How Do You Handle Your BPD Child 'Not Remembering?"

[victoriousmama]

I'm new to this group and really grateful to finally find a forum to ask questions and hear from others who are in the same or similar boat.

My daughter is 17 and started blacking out as a coping mechanism for her intense emotions. She will literally just check out, her eyes are still open but she will not respond to anyone or anything until mintues (up to an hour and a half) later she will yawn and "come back" to reality. Most of the time after her blackouts she forgets things that were discussed or happend previously - especially if there was conflict or tension.

We discovered vape pens in her room several months ago and when we confronted her, she said she had no idea where they came from and got really upset that we didn't believe her. We have continually found more from time to time and each time she says she has no idea. We had a family meeting a few weeks ago and had a very good conversation about things like vape pens that are not allowed in our home and even illegal to have at school etc. We told the kids they had 24 hours to get anything like that out of their rooms etc and throw it away. After that, anything we find will have consequences. Our daughter particiapted in the conversation and maintained that she had no idea where the previous items had come from and came close to accusing ME for planting them.

Fast forward to this week. She asks if she can stay 15 minutes after school so I said ok. I go to pick her up and she doesn't pick up her phone for 30 minutes and finally shows up saying she was talking to people (she names them) and she's very sorry she didn't pick her phone. I got suspicious and as soon as we got home I checked her bag and sure enough found a brand new vape pen. She got upset and said she had no idea how it got there and it wasn't hers. She even claimed to have no recollection of the conversation we had as a family a few weeks earlier.

So my question is - do any of you parents deal with this and how do you handle it when they adamantly deny all knowledge of it to the point you actually want to believe them? It's already hard to discipline as it is let alone when you can't even be on the same page that something wrong was done. She gets upset for having consequences for something that she claims is not her fault/she did not do.

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

[kells76]

Hey victoriousmama, welcome to the group! 

Lots of family members here in the same boat with you. You'll find moms, dads, stepparents, grandparents... the whole range. While I'm usually over on the family law board (it's my husband's kids' mom who has BPD type behaviors), I couldn't help but be drawn in by your post.

It's frustrating, almost like trying to make someone hold a soapy bowling ball, to try to "make" a pwBPD (person with BPD) own the truth about something. We've experienced that with the kids' mom. It's such a no-win scenario... you keep trying to "get them to see", they keep coming up with ways to avoid taking responsibility.

And yet, there's this huge opportunity with your daughter.

She vehemently asserts that she can't remember, and has no idea how this stuff gets here?

Wow... oh my gosh... if that's true... that's VERY serious. VERY, VERY serious. How could she disagree with the fact that memory loss at 17 is incredibly serious?

You can say that if the memory loss continues, then you will definitely take her to a specialist AND a therapist, because you care deeply about her, and if she is saying she has blackouts and memory loss, then you'd do anything to figure out the cause of such a high-risk, sudden-onset syndrome.

She couldn't object to that, right?

After all... either the memory loss is serious enough that unknown persons can approach her and put stuff in her bag, and she has NO IDEA what happened...

or it isn't a big deal?

Hmmm... seems like a double bind!

Would be interested to hear your thoughts, and I'm sure more members (especially parents) will be along soon.

In the meantime, again, welcome!

-kells76

[victoriousmama]

Thank you so much for your response kells76! It really does help to know we're not alone or that some of these things we are dealing with are not isolated (although I would not wish these things on anyone).

My daughter has been on meds and in therapy for the last 2 years. She has great therapists etc and has made good progress, but I guess we all know it's a roller coaster sometimes. They said it is possible that she has convinced her brain that she is telling the truth, the same way she had trained her brain to just black out when it's too hard - which is why it's so convincing. Because it's too hard for her  to comprehend that she is capable of those behaviours and doesn't want to deal with the intense emotions and conversations that come from that.

I like what you said and her therapist had said something similar..."if you can't remember then that's pretty serious too and maybe you are not safe to be by yourself or with your peers." What we get as a reponse to that is "it's not my fault and you don't believe me." then a lot of push back for any kind of consequences since it's not her fault. Even if you show her video evidence, she will have a twist or a story to tell of why it's not what it looks like.

Wow! Parenting is not for the faint hearted as it is and parenting a child with a mental health condition is even more difficult. Especially since there aren't any easy answers.

[PearlsBefore]

My immediate reaction, based on my own history, is to say "She's faking it". I'm aware I'm likely projecting my pwBPD onto your pwBPD - as my own never experienced such blackouts until she faced legal jeopardy and then suddenly...damned if she could remember anything, she must have claimed to have no memory of key events more than a dozen times in as many weeks, while never having suffered it before.

Of course that doesn't mean your daughter is faking it, she may have another disorder alongside or something; the easiest but imperfect test might simply being seeing whether she ever blacks out when it's distinctly to her disadvantage (she won't get to open a present when everybody else does, she has no memory of you giving her permission to go to a movie tonight, etc). Either way, I certainly sympathise with how difficult that makes your situation.