Does your BPD have a car?

[Someday . . .]

Just out of curiosity, does your BPD have a car?  (please add any other info if you like).  

Did he/she have a car and no longer does?

Do you feel that he/she is a bad driver (because of ADHD, drugs, etc.)?

What would your BPD have to do to get a car again, or get a car for the first time?

As I mentioned, please add any other info!

My situation:  my dd25 had a DUI three years ago, her car was totaled and we did not get her another one.  She just got her license back (she had not tried to get it the past three years) and feels that she deserves a car (I really don't understand that thinking, I'm chalking it up to the BPD).  On one hand it is difficult for me to not let her drive my car (I always want my kids to be happy !), yet I feel that she is not responsible enough or stable enough to drive it.   So we have a few criteria for her before she is able to get a car or drive mine.  Our criteria is (1.) she is on a normal sleep/wake cycle   (2.) She does some form of exercise (she watches tv constantly)   (3.) Eats more nutritious foods (she only exists on spaghetti).  (4.) Is consistent about something (like walking around the block daily).  (5.) that she actually has a NEED for the car other than going to see friends.  i.e. to go to the grocery store, part time job, yarn store for more yarn (she knits while she watches tv!)    (6) we can be assured that she will not drive impaired.   In my mind these things are relatively simple, yet, for my dd25, I imagine that she would see those 'requirements' as outside her scope of functioning.   I recently read a thread on here about contracts and how they don't work (per Valerie Porr's book), so I am wondering if you see this as a contract . . .or as something very reasonable on our part?

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

[co.jo]

Mine does not have a car anymore, but she did buy her own a few years ago. Then she decided to move across the country in it, but it wasn't fit, so part way through the journey we replaced it with a cheap used car, which went all the way. She eventually found it too expensive as a student, and abandoned it, which was fine. It had served its purpose. I was reluctant for her to drive due to her rages, but she was just fine. Even learned to drive a standard.

[joethemechanic]

Just make sure you have a way to disable the car, like one of those "club" things



And make sure you are not afraid to use it for any deviation of the rules

[co.jo]

In my opinion, I would not be buying any of my children a car- we have a spare that they can use, but the child left at home is responsible for all expenses on it, and it is still not HER car. I would be happy to help any of my children buy a car, perhaps with matching savings, helping them look, etc. but not handing it to them. Although I did replace my daughter's car as I said above, when she was on her cross-country move with all her belongings and a dying car. Thought that was better than her being stranded with her cat in the middle of nowhere.

However, I feel your requirements are a little too complex, and are looking like a setup for failure, in the case of BPD people having difficulty with behavior contracts. The bottom line in my mind would be safety and convenience. Is she in a safe state of mind to drive, and is it convenient for you if she has it? I don't think there would be a way to guarantee she won't drink and drive, unfortunately.

The other things, diet, sleep , exercise, etc, are things I would be putting on the back burner, as they are not in my control. My daughter had issues in all these areas, but she had to deal with them in her own time when she saw they were problems for her. But they drove me nuts!Incidentally, when she was completely out of synch with her sleeping (which wouldn't have been so bad except for her stomping around all night) she reset herself by staying up an hour more every day so eventually she worked it around to where everyone else is. This worked better for her than trying to get up/go to bed earlier. Takes commitment though.

Good Luck!

[Thursday]

Hi there,

There has been a lot of anxiety and turmoil around my BPDSD22 having a car.

Yes, she has the full use of a fairly nice used car that was purchased for her when she was 18. She had a job at the time (and does now as well) and had been driving our cars for two years with no tickets or incidents. She had held down the job for six months and her Dad and I were tired of having to pick her up after work when she had to work late. We didn't feel that her taking a city bus at the sometimes late hour she got out of work was safe.

We still pay the insurance on the vehicle although I do not agree with this. I think she should pay for the insurance but my husband doesn't agree with me.

She has had many tickets for speeding and other moving violations and has gotten tickets for an expired sticker, tail-light out, driving without her seatbelt, has had a suspended license, has had one bad accident when she rear-ended another car on the interstate and she has also banged up the car a few times. We probably don't have the truth about how the car got banged up. She claimed that she was hit while parked three separate times.

Amazingly, our car insurance company has NOT raised the payment for her insurance. I keep thinking this is a glitch and they will soon send us a new amount for the premium.

She has also raged inside of her car and broken the rear view mirror off, dented the dashboard and burned the seats with cigarettes. The entire car is filthy- sticky with spilled coke and full of ashes and cigarette butts- she doesn't litter by throwing out her butts, but also doesn't have an ashtray in her car so she stubs out her butts on the plastic of the center console and there is a pile of butts about five inches deep  mounded on the center console, lots of melted plastic and a horrific smell. The trunk is filled with dirty laundry.

SD is in recovery but before she was, the car was used in illegal activities- picking up drugs and delivering drugs she was selling. She has used the car to win friendships... . she used to give people rides all over the place. Since she has been footing the bill for her own life she doesn't do this as much anymore although she is very generous in general with the car.

She still drives a lot more than I wish she would. And last night she told us she drove through a red-light and got photographed so soon there will be another ticket in the mail. I think she might get her license suspended again over this, for points. Not sure exactly how that works.

The car is a necessary evil. She has to work since we no longer support her except for paying the insurance and using our credit card for a repair she couldn't afford (she pays us back every month when the credit card bill is due). Without a car I'm not sure she could hold a job (being organized enough to ride the bus would be a huge hurdle) but truth is if she gets herself into a jam concerning the car we won't be helping her out of it and she will have to work something out for herself.

Her having a car and the condition it's in tells me a lot about her mental state. Yes, she is working! Yes, she is sober! But there are rough, rough edges and her having a car is a scary sort of thing... .

As for your "behavior trade" for her  getting a car- it is a contract, I don't necessarily agree with VP about contracts not working with a BPD (we have had a contract with my SD in the past and it worked so long as she wanted something in exchange and while she was under 18 and we had some level of control over her movements) Reinforcing a contract isn't easy and yours has a lot of detail in it... . are you sure you want to go through all of the effort to monitor her diet, exercise, sleep, etc? I wouldn't go back to all of the enforcement details today if my life depended on it, but that is just me!

thursday

[PaulaJeanne]

When my dad gave up driving, he gave my dBPD (20) a great car. She used it for going to school about two months before she stopped going. Then she went back & forth to work for about a year. The whole time, we all considered it her car, but we paid the insurance, which was on our family policy & the title was in my name.

At the time she lost her job, she was acting out, and started taking the car to our former neighborhood to hang out with former high school friends who were big drinkers. I caught her driving drunk (thank GOD nothing else happened), & I took away the keys. Her defense, "I didn't mean to drive drunk". (I know that's true). I had told her that if she drove drunk I would take the plates off the car & cancel the insurance. Instead, I sold my car, and my husband, daughter & I share two cars. I make sure I take that car sometimes just to establish authority.

I agree with everyone else that contracts are exhausting. I would just say take it for work or school; anything else needs prior approval from both parents.

[jellibeans]

someday

My dd16 has a car but we keep the keys with us. She doesn't get to go out with it without premission. At least not right now. She needs it for school because she transfered to a new school and there is no bus. On the whole she has been good with it. We don't have any contracts with her. The ones we had in the past were not good at all.

What I hear in your post is your attempt to control what your dd eats... when she sleeps... . etc... . I would resist that temptation to control. I would rather focus on if she has a need to drive the car. If you have a fear of her drinking maybe you should have spot drug tests when she gets home once in a while so that can relieve your fears.

[Being Mindful]

My BPD.d21 does have a car. We did not provide it for her. She had to earn the money for it, insurance and gas. She purchased it about a year ago and has done very well handling the responsibilities of it. We do not support her in anyway with it. She is an adult and she needs to own it and everything that goes along with car ownership. In her teen years as she was trying to learn to drive we did not push it and did not do any of the work for her to get her license. She needed to schedule the class, behind the wheel etc. She never did it on her own and we didn't do it for her, figuring if she couldn't handle it then the responsibility of a car would be too much. Finally, at age 18 she started trying to get her license with good effort, failing the test 3 times and each time after having to figure it out again. She finally passed it, but had no car. We drove her to work every time as we could not trust her with the responsibility of our cars. It was draining, but for her was the best way to learn and accomplish it herself. We are very proud of her car ownership and it is the first material good she has had that she takes care of and really does a good job of it.

It was a different way of handling it, but for our BPD.d it worked out very well. And, we had to work very hard to stay true to our boundary on every step along the way. But it paid off in a big way. It would have been easy to hand over the keys instead of us driving her, but we couldn't and wouldn't. The only time she could drive one of our cars is if we were in the car with her.

Another way of looking at it... . cars are a privilege, not a right.

[twojaybirds]

long story short  she is 19 and has a car

I am 100% positive she does not carry insurance and no longer ask.

I did help her get the car because she was working two jobs at the time.

And for me  MORE IMPORTANTLY it is also a place to sleep aside from on the streets

where she still often ends up.

Her clothes and belongings occupy the backseat and trunk.

[Verbena]

Yes, DD28 has had her own car for many years.  She drives very fast, is constantly on the phone while driving, texts while driving (she says she doesn't do this anymore but I don't believe it), and almost ran over me with her car last summer in the mall parking lot.  I was sitting in her parked car with her, trying to reason with her about an incident earlier in the day (big mistake), and she began shaking and screaming at me.  I couldn't take it so I got out, slammed the door, and started walking away.  She put the car in reverse, floored it, and cut  her wheel sharply.  I jumped out of the way just in time.  She then looked right at me with a look I'll never forget, floored the car again, and left me standing there.  Later she blamed me for the whole thing--because I slammed her door. 

[Kate4queen]

We bought all our sons a cheap second hand car when they passed their driving test. It took BPD son 6 attempts to pass his test because he didn't do well with the stress and got into arguments with the examiners and then raged at them when he couldn't sweet talk his way into passing.

However, we did get him a car because he has a form of cerebral palsy which makes walking long distances hard for him. We reasoned that having transport of his own would a) take him out of our vehicles and his threatening behavior in them and b) encourage him to get a part time job.

Within 6 months he got 3 tickets and rear ended three people. (no injuries TG) The car was not looking good. As this coincided with him leaving home we offered to give the car ownership over to him, including him making his own insurance payments, repairs etc. This has proved to be a constant bone of contention over the past 2 years as he doesn't budget to pay for what is needed and we won't pay for it anymore.

I just don't get involved with his car decision making anymore. He's 22 and this is one area where we have backed off and stopped enabling him.

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

[Esperança_Hope]

Hi, my DS32 destroyed 4 cars, many motocycles and many car , moto accidents.  His license is suspended since 211. But he drives  girlfreind´s car, grand-mother´s car, close friend´s car. I never  go in a car he is driving. It´s agaisnt law and this is my limit.

[Googie]

Absolutely not.  My daughter still has the tendency to push the envelope and take risky chances WITHOUT being behind the wheel of a car.  This issue causes me to get heartburn and nightmares, .  Not anytime soon.

Googie