsel not to take your son's words personally.  I know, it's hard.  But I think that when he says, "You never loved me, you don't care, I won't have anything good to say at your eulogy," the opposite is true.  You do love, and you do care, maybe even too much!

If you think about your son's words, you might start to see that he's not talking about you, he's talking about himself.  You see, he doesn't have a man's life that he can be proud of.  In fact, I bet he's ruminating day and night about how horrible his situation is, about how stuck he feels.  He hasn't found a way to make a life for himself, and he feels awful about that.  He is consumed by those thoughts, and everything he sees is through that negative lens.  His self-talk is, "I'm nothing, I'm useless, I'm terrible."  How do those thoughts manifest?  He'll say thinks like, "You never loved me," which really means, "I don't love me."  He says, "You don't care," which really means, "I don't care / there's nothing I really care about in my life."  And he says, "I won't have anything good to say in your eulogy," which, sadly, might really mean he's thinking about taking his own life, and he thinks he won't have a legacy to be proud of.  This is all very negative, pessimistic and fatalistic, right?  It might be no wonder he's spiraling.

If your son has BPD, he probably bounces back and forth between depression / resignation, and anger and resentment.  Does that sound familiar?  I interpret that back-and-forth as a trauma-like response to ordinary stressors.  By trauma response, I mean a fight or flight response.  So the "flight" might look like avoidance or laziness, and he might cut you off (for example, by refusing to answer texts).  He might hole himself up in his apartment.  The "fight" response looks more like anger, over-the-top accusations, and maybe even violence.  You see, he can't bear to take responsibility for his situation, so he turns around and blames others, oftentimes in a raging fit, and he directs his ire mostly towards you, because you're probably the only person left in his life who's willing to listen.  He might accuse you of abusing him, not giving him enough, not supporting him.  Sound familiar?  That's BPD showing itself, in my opinion.

I've stated before on these boards that I think perhaps the worst thing about BPD is the victim attitude.  Your son might spend all day dreaming up ways he thinks he's been wronged, and he probably blames others for his own poor choices, for his own pathetic situation.  He likely does that because taking responsibility is just to painful for him.  But these excuses and avoidance tactics are ultimately making him feel stuck, and probably very depressed.  He basically feels hopeless, which is a self-defeating emotion.  In the meantime, he avoids taking responsibility--even for mundane things like making meals--and retreats to a comfortable life.  I bet he spends a lot of time in front of screens.  That's avoidance.  Screens might be entertaining in the short term, and they may provide some social contact, but they just aren't fulfilling in the long term.

So you started asking about boundaries.  As other posters have pointed out, boundaries are about you, not about changing your son.  I might suggest starting with the credit card.  In my opinion, people have no business using a credit card if they don't have a means to pay the money back.  If the card is in your name, cancel it.  If the card is in his name, he needs to be responsible for paying it back.  You might tell him, I'm not paying for any more of your spending on your credit card.  All you have to do is say that, and follow through by not pay anything.  You might say, I don't want him to be homeless.  OK then, maybe you continue to pay for rent/utilities (you could pay these directly), and you have groceries delivered to his place.  But that's it.  If he wants luxuries (his own phone, restaurant meals, Netflix, etc.), he needs to earn them, rather than borrowing money to pay for them.  It's his choice entirely.

You might think, he can't get a job.  I happen to think that a job, any job, would work wonders for him.  He just isn't motivated to get a job because you are financing an upper-middle-class lifestyle for him.  He's ordering $45 dinners delivered to his home!  He has his own apartment!  He has no responsibilities!  He can dine in with his girlfriend!  I think he has NO IDEA how hard one has to work to earn $45 for a restaurant meal, because he hasn't had to earn that $45.  But now is the perfect time to start.  By the way, if he's too disabled to work, then he can try for disability and sign up for government assistance.  The choice is up to him.  But I suspect that BPD isn't really a disability.  It's more of an excuse.  Look, instead of ordering $45 restaurant meals, he could work as a delivery person, or maybe as a restaurant cook.  The choice is up to him!

Look, I have a stepdaughter diagnosed with BPD who is about your son's age.  For many years, she was what I call NEETT--Not in Employment, Education, Training or Therapy.  She was basically on vacation, free from any responsibilities.  You might think, she'd enjoy being on vacation.  But the opposite is true--she was miserable.  Why?  Because when you do nothing, you feel like nothing, worthless.  You have no goals, no aspirations.  Instead, you ruminate about how unfair the world is, and how you're stuck, and you have no motivation.  You might think life isn't worth living!  And it might not be worth it.  My stepdaughter hit bottom, and she tried to commit suicide a number of times.   You might think, that's terrible, and it was.  But she finally decided to get some help, because her life literally depended on it.  And she fought her way back.  A key step was to get back into the game of life.  She started with therapy and part-time work.  Then she added some online classes.  She started re-building some connections with peers.  Her self-confidence was boosted.  Now she's back in school, trying it full-time again.  Today, she's the opposite of NEETT--she's in Therapy, she's Employed part of the time, and she's getting Education.  Her life is full again.  And she's doing much, much better.  She's still dealing with hyper-sensitive emotions, and she still gravitates to a victim attitude, but it's not disrupting her life nearly as much as it used to.  She's much quicker at getting back on track.  I haven't lost hope for her.

All my best to you.

[CC43]

PS Dafpri,

I happen to have a close friend who has a son in his early 20s who has behavioral issues and a learning disability.  He can barely read, and he can't "read between lines," meaning that he's very literal and simply can't understand nuances or subtext in conversations.  He wasn't able to complete conventional schooling, let alone college.  In addition, he had two older sisters who were highly advanced and accomplished, and he naturally felt inferior relative to them.  For a time he smoked marijuana, which sapped his motivation, and seemed to lead to some violence and depression.  He was moody--maybe not as bad as BPD, but definitely moody and quick to anger.  My friend was distraught, worried that he would never find his way as an adult.  I'm sure she wondered, how would he cope when she was gone?

I'm mentioning this because my friend helped guide her son in overcoming many of his obstacles, and he is doing FANTASTIC today.  Here are some things that worked for her son:

*She encouraged him to work out regularly.  The process of going to a gym and bonding with other like-minded guys is a great way to establish a routine, make some friends, and build up muscle.  I think young men enjoy building up their muscles--at the very least, they feel stronger.  It's a huge confidence-booster.  Regular exercise helps with sleep, and it probably encourages better eating habits, too.  If your son doesn't have any sort of routine, I might recommend, he could start by working out every weekday--at the very least, he'd get out of the house!

*She helped him find a male therapist.  This took some trial and error, but eventually they found the perfect therapist, who wasn't too coddling, and who could talk with her son, man to man.  I suspect the fact that the therapist was a youngish male could have made a difference in his case.

*She found him a life skills instructional program.  While her son hated school, he loved the life skills program.  I think some of the topics involved problem solving, dispute resolution, home care / economics, personal care, job skills exploration, anger management, planning/prioritization, etc.  I would imagine that the program was aimed at improving executive functioning skills. 

*He started working.  When he was a teen, he worked only part-time, but eventually he built up to full time.  The job didn't matter nearly as much as the schedule and the people.  He worked at Home Depot (loved it), and as a delivery person as well.  He also joined the Stagehands Union and worked setting up and breaking down major events (concerts, conventions, etc.).  I think he liked the manual nature of the stagehand work, but the unpredictable hours were a bit of a challenge for him initially.  But even so, he got lots of opportunities and experience.  Eventually, he found a routine where he had a stable "regular" job, and he'd work on certain events as a stagehand as a side gig.  The key to all that was finding the right mentor at work.

*He quit marijuana.  I imagine that at first, he felt that "everyone smokes marijuana," and that he could handle it. My friend emphasized with her son that he has a predilection for addiction, and he just can't handle marijuana, even in small doses.  So cutting out the drugs was the only way forward, and to cut out the drugs, he had to cut out any friends that were pushing marijuana on him.  He needed to find a different friend group, which he did.

*At first, his mom made him direct some of his paycheck to automatic savings.  Over several months, he had saved up quite a bit of money, practically without realizing it.  At the same time, he could only spend what was in his checking account, and he learned to be careful with money that way.

*He made some good friends at work.  Eventually, they decided to find a joint rooming situation, and he moved out of his parents' home.  He used some of his savings from work to pay his portion of the first and last months' rent.

My friend reports that her son is doing really well.  Though he still calls her often for support, and he'll visit the parental home for meals and laundry sometimes, he's come such a long way, it's as if he's a different kid today.  And this is a kid who couldn't finish conventional high school and was punching out walls and windows out of anger and frustration.  I know it sounds like a lot, and it was, as the changes transpired over three or four years.  But I think the first baby step was the gym.