New member

[EKB131]

Hi. I am new and this is my first post. My 19-year-old daughter was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and bipolar last week. FeelingVery overwhelmed. The major things I’m dealing with are finding hope, self care and how to set boundaries without making her feel abandon.
I know I need to take care of my mental and physical health first and wondering what some of you do?
I struggle with being so angry with her and yet trying to maintain a relationship we are almost at the point of kicking her out of the house but now that we have this diagnosis we are rethinking that. What are some boundaries and corresponding consequences that have worked for you ? Have any of you asked your adult child to move out? We are afraid if we go that far it might do more damage.
Thanks for your support.

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

[Kaylynn]

Welcome to the site...I'm also new here and have a SD17 who is BPD. Sorry that you're going through this and just know you're not the only one. Many here have had eerily similar experiences and grief.

Our daughter left our home 5+ weeks ago to live with her mother who is also BPD. It grieves us but I will say the peace and quiet in our home now is so wonderful.

We realized there is nothing we can do to help her at this point and she needs to take the lead on doing the work. We had to set up healthy boundaries since she has been very abusive to me and her dad.

There is no "right" answer, but your gut and stress level is good to consider. Peace is very underrated in my opinion. Hope you find some answers and at least empathy and comfort of not going it alone.

[KBug]

I'm so sorry that you have to go through all of this.  It's a tough journey.

The thing that helps me the most is a mantra from the co-dependent community, "I didn't cause this, I can't control this, and I can't cure this." The other thing that helps me is to recognize and emphasize to our D (22) with BPD that while we love and support her, this is her journey. It's our job to help her to live her best life and be as independent as possible. That means that we (her dad and I) will set healthy boundaries and expect her to do as much as she can for herself. This kind of talk scares her because she feels so helpless and doesn't think that she can do anything for herself. Her anxiety can be crippling. However, it's necessary. We talk a lot about her becoming an adult and having to make adult decisions and experience adult consequences.