Hi All. I'm having a terribly difficult time moving past my missteps as a parent, and regardless of what anyone says, I know that I played a role in the development of some of my daughter's problems. I'm overwhelmed with guilt and sadness all the time, and even though things seem to be improving, I'm also very traumatized by some things that have happened that I'm alway's bracing myself for the next shoe to drop, finding it challenging to live in the moment. The truth is, my daughter didn't exhibit ODD when she was young, and she wasn't a misbehaved child. By everyone's account she was happy and "normal"---- until she wasn't---- which started in 7th-8th grade. My first big regret is with down playing the concerns that she brought to me and not recognizing that she was sincerely having a lot of anxiety that needed to be addressed. I was more like the "toughen up butter cup" type. Then all
PLEASE READ it the fan at the same time with her behavior going over the edge at the same time by dad was dying---- and directly following that, my husband (not her bio father) was diagnosed with a late stage terminal illness out of nowhere and died a month later. There were other factors at play as well, but suffice to say that I legitimately lost my mind for a while, and even had bouts of psychosis. I ended up sending my daughter away at the beginning of her freshman year of HS into a wilderness therapy program, followed by a "therapeutic boarding school" at the recommendation of the wilderness program, and of course, nothing but bad stuff came out of any of that. I truly believed at the time that these programs could help my daughter but they only made things worse. I now understand that at best they were incompetent, and at worst abusive, and are really part of the so-called troubled teen industry. There is no doubt that my daughter holds trauma exclusively from those programs, and it's pretty questionable that her issues would have escellated as they did or for the length of time had she not been put in them. So, when she got out, after I spent an ungoldly amount of money in effort to help her, she was returned to me far worse for the wear, and our relationship was in shambles. I could provide more details but it's pointless for the sake of my post. I'm at the point where I don't know if she ever would have been diagnosed with BPD had those programs never entered her life, and I'm still not sure that this is what she really has and/or I should even pay much attention to what research shows concerning BPD as far as it being a lifetime struggle. There were soooo many awful things happening at once, including COVID that I'm hopeful that time along with ongoing therapy, forgiveness, and getting back into a "normal" age appropriate lifestyle like attending college will rid her of most of the BPD symptoms. She went so long without her mental health needs being properly addressed, while also in places that could only perpetuate problems---- then it took this BPD diagnosis for me to start making changes that really should have been there all along. Maybe I'm just in denial. I'm just so regretful.
