How Can I Convince My BPD Mother To Go To Counseling?

[David2598]

Hey All,

I am 21 years old with a BPD Mom that I have lived away from for 3 years now. I am over the anger stage and I have more sympathy for her illness but not empathy for what she did because that was wrong. I have since been struggling with disassociating her with being my Mother and I do want her to get help so she could be my Mom possibly in the future.

How Can I get her to go to counseling?

Back Story: Child Protective Services were called on her by my brother's counselor for things that she did to our family so they took my younger sister and my Dad now has full custody. The CPS has been attempting to give her a psychiatric evaluation but she is refusing. Her Grandma had Schizophrenia and was taken away to a Psych Ward at a young age where they tortured her and my Mom did not see her again for 20 years. Her family has a history of mental illness and she has been told to never talk to counselors or doctors because of what happened to her Grandma.

She saw two counselors for a short period of time in the past, her first counselor had a psychological breakdown and permanently quit counseling. She decided to stop going to her second counselor which was a marriage counselor with my Dad. They have since separated.

[Harri]

Hi and welcome to the board.

It is hard to almost impossible to get someone else to go to therapy unless they believe they have a problem and they want help.  On top of that your mom has had fear about medical and mental health professionals instilled in her for a long time. 

Often the best thing you can do is work on changing your relationship with your mother.  Learning about the disorder and the associated behaviors, how to establish boundaries and use different communication skills can all change the playing field and changing your role in the dynamics can improve things for yourself.   Doing this can *sometimes* lead a person to see that they have difficulties and need help.

Can you tell us more about your relationship with your mom?  What sort of challenges have you had with her?