Are swearing, name calling and threatening behaviour traits of BPD in teens?

[Jetplane]

Hi,
I am new to this site and have a 16 year old daughter who has been diagnosed with having BPD. She has struggled with her mental health for the past 6 years, mostly as a result of bullying at school. Self harming since the age of 13 has now escalated to several suicide attempts by overdose. Her constant rapid mood swings and impulsive, often dangerous behaviour, led us to seeking advice from our local children’s mental health team. It was following her most recent suicide attempt that BPD was mentioned. As parents we felt helpless, isolated and often terrified, especially during her hyper manic episodes, until we uncovered that there were at least 5 other teens from her peer group with very similar traits. We swapped numbers with parents and kept in touch. One of the girls from her peer group was constantly verbally aggressive and violent towards her parents, but whilst in our company was one of the sweetest (albeit loud) young ladies. She used the foulest of language towards them, it truly shocked me. Our daughter has become a mirror image of this girl. She calls me the worst names imaginable, regularly tells me to F off and always threatens to kill herself or me. If she is hyper manic and has self harmed, she can be very threatening. I am an ex police officer and do not scare easily and I can tell you that I am scared. So my question is: Is vile name calling, swearing and threats to kill all part of BPD in teens and do we treat it as such? It seems to have escalated since diagnosis and now she says that she can’t help it because it’s part of her mental illness.
Thanks

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

[incadove]

Hi Jetplane, welcome to the site and sorry to hear about the extreme situation you are encountering with your daughter.
 
I am not an expert, but I think from my reading and from this site and my own experiences, no, "vile name calling, swearing and threats to kill" do not have to be part of BPD experience.

Are you able to separate your daughter from the other girl who has been this influence on her?  I think that setting firm boundaries and consequences is healthy although with the realistic knowledge that you may not be able to control her behavior.  If there is some consequence you have direct control over, such as shutting off the wifi, each time the most extreme boundary is crossed, I think that might be useful.  It should be something that you do not have to escalate and do not have to argue with her to control.  I would pick the most extreme - the threats, maybe, and just inform her calmly that threats are not acceptable in this house, and if a threat occurs, the wifi password will be changed for three days.  Something you can follow thru with calmly with no further discussion.

Then just do it, and do not engage about it.  Its really hard when things are so personal.  Or something else you do have direct control over.

You could also call the police if you think the threat is serious. 

I believe that setting firm boundaries is really helpful to someone who is out of control, but doing it in a way that doesn't escalate and lets you feel in control and kind of professional in your handling of the situation. 

Wishing you the best, I am glad you are finding sources of support and professional help, I wish I had done that earlier instead of trying to figure everything out myself.  I also found the Marsha Lineham books helpful.

Hugs and good luck with getting thru this hard patch   

[By Still Water]

     Hello Jetplane. We have seen these traits, though my husband was only threatened once - when our son (just before going to grad school) had picked up a small TV to hurl at him. (Started off as a panic episode when he couldn't find his paycheck, blamed us, went ballistic, was told he would not hold our family as emotional hostages, then picked up the TV, got in hurl position, then stopped.) The vulgar language happened a small handful of times, over the years, between 12 and 36.
     It has only been in the last couple of years that I've strongly suspected his BPD might've been inherited from my mother. (In one of her rages, she had once flailed a knife at my passive father. Usually, it was because she felt offended by some perceived slight.) Our son never witnessed my mother's behavior, which makes me suspect BPD-wiring could be inherited. It surely wasn't modeled.

[Sancho]

I am constantly at the end of BPD dd's foul language, verbal abuse, threats and blaming.

There is substance abuse as well as BPD in my case and I am not sure what is responsible for what. But reading the posts here, there does seem to be a connection between BPD and these verbal assaults.

I see it as a brain fade that is affecting a part of the brain relating to speech etc. so when the emotions are roused, it just switches on and this terrible tirade occurs.

Boundaries can be difficult when someone explodes the way my BPD dd does. I am assuming you have tried many things. In my case, boundaries were just broken and she did what she pleased.

I would make an arrangement to pick her up somewhere - she wouldn't be there. I'd wait for ages and then finally come home. I would be up all night waiting for her to come home, worried sick.

She has lived with various partners, come back home in between.

The main thing is looking after yourself as best you possibly can as you go on this journey with your daughter. Some people do recover from this illness, others find ways to manage it.

I hope you can get to the point more quickly than I did of being able to let most of the foul words go past me. I can even get over the ones that hit me hardest in quite a short period of time now.

And being able to do this is quite freeing for me.