Having trouble setting limits, think

[dubiousraves]

My 18 year old BPDD has been in an IOP for 4 months after a 10 day hospitalization last fall. While she was initially very resistant, she is now reluctant to graduate from the program. Her counselors and my husband and I all agree that she is ready to transition to less intensive care and engage more with the outside world. When she is not in the program, she is in bed. On weekends she stays up late and sleeps all day. She is taking a year off between high school and college and doesn’t have many friends around.

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

[qcarolr]

Hi dubiousraves,

Welcome to the parent board. I hope you find some good support here. What a struggle! Have the counselors talked about how others have managed this transistion? Is she in a day treatment or residential program?

My guess is this has more to do with feeling safe than with boundary issues. I wish I had some good, quick answers. I am struggling with a similar situation with my granddaughter age 12. She has missed all of 7th grade due to diarrhea and related anxiety disorder. Not sure if BPD is in her future. My dh and I have been her primary caregivers since she was about 9 months old. Her mom has been in/out of her life with her various issues including BPD.

I look forward to hearing more of your story, and others responses as well.

carol

[dubiousraves]

She is in a full-time outpatient program and lives at home. We are happy she is in treatment and not on drugs and suicidal anymore and have enjoyed the relative calm of the last few months but now that the discussion has come up about her discharge, I feel like we are going backwards. When she is not asleep or in bed watching old TV reruns, she has Frequent meltdowns where we are accused of not helping and not caring. She also had  a short relapse with marijuana that caused the program to extend her stay in the program by a month. She  is on antidepressants, a mood stabilizer and sleeping pills. We think the meds are making her sluggish but she says she feels anxious if she doesn’t take them all.

We’ve told her that anything that gets her out of bed everyday will be fine: art classes, volunteering, going to the gym,  a part-time job maybe. We even have a friend who offered her a low stress volunteer job but she refused saying everyone is telling her what to do and everyone in the job will know she’s crazy.

She will still see her therapist once a week and go to a DBT group so it’s not like she’s being cut off.

We were so relieved that she accepted treatment but don’t know how to help her from being a recluse. She really wants to go to college but I’m worried she won’t get there unless she can learn to connect with the world again.

Has anyone had this experience?