Adult child has BPD

[Jenleigh]

Hello, my husband and I have a 26 year old that moved back home with BPD after a suicide attempt. She is his inly child and the child from his first marriage. Her mother is deceased now. She moved in with us last May and we feel like we have lost our life dealing with her. Everyday has become a nightmare.

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

[Lollypop]

Hi jenleigh

Welcome. I’m so very glad you found us but sorry to hear what brings you here. My own DS27 returned home at 24 following a crisis and I remember thinking “so what do we do now?, what do we do next?”.  It’s tough and that’s the truth.

Is your step daughter in any treatment?  Losing her mom must be hard for her and I wonder if she’s had any grief counselling.

You’ve said every day has become a nightmare. I can imagine it feels like walking in egg shells and that’s exhausting. There’s hope and I want you to know that. This situation can change and it has to start by one of you making that change. Our focus on his problems, and there were so many, wasn’t healthy for any of us. If something’s not working then a change in approach is needed.

This forum has saved my family and my DS27 is now functioning, we have a better relationship despite the problems. I learnt a better way to interact and my family learnt from me. We got happier once we started to understand we couldn’t “fix” our DS but we could walk side by side while he very slowly started to learn how to live his own life.

What kind of support do you and your husband have? Friends and family can be important but I found mine didn’t really understand. How’s it for you?

LP

[Jenleigh]

Thank you for your post! Right now we are in the process of moving her from the state run therapy program to a private therapist. They would only see her once a month for therapy and have not adjusted her meds for over 7 mos and things kept going downhill. We've tried to get her into grief support groups but she fights us everytime. I feel like we as caregivers need therapy now. So we have her set with a private therapist for Feb 22 and that was the earliest we could get.
Thank you for sharing your story. Everyday for us seems like a black hole.

[Jenleigh]

We don't have any support at all. All our family says is just kick her out and let her fend for hersrlf.

[Rockieplace]

Hi Jenleigh

I'm so pleased that you found these forums and am sure you will find them very helpful although I'm sorry for the reasons that brought  you here.   We, like you, were sinking under the strain of dealing with our BPDD35 and were finding our situation so isolating and lonely.  I came on these boards and was astonished to find so many people like us, loving parents, desperately trying to cope in very difficult situations.

After reading lots about BPD and studying the Tools on the right I eventually learned to communicate better and more effectively with my daughter.  I also learned to look after myself through "detaching with love" and other strategies.  Just reading all the posts of others too is incredibly enlightening and humbling.  Our daughter is still very ill and permanently hospitalized right now but, through the practice of radical acceptance, my husband and I have managed to create a life for ourselves which is not reliant on how our daughter is doing.  We are actually happy although I still feel a little guilty saying that. 

It must be very hard for you having your step-daughter living with you.  It also must be difficult to stay strong as a couple.  Our daughter used to twist her dad round her little finger, often at my expense, and caused so much trouble in our marriage.  We worked through it though and now my husband is very supportive of me and we always try to 'sing from the same hymn sheet' where she is concerned.  This was very painful for my daughter but now she has had to accept it.

Is there a way your step-daughter can live independently?  Would she want to do that do you think?  It is very difficult not to try to fix everything and one of the lessons I found most helpful was backing off and treating my daughter as a capable adult even when it appeared that she wasn't.  I was amazed at times at how she sorted certain aspects of her life out on her own just by having to! 

What sort of behaviours are you having to deal with?

Lots of hugs and luck!