Purpose of Family Connections

[Parents! Get help here!]

Has anyone taken the Family Connections program?  It says the purpose is to help ourselves and grow a support network.  It seems like it may be about caring for your family member with BPD.  What if you just can’t anymore?  Can you still take the program?

[AcheyMom]

Has anyone taken the Family Connections program?  It says the purpose is to help ourselves and grow a support network.  It seems like it may be about caring for your family member with BPD.  What if you just can’t anymore?  Can you still take the program?

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

[kells76]

Hi AcheyMom!

I signed up for the waitlist back in February this year (I think) and just had my first class earlier this week.

I'll try to answer your questions and I think I can do that without disclosing any specifics. I might change details but the gist will be the same.

Class leaders have been awesome -- very calm, very inclusive, nonjudgmental, and definitely living in the middle of challenges from their pwBPD. They're not just "ivory tower academics"; they are actively coping with many identical challenges as group members.

They've emphasized that Family Connections is not a class we take to fix or change the pwBPD. FC helps us, the participants, manage our own emotions better and build new skills so that we can be more effective if/when we communicate with the pwBPD in our life.

More than one person in the class signed up while still in a relationship with a pwBPD, then, while waiting to get in, the relationship ended. Those persons were still welcome in the class to process what happened, to try to skill-build for potential future contact, or just to learn more about BPD.

Some participants have adult children wBPD and are either raising the grandkids or are trying to stay in contact with grandkids. Some of those participants expressed that if the GKs weren't in the picture, they wouldn't want to have anything to do with their child. Some participants shared that they did not feel like they loved, liked, or cared for their child. Those feelings were heard and accepted by the group and the leaders.

You can have nearly any goal you want in FC. Your goal does not have to be "to grow a close and intimate relationship with my pwBPD". An example of a goal could be: "To work on myself and my own emotions because someone in my family system has BPD". You are welcome to focus on growing your compassion for your pwBPD or you may not be in that place and that is OK.

The person in my life wBPD is my H's kids' mom. I'm not interested in building a close relationship with her. My goal was to become more courageous at using tools/skills with the kids as I deal with a lot of fear and anxiety about "rocking the boat" in our complex family system.

Happy to try to answer more questions if you have them!

[AcheyMom]

Thank you so much for sharing your experience!  This puts my mind more at ease.  I’m not sure how involved I wish to be with my daughter right now.  We started communicating more frequently but I am hesitant to become more involved at the moment.  She was in DBT therapy so I was hopeful but she quit after only a few sessions.  Sounds like Family Connections may be helpful for me.