Do young people with BPD ever find their sense of self? Any success stories?

[Wildcat64]

I'm a father of a 21 year old son who has BPD. My son has always struggled with having a sense of self and purpose. The craziest thing is he was a high profile mega successful athlete and a great student. He had a huge following on youtube and competed internationally representing the USA on multiple world teams. He's followed the path of addiction and homelessness. He realizes he has BPD, he's very smart, but will not get or commit to long-term professional help. He refuses to accept much of anything including insurance. We pray at some point he'll be more receptive to getting help. He's learned to play music and sing for money so perhaps maybe that might be his sense of self. I've learned that he has a interest-based nervous system, meaning anything he does he's always good at unfortunately the impulsivity of it gets him into bad situations with harm. Like many of you know, he cuts, burns and sedates himself to deal with shame and the lack of being/purpose. Is there anyone out there who could share any successes you've had with your children who have BPD?
Thank You in advance!
Wildcat64

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

[PearlsBefore]

Hi, welcome to the forum. As far as your question, I'm not the ideal advisor because male BPD is still an enigma to me, I have multiple dBPDs in my life but at risk of overstatement or causing gender offence in today's world, I don't have much experience with actual male BPD. But let it never be said that I saw a newcomer without any responses yet, and walked by!

So with that proviso, it's a good news/bad news scenario - from everything I've read more than half of BPD patients will be calming down starting in their young 20s through their 30s. They don't tend to really "find their sense of self" from what I know, but the self-harm and addictions should drastically decrease. Of course, that's not all of them, but I'm pretty sure it's well over 50% - and a much smaller percentage (10-30% somewhere as I recall for females) who will actually get mentally worse over that time. So the odds are in your/his favor.

It sounds like you've hit a few milestones already that will make many people here smile with jealousy, he's acknowledging he has BPD which is often a major hurdle (my "most central" dBPD also typically acknowledges it), and he's had some great successes which means he's not in the "never reaching potential" category but the "not currently reaching potential"...but deep-down inside hopefully he KNOWS that he's capable of more than his current rut.

You don't mention whether he's succeeded, failed, or failed to try at having long-term relationships with friends or girls - it's not necessarily a wise idea since BPD is often categorized as having "chaotic relationships" not least of all because of their tendency towards both erratic violence and paranoia about abandonment and it can definitely add to their stresses...but where he sounds like a bit of an uber-mensch I was curious.

Only other thought that springs to mind is whether his athletic successes were on an individual or team basis, like if he's backed away from his sports because he doesn't like having to deal with people who invariably end up reinforcing his fears or stereotypes? If that's the case, it might be worth seeing if he would have any interest in "just trying" some more individualist activities whether it's pole-vaulting, eSports or a photography blog or something where he might excel and not really need to deal with the stresses that BPDs often find human interaction brings?

[Lollypop]

Hi Wildcat64

My DS30 has found some sense of his self...at least we believe so. Highly intelligent, quiet bpd, wracked with high anxiety and extreme lack of self confidence he turned to drugs early. He said he felt a deep whole in himself that he tried to fill.

His progress has been a combination of us changing our approach when he was 24. He’s been younger emotionally than his years. So at 30, he’s more like 25. He found it hard to live to our expectations.

He has a success story in that he lives independently and works to support himself. He enjoys his job and takes pride in it. He earns reasonable money as he’s developed skills and thus pride. He’s defined by his job. He works outdoors and has relaxed bosses who understand his quirkiness. They put up with him and his moods because he’s good at his job. Sometimes his relationship with them wobbles but he has found a way to reign himself in and regain himself and this critical relationship. .

His sense of self is: non-conforming hippie. He has negative views on authority, no trust in health professionals. His sense of success is far from our sense of success. However, he’s happier than he was. We are much happier than we were. This has only been achieved by emotionally distancing and us stopping enabling him. This allows him the dignity to make his own mistakes and problem solve,

He finds relationships with woman impossible, I guess he’ll be lonely until he works out what the problems are.

Hope this helps you, there’s hope. But things don’t turn out how you thought.

LP

[Resiliant]

Hi Wildcat,

There is always hope.   As parents, it is in our nature to want to fix everything.  And fix it now.  I am so sorry for your struggles with the loss of the son that you once knew.

Lollipop just described my son to a T.   Exactly word for every word!  My son is 2 years older (32). 

My son has lived on the street.  He has busked for a living.  He has walked around looking disheveled all the time.   All the while wanting to change the world with really good, progressive ideas that he just couldn't put together.

Now he works full-time.  Owns a car that he got on his own.  Is able to hold a job, get up early and all that.   I was especially impressed and surprised this year, while so many people here in Canada were taking advantage of our Covid benefits and not working he was actually working.  And left one job for a better one.  When the better one didn't work out he had another job within days.  I couldn't believe it because the old him would have been in bed for who knows how long if something didn't work out.  The old him was so low functioning.   The "need to be in control" part of BPD works for him in the right job setting.  He has raised himself up from being hired as a labourer to assisting his employer with much of the managerial parts of the business that the employer was struggling with.

I'm not saying things are wonderful and perfect and normal.  I am saying that there is hope.   BPD to me, is something that has to be managed, like diabetes.  There is no instant fix.   They will have their ups and downs.  We all do only theirs seem much bigger.  Our job is to learn how to be the best emotional support without enabling.  It's the hardest thing that I have ever had to learn how to do!   Which is why I am here.

I wish you all the best.  I try to stay strong and stay hopeful with faith.  And most of all, to love and let live...  let him live his life his way.

Faith, Hope and Love.   The greatest is Love.

R