Things Seem Hopeless

[Juki]

Hello 

I’m looking for some support to yet again get me through a difficult time.  I have two young adult children - a son 18 & daughter 23 - who I believe both have BPD.  My son has been diagnosed with major depressive disorder, social phobia and “features of borderline personality disorder”.  My daughter remains undiagnosed but has more classic BPD behaviors.  Their father is an undiagnosed narcopath (narcissist personality disorder flavoured with antisocial traits).  Myself and the children left him 3 years ago and have been left with all the residual emotional junk and psychological issues to deal with.  Needless to say this has been nothing short of a roller coaster ride to hell and back repeatedly.  Throughout it all I have been expected to be everything for everyone and at the moment am feeling very used and abused and utterly depleted of life force.  My son gives me the greatest grief so I’ll focus on those issues - please bear with me.

My son was struck with severe depression when 13 which resulted in him refusing to go to school and holing himself up in his bedroom.  I got him into psychotherapy immediately and he has been attending regularly ever since, except for brief periods of non-attendance.  He has also been under the care of a psychiatrist, tried various antidepressants, been in hospital twice - once for 3 weeks and in an adolescent residential care program for 8 months.  Nothing has worked.  He spends every day locked into his room and is very non-functional.  He has aggressive outbursts from time to time, usually spurred on by me trying to get him to become more functional or trying too hard to help him.  The same happens with his therapist every time she wants him to take on board some functional responsibility, such as preparing 1 meal per day for himself.  He is chronically suicidal and often throws threats into the mix when his emotions run high.  This has landed him in the psychiatric emergency care centre in the past.  He generally swings from one extreme to the other; from almost catatonically depressed with few emotions to aggressive overwhelmed with emotions. 

He has ruined Christmas for the whole family this year by refusing to continue with therapy to begin with, stating he was going to disappear and would not be here for Christmas because he doesn’t deserve to be, and then boycotting our family Christmas meals and gift giving traditions.  He’s never done that before and has taken things to the next level by deliberately hurting myself, his sister, grandmother and godparents through his actions (or non-action).  There certainly was no Christmas cheer in our house due to his self-imposed exclusion which was clearly a very “anti” thing to do.

I’ve been doing everything in my power to help him and have left no stone unturned.  I’m exhausted and frustrated.  I virtually begged him to please end the year on a good note, but he wouldn’t and didn’t.  I understand that he suffers with depression, but I believe his borderline “traits” are what colour his behavior.  I’ve been at this for 5 years now with no sign of any sustained improvement and in all seriousness don’t know if I have the fortitude to continue.  As long as he attended therapy and still engaged in some things I had hope.  I have lost that hope now.  When, if ever, will this end?

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

[Daisy123]

Hello Juki,
My heart goes out to you. Christmas is stressful and then add BPD to it and it makes for one horrid combination. I wish I had something more to say to give you hope. All I can say is that I hear you.  You are not alone.

[Yepanotherone]

Hello Jukie, I’m so very sorry you’ve had such a horrible Christmas and the last 5 years have surely taken their tole on you .
I’m sorry I have to keep my message brief at the moment as I’m just heading to bed but can I direct you to a thread I started on here just a few weeks ago , it’s entitled “ My healing and My recovery “.
I feel from your words that making your own self care a priority now simply has to happen . I learned that the more I fed into my DD ‘s conditions , the more she manipulated me . I had to take some of my own life back in order for us to both be able to progress and move forward .  
You are not alone , please know that  

[Juki]

Thanks Daisy and Yepanotherone for your replies.  It’s great just to be able to offload.  I really do need to get my life back and generally I’m not too bad with self-care, but these kids of mine really know how to push my buttons - often alternating so that when one is good, the other goes off the rails.  I’ve checked out a few things on this site and related to being an enabler   so that will be a dynamic I have to work on.  I think things just culminated to the perfect storm in the weeks before Christmas as my daughter was in hospital for an emergency appendix for 4 nights and then milked my human kindness to the max at home; I was working to insane deadlines, trying to shop and get things organized and having to deal with an aggressive, suicidal, non-compliant son, whilst dealing with an 88 year old mother that has health anxiety!  I was looking forward to    and the down tempo of it, but my son had to spoil that in a very hurtful way.  I’ll check out your thread Yep - thanks for the ref.  Onwards I go.