hypercritical son

[Isadora90]

My son is hypersensitive to every tiny change in my mood or temperament.  He continuously asks me why I hate him.  He wakes me up in the middle of the night (1-2 am) to ask me to take him to McDonald's.  He won't take no for an answer.  He is now 22, but he was diagnosed when he was 12.  He's been hospitalized 4-5 times.  He's attempted suicide.  I am also taking care of my 94-year-old mother.  Any thoughts?

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

[Thursday]

Hi Isadora- Welcome! Glad you found us here.

Ten years is such a long time to be involved with and caring for someone with BPD- do you have any help? Also, taking care of an elderly parent can be exhausting. My heart goes out to you.

It is not unusual for a person with BPD to be hypersensitive (intuitive) to a person's moods and feelings. The BPD person in my life is my Step Daughter (SD). She is very intuitive to anyone's upset with her. However, she lacks in empathy- the ability to put herself into another's shoes. She tends to make another's negative mood into something about herself. I think it is a perfect example of how they are wired a bit differently... .and also a nod to the fact that they do actually, sometimes have something sort of special about them. However, in my assessment, intuition without empathy is not really the most beneficial gift.

I hope you will tell us a bit more about your situation. I think a lot of people here can relate to being awakened in the middle of the night for this reason or that. How do you handle this? In my case, I had boundaries in place about my sleep being disturbed and my husband, SD's Dad, did as well. To see more about boundaries, if you haven't already, see the  tools over to the right. In fact, there is a huge amount of great information over to the right hand of the screen.

Here is the first paragraph from the tool pertaining to boundaries... .

Having a relative with BPD can push you sometimes to do or accept things that you might not normally do. You might allow yourself to be treated in way that you never thought you would accept. Situations like that are not good for you personally and can cause burn out, damage your relationship, and cause you to lose your sense of self.

If that rings a bell for you, trust me, you aren't alone.

I also like the lessons to the right and Lesson 2- about changing your approach if your current approach is not working was one of the most important lessons I learned here. Currently, SD is doing very well with her life. She is 24 and she has definitely learned how to hear "NO" and how to do things for herself... .but not until we learned to set boundaries and stick to them.

We are here to listen to your story!

xoxo

Thursday