Where can I get help?

[waiting for the]

Hello all,
My 32 year old daughter has BPD and is about to lose a great boyfriend. I am terrified about how she will react. I am afraid all the time. I help with her finances, her home upkeep  and am her person to keep her company (when she is alone).
If I go on a holiday even for 4-5 days, I will get a call with her in a BPD spiral. I know there are such a thing as boundaries, but how could I live with myself if the time I enforce a boundary is when she harms herself or worse. I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop and I don't know how to manage the roller coaster. I am looking for counseling for her but can't afford much, neither can she. Has anyone found any services that are helpful and affordable? I am feeling desperate and welcome any advice.
Thank you for being a place where I can see that I am not alone.

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

[BPDstinks]

i am so sorry to hear your news!  Your comment "waiting for the other shoe" is the story of my life!  I feel this way alllll of time time...I feel like I can never RELAX...i feel like something will happen

[js friend]

Hi waiting for the

I really wouldnt  want to be a part of my udd30's relationship struggles anymore. (we have been estranged for the past 3 years so now there is little chance of that now) Before that if udd  felt that a breakup with a boyfriend was on the cards she would already found  a replacement for him before it happened. I honestly dont know how many b/fs she has had because they have been pretty casual and she would meet them anywhere......online. in a restaurant, in club, at a bus stop, in the street ....just anywhere. She thinks the good ones are just too boring and soon gets rid of them. She likes the drama, the name calling, being abused etc .My life is pretty peaceful and I enjoy it and want to keep it that way. When she first met her eldest 2 kids daddy I got to know him and he unfortunately was as immature as she was. They both tried to bring me into their relationship to provide some sort of counselling. It was absolute awful. I became a nervous wreck. They couldnt live with or without each other. They would both call me night and day to moan about the other with no regard for my life and what I was in the middle of doing. My ultimate advice to both of them after 1 year of going back and forth with each other  was to stay apart as their relationship had never been a healthy one.....They eventually broke up after the birth of their second child! 

Your dd has  met  a good one but realistically how many of them could cope with sticking around  through the chaos.? If she is willing to work on herself then that maybe a different matter but if not In my mind now  just like my udd  I see it as pretty enviable that these  relationships wont last. There has  never been  any self reflection from my udd so it just goes on and on. I think you should be there for your dd but dont get too immersed in it. It is a pattern that often gets repeated over and over again.

[js friend]

oh about counselling.....
Have you checked anything online? There are many videos/classes around CBT techniques for anxiety and other mental health conditons that you and your dd can do online. I think that they may be worth a look.

[Pook075]

Hi Waiting and welcome to the family.  I'm sorry you're going through this since I've experienced the same journey with my 25 year-old BPD daughter.

There are actually two separate issues here:

1) Your daughter dealing with her BPD illness
2) You accepting that this is not your burden

Your daughter is responsible for her.  You're responsible for you.  As a mom, it may seem like those lines are blurred at times, like you must swoop in and save her...often from herself.  I get it because I did that for a while as well.

But what you're actually doing, probably without realizing it, is teaching her that no matter what she does or how she acts, you'll be there to save the day.  That enables her since everything is your problem, not hers, and you're at her beckoned call whenever she demands it.  By living this way, it guarantees that she'll never take mental health seriously since she'll always have you to blame.

The answer here is to withdraw and build some personal boundaries.  If she sabotages her relationship, so be it...that's on her.  If she has a meltdown, so be it...that's on her.  If she self harms, you can dial 9-1-1 and get her help, but that's not your burden either.

I can remember when my kid was about 13, she would always bully the family dog and treat her terribly.  She'd pull the dog's ears, step on her tail, kick the dog, etc.  Eventually, the dog would growl if my kid came within 5 feet of her.  And as a dad, I'd correct the dog....even though it wasn't the dog's fault at all.  I'd also yell at the kid, of course, but she never listened so I thought that correcting the dog was the only solution.  It was a sweet, loving, protective animal that didn't deserve any of that.

You can guess what eventually happened.  The kid harmed the dog when I wasn't around, the dog bit her, and my kid went into a rage.  Yet the dog stood her ground, showing teeth and growling viciously.  She wasn't going to be bullied anymore and my kid finally realized that there are consequences to mistreating animals.  

The moral of the story here is that my kid learned more in 5 seconds getting bit than she did from 5 years of everyone trying to correct her.  She no longer bullied the dog.

Your kid is responsible for her.  Let her deal with the consequences in life.

[Ourworld]

Hello Waiting,

My daughter is 38 years old, 11 years ago, she completely cut off communication with me once she was married, no longer required my financial support after I moved overseas for a few years (this while I was still unaware of her condition, so she probably felt abandoned).
For the first year or so I went through thinking back over her life and times with me and what I could have ever done.
I came to the conclusion that I did nothing, and that it was all in her head; I just knew that she had back-to-back traumas when she went to college in another city.
This was without realizing what her actual problem was, plus I knew nothing about any type of mental illnesses anyway.

So, I lived my life and did the things I wanted to do (I have been widowed since 1997).

Last year, July ‘23, she left her husband. Come to find out, he has major Mental Illness from the military. He managed to get to the VA for proper treatment and he contacted me (he never blocked me, much to her chagrin) and he has told me about how she behaved and her distorted beliefs. It was the opposite of how she was when I raised her!

She blocked him when she left him, and of course I’m still blocked.
She talks to my brother occasionally, he says when they talk it is very superficial or about money. She can also talk to my older sister, but I don’t know about that.
I have only told my brother and sister that she has been through things that have affected her emotions and the way she might think. My brother and I have established how much I care and want to know of her where-abouts or anything major in her life, so he does try and keep me minimally informed. He let me know that she no longer lives in the college town she never left after she graduated and that she’s trying to heal.

I suggest three main issues that you need to try your best to improve:
1. Stop feeling responsible or guilty for your ADULT daughter’s life.
2. Let go and trust God take care of His child.
3. Focus on living your own life and let her deal with any circumstances in her life-remembering that her life is no longer your responsibility.

All of us are the children of our creator God, He gives parents the opportunity to raise His children, but once they have become adults He takes over the responsibility. You are not to blame for what is going on in her mind or her actions.

So, enjoy your own life, and remember that she is only a part of your life. Do the things you want to do and allow her to take responsibility for her own life.

Take Care and enjoy your life, OurWorld

[Ourworld]

Dear Waiting,

I just re-read what you wrote, so I can understand how difficult it will be to separate yourself from her life, but for your own sanity, you really need to do this.

Write out how/when you will go about it in steps.

You can do this, slowly (within the next year) but surely, and it will be better for you both.
Take some deep relaxing breaths and do your best!