Daughter staying in room

[Gorges]

Hello,

My daughter (17 year old) shows BPD traits.  We just finished over 2 years of therapy and DBT groups.  I'm unsure or how much help they were. I guess that would be another story.  The point is that my daughter has tried therapy, groups and medication.  The medications had too many side effects (mostly digestive, and then some made her more angry) for her to want to continue with them.  We have seen that outside help was really not a cure-all because my daughter didn't see her role in the problem.  It seems she spent all of the therapy sessions blaming other people for her problems and then would tell me how her therapists disagreed with things that I did.  My daughter is a senior and my family is leaving the country in 19 days for a 6 month sabbatic due to my husband's job.  My daughter decided not come with us because of the amount of conflict between her and the rest of the family (my husband, son and mostly myself).  She was on track to graduate in January and has applied to a few colleges but they are all reaches for her.  We are content with her going to a community college next year and living in the dorms there.  We don't want her living at home with us and we have told her that she will need to live in a dorm.   My daughter will be staying with my parents in another city about an hour away when we are abroad in Italy.  She seemed happy about this.

The issue is that she is at a very stressful time in her life-trying to graduate, get college applications done and leaving her family.  She also has fallen behind and is currently failing several classes.  On top of it she does some marijuana.  We are not sure how much.  For about 5 months May-October we did drug tests and she came up negative.  Yet, we have found paraphernalia and marijuana in our house.  We told her that she couldn't drive for a month each time these things were found and that we would be searching her stuff.   Just before the holidays we found a pipe and told her to forget about driving for the time being and she didn't seem to care.  We warned her that the next time we found something she would lose the right to be on our phone plan.  Well about a week later (Friday night) I found a small amount of marijuana in her purse (I flushed it) and her phone got turned off and disconnected from our wifi.  She spent the entire weekend in her room sleeping.  She did come out to eat and was polite.  Last night she asked if we could get her wifi for her phone turned back on and we explained that she needed to do what we had asked over the weekend-talk us through her choice to smoke and what was in it for her and how her needs could be met in other ways, also the downfall of smoking.  She just couldn't do it.  I would say more than BPD she shows extreme ODD and she couldn't get beyond the "you can't control me, and I do it because I can".   I agreed that I couldn't control her and if it was that important to her then she could give up her phone like she gave up driving. She does still have a laptop in her room.  She went into her room and screamed about how she wanted to kill me ect.  Today was the first day of school back from break and she didn't go and is not going to dance tonight.  She is saying that she is done going to school, feels like killing herself and thinks we are awful parents that have ruined her childhood.  Her situation is indeed depressing-she really doesn't have good friends, but has a fellow pot-smoker.  She lost her good friends last year when she got more into pot or at least the partying image.  She isn't a great student but could have gone to a decent college but may have ruined her chances with these failing grades, she isn't take the opportunity to go to Italy with us because she basically can't get along with us.  That said, I feel like I can't help her through this.  If she stays in bed for a week then I'll start to worry.   We have had such bad luck with the mental health system that I only want to enter into it if she specifically asks because then she might be motivated.   I feel like she is trying to hurt us and if we just let the hurt fall on her instead of us we can make some progress.  As anyone else had experience with this? If she fails and doesn't graduate in January she can take on-line courses to graduate in June.  If she fails she will most likely go to a community college instead of the colleges she applied to. I am at peace with this as well.

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

[twojaybirds]

Thanks for posting all this Gorges.  You must feel at wits end, although in some respects you are also sounding strong.

When my dd turned 18 in her senior year she fled to the streets with n/c.  I taught at her school and knew she was not coming. No one heard from her at all untill May when she appeared in the counselors office hurrying to do on-line retrieval catch up.  She did pull  it off and graduated at the last moment.

College applications were all for naught and I was mightily embarrassed with acceptance letters left unopened.  Long story short she did end up back in college of her own time and place and efforts.

All those emotions around graduating and being an adult and fear of leaving home can be overwhelming.

Even as a teacher I realized at that point I did not even care if she graduated from high school, I wanted her safe and working towards emotional health. 

Perhaps you can ease some of her stress or  try with some empathy statements acknowledging all the stresses.  Ask her what she wants right now?  Maybe just focus on high school. Can she start on-line now?  Some schools do have that option?

And yes, let her fail if that is what she wants to do. 

But you enjoy Italy!  That sounds wonderful!

[Gorges]

Thank you twojaybirds.  After I posted last night I went to a yoga class and during meditation came to the realization that I can't pull her out of her depression.  I have attempted to do that for the last two winters (we do live in a dark, gloomy winter place) and it has been a battle to get her to appointments, take medication, try a light box, try exercise etc.  I decided that I need to let her decide when her depression is bad enough for her to get motivated to get out of bed.   Today she did go to school (late to first period) and then work.  She seems better.

Your advice is very helpful about acknowledging her stress. Right now I was going to focus on getting her to pay for her phone plan, the latest consequence to finding pot in her house again.  But, probably better to focus on the relationship for now and not bring up the phone plan again.  She knows we expect it and she currently doesn't have her phone turned on until she pays.  Somehow I have to get the balance back, I have been so focused on the drug use and feeling very frustrated that she is breaking our rules.

I think I might need to take the same approach to her drug use as I do to her depression.  I can't pull her away from drugs.  She has to make that choice.  We will keep our rules and if she I find it I toss it.  But, I don't think I'll be as active in searching for it again.