New Member Intro

[emmjayok]

Hi, everyone! I have an 18 yo daughter with BPD and am feeling a little hopeless right now. I am excited to find this forum where others will actually understand what we are going thru.

She started exhibiting symptoms two years ago, but it really got out of hand this past year. We had made a little bit of progress over the summer, and she even agreed to go back to therapy. She moved into her own apartment (with a roommate) in October and was seeing the first therapist she's ever really liked. I was feeling hopeful until a couple of weeks ago when she had a bad episode, and it has continued to go downhill from there. One boundary I have set is that I will not speak to her when she's screaming and cussing at me, which infuriates her. I put my phone on silent until she stops continually calling and texting me. When I did this a couple of weeks ago, she wasn't having it and drove over to my house to try to keep it going. I told her that was not acceptable behavior (I feel like she's a toddler again or something), went back in my house, and locked the doors. Now she has told me she is quitting counseling and does not want to see us at Christmas. I felt hopeful as long as she was seeing her therapist, so now I feel like I don't know how she is going to get better.

Any thoughts or suggestions are greatly appreciated. I know things could definitely be worse and try to remain thankful for that, but I also feel like I don't even know my own daughter anymore and honestly have zero idea what I'm doing or where to go from here.

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

[Swimmy55]

Welcome ! My first thoughts are good for you on establishing firm boundaries!
1. Stick to your guns.  You must stand by your boundaries.  Faltering guarantees in her mind that your words mean nothing and she will continue the behavior.
2. The reality is this- as painful as it is, we don't have control over what our adult BPD kids say or decide to do.  There is a 50:50 chance she may or may not carry through on her threats.  You have done your job by establishing the boundaries.  If she stops therapy, she will live with the consequences of her decision and she will have to be the one to figure out if it is better for her to continue the therapy and get better.  
3. If she decides to not come over for Christmas, have a plan B for yourselves in place and /or  learn to be ok with her decision.  This one is hard and takes a lot of practice  and we don't get it right the first few times.  Make sure you have something YOU like to do at Christmas and keep doing it whether she is there or not.  Other alternatives are to see her at a different time other than Christmas ( if she is amenable). It's not the same, but Christmas is one day out of 365 ( this is what helps me take the emotional charge out of the season).  
4. There is a good chance, being a BPD , that she will change her mind on these decisions several times .  You don't have to allow yourself to be whipped back and forth as she decides.  
One thing that has helped me is going to free 12 step programs for families, like codependents anonymous.  There are online meetings  and they teach principles such as keeping our focus on ourselves, detaching from another adult, etc.  
 
Please continue to write in / read here on this forum as you have need.