Introducing myself.

[Holvie]

Call me Holvie.  I am 70 years old and the grandmother of a 19 year old child-woman with diagnosed BPD.  Let's call her Millie.  My life has turned into a personal hell with this kid as well as some health issues of my own.

Millie is my only son's daughter and he adopted her after she turned 18 at her own request.  She came to live with my son at about age 12 after her mother lost custody of all four of her children.  She is a half sister to my son's daughter--he was never married to the mother.  His daughter is 3 years older than Millie and has been with my son now for about 11 years -- Millie has been with him for about 5 to 6 years .  To put it bluntly, Millie's life has been a real poop sandwich.  Her mother has always been unemployed and goes from one man to another.  Both girls were shuffled off to friends and their grandma and rarely saw their mom, Eventually their grandma became ill and wasn't able to take care of them and they went back to their mom and her friends.  At about age 7 or 8 an older child (early teens) started raping Millie.  They were poorly nourished and either shouted at or ignored by mom.  They moved after a couple years which had the benefit of getting him away from Millie even though she  never told anyone other than her Mom who told her to stay away from him and didn't even believe her.  My son eventually found his natural daughter and took custody of her.  This left Millie at the mercy of her Mom and boyfriends who physically and emotionally neglected and abused her.    When the mom lost custody, my son requested and was given custody and guardianship of her.  She did fine at first and was happy and healthy but was then put into counseling for depression.  To say she had PTSD would be a gross understatement and as she got into her later teens she developed BPD. 

My life has been rocky for the last 2 years.  I am now 70 and I was diagnosed with lung cancer and underwent extensive radiation and chemotherapy.  I had severe and permanent damage from both and eventually had to leave my job.  I wasn't able to live alone due to brain damage from the chemo and radiation resulting in physical limitations and severe memory loss.  I moved in with my son and his daughters,  My son eventually found a larger home and we all moved there.  I am able to care for myself and I'm up and moving for about 4 hours a day whereas before, I was ambulatory but in bed most of the day.  I'm doing much better.  Except... .

When we moved, Millie's BPD became unstable and she treats us to 5 to 6 screaming and profane BPD attacks each week (in the middle of the night)  in addition to panic attacks.  Although I certainly don't think she controls these attacks or that she enjoys them, I personally am just about unhinged by them and I'm tired of weeping about it.  I cannot talk to my son about it because he doesn't give an inch in his commitment to help her as much as he can.  He criticizes me because I have so much trouble with being upset by being wakened each night by her screams, being upset when she calls me a stupid ___ing ___ and she orders me to go to my room, he doesn't like to hear me talk about my agony over her and with her.  She walks through the house dropping candy wrappers, hurt feelings and despair behind her like Hansel and Gretel. I could write pages about how she has damaged this family including me since June. 

My son has taught me a lot about the disease, but I have a lot of problems with being the gray rock sitting there saying, "You may be right" and then walking away and forgetting it.   I guess I need help on how to cope with all this from her and then hearing my son say, "I cannot understand why someone with your education and brains can't just walk away and forget it."  I can't understand how he never gives or enforces expectations.  I was raised to believe that you had to have expectations with your kids, otherwise they would never meet them.

I think I'm a lost cause in this fight against the ogre BPD.

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

[hope2727]

I am so sorry you are enduring all this.  There are many wonderful, supportive people here. The right hand side of the page has many valuable lessons. I wish I had more constructive ideas to offer but mostly I wanted to say you are not alone. Keep posting and reading. It helps.