Did I cause this?

[ManicmomS]

I've read about parents with multiple children where one is BPD and the other(s) is/are not.

Is it our fault that a child behaves like they do? Is it possible to prevent this behaviour.

What do you think?

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

[jojospal]

Children will react to us - you know that. A lot of times they pick up our signals when we're fearful or angry more easily perhaps than when we're jolly or loving - it's a survival thing that all of us have to any degree. Kids that are extra sensitive will absorb things more readily, and sometimes it's overwhelming to them and - by default - they might 'shut down' those sensory perceptions that seem to make them more vulnerable and beef up those that will 'protect' them.

I hope others will come along to offer you more support about the impression your therapist gave you. Your actions, feelings, and behavior do not totally dictate those of your daughter, but I'd say that they will have an affect on her - how could they not?

hang in there,

[lbjnltx]

The National Institute of Mental Health's view on the cause of BPD



Here is a link to some additional information on this:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17988414



Personally, this is how I see my role in the development of the BPD traits that my dd16 has had:

She was born a sensitive soul, the opposite of myself.  I am a cerebral type... .thinking and reasoning over emotions.  There is a mismatch to some degree there.  To counter balance her emotions I replied with reason and logic instead of validating her feelings and helping her learn to balance herself.  The invalidating environment only added to her emotionality.  She was diagnosed w/separation anxiety at 2 years old, even though I was with her constantly.  When difficulties with school began and the hormones began to rage at the same time her emotions became unmanageable for her and myself and me not understanding what she was struggling with.  At age 11 she was dx w/ODD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and went untreated despite being in therapy and working through a parenting program.  At age 12 she was diagnosed by her new therapist and through inpatient complete psych testing as "emerging BPD" and MDD (Major Depression).  At age 13 she began having psychotic episodes (possibly from depression).  After 2 years of individual/family therapy (partial Dialectical Behavior Therapy) she continued to spiral downward in her depression, psychosis, raging, self injury, risky behaviors, lack of identity and absence of empathy.  She went into residential treatment for 10 months where she was able to get stable, learn skills and return home to us.

She was born predisposed to develop the disorder, had I known how to parent a highly sensitive child... .   if someone had used those terms our lives may have been different than they were.  Instead terms were used that directed her treatment towards parenting a "difficult child" and a "strong willed child", which she was, yet the underlying problem that drove her "strong will and difficulty" was her sensitivity.

I hope that this information can help you accept the present and move forward in your journey to parent your son and get him the treatment he needs.

ljnltx

[griz]

I would get myself all crazed when I read books about the parents of BPD children.  How they often come from abuse or invalidating parents.  No matter how hard I searched I couldn't find anything that we did.  

But the more I thought about it the more I realized that it is not so much what we do or what the world does as it is how they perceive things.  Everything around us effects us.  I tend to be a pretty adaptable person.  In my office I am completely methodical yet outside I am really highly-sensitive and a random thinker much like Reality.  My DD is a very abstract thinker also, and that is why I understand her so well.  My other daughter is a very black and white thinker, very logical and methodical and when I am with her I am in a much different frame of mind.  Both of my girls had a similar upbringing however they way they are effected by the world and how they adapt to it are two very different things. My older daughter was able to blow off the common rejection kids deal with in school.  She would not allow herself to be bullied.  :)D was also bullied in school but reacted totally differently.  She was not able to move on from it, which made her the perfect prey.  Oddly enough my older daughter is now a "Crisis Counselor" and the other night she was explaining to me what she learned about personality disorders.  She told me most often there is a crisis or trauma in the persons life that they do not effectively deal with.  They use ineffective ways to deal with this trauma and the longer they do this the harder it becomes to deal with it.  Their perception changes and a personality disorder begins to emerge.  BPD being the most common.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that it is not what we do but how they react to their world.

Griz

[qcarolr]

One principle I try to keep in mind for both my DD28 and gd9 is their lack of resilience and self-reflection. This is part of the temperament they are born with - genetic. There is a trauma response that other kids do not get in same situation. This can be so confusing for the care-givers in the child's life.

So my belief is that we do the best we can as parents, we all make mistakes, some kids respond with anxiety and fear much greater than other kids. This is real to me as an influence from experiences from childhood. It is so unfair and painful when we are 'blamed' as parents.

Also, as we learn how behavior works, how our psycho-neurology works and how they are intertwined there is recovery available at ANY AGE. Our brains are flexible and new pathways can be created that lead to better behaviors and values. I believe it is up to the those that love to learn and practice new knowledge and then they can model and teach this to others in effective ways.

This is the greatest gift this board has brought into my life - tools that work when I can put them into action

qcr

[AVR1962]

Good question, one which I have asked myself a million times over. My BPD daughter was the only child for the first 4 1/2 years of her life. She was the center of attention with all of the family... .the first grand, first, great grand, first niece. We all doted on her. I didn't notice her having issues when her little sister was born but my mom did. It was not long after that, that her dad left. She was also starting kindergarten and away from mom for the first time. I think there was too much for her to deal with and she was especially saddened by her dad leaving and having no communication. I don't think she could blame her dad, she wanted him back so bad. I was safe to blame and she pointed her anger towards me.

I did have her see a counselor in 2nd grade, something suggested by the teacher as she was acting out in school. The counselor felt she was caught up in this fantasy of who her dad was, truly saw him as a hero and of course at her age she could not see the reality of who he was and what he had done. He left due to an affair, the man was a cheat.

Something happened then I feel. She had such anger towards me and started making up stories to friends about how awful I treated her, telling her friends I was abusing her. I don't know if it was her or one of her friends but I was turned into CPS when she was in 4th grade and I had a full investigation. I have had counselors ask me if this was her reality rather than lies in her mind but if so her reality was very distorted. She told a friend that she had been physically abused by a boyfriend, that friend went to the principal of the high school, she was called into the office and I was then to meet with them. The principal told me she felt my daughter had smeared mascara under her eyes and questioned the abuse allegation. She admitted to me that she had lied and when I asked her why she had no idea.

She claimed a boy raped her, we filed charges, an investigation started. The guardian of the boy asked for us all to meet as he felt this was not a rape case and he wanted the charged dropped. My daughter was crying and trembling going into the room, would not admit anything but then she dropped the charges. When I asked why she said she felt it was going to be for nothing, that he would be found innocent because it was his word against hers. However, when she moved out of the house she moved in with a boyfriend who was best friends and roommates with this boy who had supposedly raped her and she could not even be in the same room with, and she decided to live in the same house with him?

She told me that her counselors told her that she didn't have issues, that it was me. That I had not been an attentive parent. I can say i don't know how much more I could have given. I gave and forgave and she has treated me horribly seeing me as her abuser. So it is her reality, I have no idea. Was I really that bad of a parent? Then why did my other turn turn out so well?

My youngest, now 19, and I got into a conversation the other day about forgiving and working thru difficulties. She had decided not to pursue a hurtful situation. I asked her why. She told me that she saw me bend over backwards for her sister and others and saw that it didn't work and she didn't want to do the same.