first post

[Betsy123]

Hi. I feel so alone and helpless. My child is 35 years old and has been living with my partner and I for the past 3 years. She is very distressed most of the time, very angry and in a lot of pain. I really want to help her, all the positive communication and affirmation. But I feel so tired of all the abuse. So empty. I'm not sure I have anything left. She also has ME /  CFS and apart from personal care can't look after herself.

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

[Sancho]

Hi Betsy123
I hope by coming here you will feel less alone because there  are people here, like myself, who know what it is like to live with a loved BPD adult child who is unable to move to independence.

Knowing that was a great help to me because my friends don't understand or try to get me to use the usual behaviour management strategies that are not really applicable in my case. I found. myself more alone among them because they could not understand.

And how could they? This is such a complex illness! It is exhausting on a day to day basis, let alone dealing with it for years on end.  And I think the most exhausting thing is that fact that there is no end in sight - you feel like this is just going to go on forever.

There are two things in your post that perhaps you could focus on: one is the exhaustion, the other the anger.

Can you think of any way that you can work towards lessening the exhaustion? Things I think of at these times are getting a blood test for levels of iron, B12, and vitamin D etc. The stress we live under can play havoc with our health. How is the sleep? My anxiety barometer tells me when it is high because I wake at 4am with a sick feeling in my stomach.

Do you work or have some times when you are away from the home?

If you can, have a look at whether you have some time - however little - just for you, when you can put things aside physically and mentally.

In regard to the anger - are you the target of blame? If so, this can wear you down like nothing else in my experience. I used to try to respond, to get dd to see that the way she saw things was not the case etc - but that only increased my frustration. As I came to understand BPD more I could see that it was a need to vent incredible emotional pain - and I learnt to let the words and accusations fly past me like a ball being thrown in my direction but missing me.

I still find myself thinking about how I could change this or that. But the reality is I can't change the fact that my dd has this awful condition. I use the mantra
I didn't cause this
I can't control it
I can't cure it

This helps me step back from going around and around in my head about what I should/could do.

The only things you can change are in relation to you;  is there some way you can care for yourself more, some way of making more space in life to nourish yourself?

Thanks for posting and I hope there is some way a small change is possible for you.