Just want to stand here and say I am having trouble coping

[Parents! Get help here!]

Hello there,

I have a sixteen-year-old with a diagnosis of "Emergency Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder". Right now, I am completely and totally emotionally exhausted with trying to be understanding while being shouted out, and exhausted with having to cope with yet another of my child's crises (involving A&E, police, school, CAMHS, etc.) when I haven't yet recovered from the previous one.

I have a wonderful, loving husband, but cracks are starting to appear in our previously rock solid relationship because we're both feeling the strain.

I really am despairing right now. It's really not like me to whine in public, but I found this organisation and hoped there might be people who understand.

Thanks for reading,

Lightacandle

[Lightacandle]

Hello there,

I have a sixteen-year-old with a diagnosis of "Emergency Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder". Right now, I am completely and totally emotionally exhausted with trying to be understanding while being shouted out, and exhausted with having to cope with yet another of my child's crises (involving A&E, police, school, CAMHS, etc.) when I haven't yet recovered from the previous one.

I have a wonderful, loving husband, but cracks are starting to appear in our previously rock solid relationship because we're both feeling the strain.

I really am despairing right now. It's really not like me to whine in public, but I found this organisation and hoped there might be people who understand.

Thanks for reading,

Lightacandle

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

[Pook075]

Hi Candle.  I'm so sorry you're going through this and I was in the exact same position 8 years ago when my oldest daughter was 16.  She literally drove us nuts and it's a primary reason my marriage failed, just because everything was about my kid and never about anyone else in the house.  We constantly lived in fear of what she'd do next and I had a heart attack at 42 from all the stress involved.

By the way, my kid was BPD and Bipolar, although other diagnosis's have also been offered. 

What helped me the most was maybe our 7th or 8th in-person stay at a mental facility.  We dialed 9-1-1 and my kid was transported by ambulance to the hospital, which referred her to another facility a day later.  This process stinks and it's a colossal waste of time for everyone involved, but it is a game you have to become comfortable playing.  If you threaten to harm anyone in this house or yourself, I'm dialing 9-1-1 every time.  That can't be a bluff, say it and then do it every time.

This instance brought us to a new facility and right away, it felt different from the others.  The nurse and the doctor were both smiling, happy, and enjoying their day.  My wife and I were super stressed and worried, asking what we could do.  The nurse laughed at us and said, "What do you mean?  There's nothing you can do.  Why don't you go to the beach this weekend and have a romantic weekend, just the two of you?"

Of course, we answered that by saying our kid was in trouble and we're not going anywhere, we need to save her and help her and all the things we say as parents.  But the nurse continued to laugh at us.  And it finally started to sink in that we can't save anyone but ourselves.  Until my kid was ready to change, the only thing we could do it set rules/boundaries and dial 9-1-1 when she violated those boundaries.

So if she threatened to run away, I dialed 9-1-1.  She threatened to attack me, I dialed 9-1-1.  Anytime she stepped out of line, it was a police escort to the hospital where she'd spend 24-48 hours just sitting in a bed bored out of her mind, then she'd do a week in a facility where they told her the exact same things every time.  None of that mattered though until she wanted to break that cycle and actually get better.

The lesson I learned there is that walking on eggshells only makes matters worse and your kid will push harder than ever before.  Stop accepting bad behavior and use the broken healthcare/mental health system to your advantage.  Actions have consequences...and those consequences should not be directed towards you.  I learned that from personal experience too; I punish the kid, and the kid punished me 10x worse with bad behavior.  If they escalate you call the cops and you get rewarded with 7-9 days without the trauma in your household.

To give you a little hope, we continued this until my kid was around 19, at which point we kicked her out.  For a bit she was homeless...but we had to let it play out and let her find her own rock bottom.  She came home a few times, got kicked out a few more times, and eventually decided that she wanted to change her behavior.  At 24, my BPD kid is one of my best friends in life and we get along fantastic.  She loves her dad and would do absolutely anything for me day or night.  So this is a fight worth fighting...you can get through this and your kid can get better.  It's up to them though when that actually happens and there's nothing you can do to change that (except dial 9-1-1).

I hope that helps, at least for a little inspiration.

[InTheWilderness]

Lightacandle, I hear you. Despair is an emotion common to me as well. It is hard to imagine your child will get better or make better choices to improve his health and relationships, etc. it’s a feeling of not being in control and that you’re riding his emotions with him and these emotions are just awful.

Some good advice I’ve received here is self-care. That is one thing you can control. Take a long walk while listening to a podcast, jog, swim, or whatever you can do to distract your brain in a healthy way and get those good endorphins circulating in your body. Do this as often as you can and prioritize sleep.

Cracks in your marriage will come, but then hopefully go. You and your spouse could be a support system for each other but sometimes it doesn’t work that way. Counseling might help there?

I can tell you that the brain continues to mature, goes through a pruning process until around the age of 25. That gives me a lot of hope for my bpd son. My nephew is bipolar and was abusive and disruptive (in and out of jail) until only recently. He’s 25 and has finally agreed to meds which have opened his eyes to his disorder. He is a different person. 25 is a long way from 16, but I believe there is reason to hope.

You don’t say whether your son has suicidal ideation. This is another huge stressor for everyone and requires additional consideration. I haven’t figured this one out yet. SI is very hard on families. I’m in therapy and haven’t yet come to terms with it.

Having a large emotional male (20 yr old) in crisis means we will never call the police, not unless those that show up are trained in handling mental health crises.

This disorder is hard, lightacandle. Your despair is understandable. I hope you can take care of yourself and maybe find a therapist. It’s hard to manage this alone.

[Lightacandle]

Thanks so much, Pook075 and InTheWilderness; it helps a lot to know others have been through it, and — to one extent or another — come out the other side.

I'm in the UK, where the NHS (National Health Service) has been seriously underfunded by a right-wing government. The child and adolescent mental health service is infamously inadequate. The last time my son was picked up by police cutting himself in the street, he was taken, raving and biting, in handcuffs to a hospital where he was watched by police for his own safety for 24 hours until mental health services turned up. He was soaked all over in blood, and shouting that he should be allowed to run away and kill himself because we would all be better off without him. He'd been drinking hand sanitizer, which is 70% ethanol, so a 500ml bottle is the equivalent of drinking 3/4 of a bottle of vodka.

Anyway, when mental health services eventually turned up, the psychiatrist said they wouldn't admit him, because he would just learn new ways to harm himself from the other patients. I felt completely abandoned by MH services. They have since agreed he can have one-to-one DBT, so that's something. He's also agreed to start learning mindfulness, which is beginning to help, too. He's working through Jon Kabat-Zinn's "Full Catastrophe Living".

This all gave me hope, but yesterday he seemed to be worse than ever, and shouted at me for not believing a lie he had made up about my husband. He seems to want to drive my husband and me apart, yet I know he would be devastated if that happened.

He is also autistic (without a learning disability). He's done some initial tests and been accepted onto the NHS waiting list for formal assessment, which was three tears ago, with no sign of an assessment any time soon, so we have scraped together the £3000 to pay for his assessment privately, but heard nothing back yet after filling in and returning referral forms a month ago.

Anyway, thanks for letting me ramble on.

It has given me tremendous hope to read both your replies, and, yes, my husband and I have finally been learning that it's no good walking on eggshells. I am so happy for you that your children are now so much better, and this of course gives me hope. I remember now that my other, grown up son's worst year was when he was 16 — not that he has BPD, but just from the perspective of being a teenager.

I will try and think of a way to nourish myself. I live next to a lovely park, which is very soothing.

Once again, thank you both for taking the time and trouble to help me.

L. xx

[Lightacandle]

Typo in that message: "three tears ago", instead of "three years ago". How apt!