BPD in ds22 help needed

[ledzep68]

Hi, I am a mother of a ds22 who i believe has borderline personality disorder. He has issues with money, drink and drugs, relationships, anger problems, suicide threats. He does not trust anyone, especially his girlfriends. He is horrible to them when he is on drink and drugs when they fall out. Calling her awful names, which he also does to me. He always says it is their fault and does not think he is wrong. We have bailed him out so many times with money, and he still comes back for more after he has blown all his on drink and drugs. He has been to jail three times because of his paranoia because he feels he needs to get information about her cheating to stop these thoughts in his head. He has been done for dangerous driving and affray. He just can not control himself or his impulses. Everyone who meets him says what a nice lad he is. He is polite and shows a very different side to him. Until you get close to him, like his family or girlfriend then you see the other side of him. He is like Jeckell and Hyde. We have got him a flat now because we dont want him to stay with us any more as we have had enough of his drink and drugs and rages. We have had to call the police a few times due to him having drink and drugs, falling out with his girlfriend. Then wanting us to let him have his Motorcross bike to go on while on drink and drugs. He just seems to never learn. Even after being in jail three times. He can seem normal when you seem to be doing something he wants. But as soon as we say anything wrong he cant control himself and has to go out and take stuff. I think it is beacuse he cant cope with his feelings. I want to set limits on money and rages. I am the guarantor for the flat he is in, because I did not want him to go in Hostel. He is self employed and want him to be able to support himself, which I dont think he will be able to do, because he can't organise his money. As soon as he gets any it is gone within a day or two, wether it is £10 pounds or £200 pounds, it just goes on anything. How do I try and get him to see he needs to start taking responsibility for his own life and finances. Because if I dont he says I am treating him like a child.

Hope u can help.

Ledzep

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

[lauradbl]

First question to you is does he see that he has this problem? If not perhaps you might need to back off a little and take care of yourself. Verbal abuse takes a toll on you. I know cause I have a 23 year old daughter who was never diagnosed but has all the signs. I am at the point where I am leaving her be to see where and what she will do. I have spent the last 7 years of enabling this BPD behavior and now need to stop her vicious cycle by doing nothing. Not sure if I helped you but he is the only one who can control his actions.

[vivekananda]

I am so sorry I missed your post. Please let me welcome you here  you are in a good place here. We parents understand how it feels and have been through and are going though much the same as you.

ledzep you must be worried for your lad. He sounds very unwell. Of course drugs and alcohol only make matters worse. It would be horrible to see you son in jail too. BPD is such a sad thing.

I would like to reassure you there are things you can do to make your situation better and hopefully improve your relationship with your son. It is a different challenge with an adult child with BPD, I know - my dd is 32. When I first came to the boards here I was frantic with worry. I had only just learned of BPD and my dd is still not properly diagnosed but that's another story.

I would like to draw your attention to the articles and resources available to us on this site. In particular for the moment, I would like to show you the link to values based boundaries:

BOUNDARIES: Upholding our values and independence

There are many articles and books that we can suggest to you - and advice from our own experience we can offer. Please make yourself at home here. Are there any particular questions you may have?

Vivek      

ps lauradbl you offer good advice, welcome to you too!   

[Reality]

ledzep68,

I love your name... .

Many people have found Valerie Porr's book, Overcoming Borderline Personality Disorder, very helpful.  It is available on Kindle if you have that option.  My favorite chapter is the one on Mentalization.  

Your son does sound like he has many of the BPD traits.

Many experts believe that the family can have a significant effect on a relative with BPD, so I agree with Vivek ananda to check out the link to value-based boundaries.  

I hope you find this board helpful.  Many have.  Many young people have changed because of this support, so I welcome you here.  

Take care of yourself,

Reality

[Kate4queen]

I have a 22 yr old son with all the symptoms of BPD (it's been discussed as a diagnosis over the years. but as we were not allowed to be involved with his therapy after 18 we aren't sure if anyone has ever mentioned that diagnosis to him)

I see similar behaviors in your son to mine. He is totally about what he wants right at that moment and doesn't care what he says or does until he gets it. Our family nickname for him was the Toxic Terminator because he just wouldn't stop coming after you. And, if you gave in and gave him the thing he thought would solve all his problems, his test to see if you loved him enough, he'd just move on to the next thing and then the next.

We've been putting up boundaries to protect ourselves, our marriage, our health and our other kids and they resulted in him walking out. This time we didn't let him come back and we're dealing with his threats to kill himself, his anger, his demands through email, which is still hard h but at least he's not screaming in my face anymore.

We're gradually reforming the landscape, putting responsibility back on him and accepting that even though we love him, we can't save him and that he might end up in a terrible situation or even dead. That's a horrible place to be in, but it really did come down to saving ourselves or saving him and we had to stop enabling him.

I wish you all the luck and courage in the world to deal with your particular situation, but please remember to take care of yourself. You can't help him if he makes you sick and vulnerable.

[ledzep68]

Hi all, thankyou for your concern and information. I have purchased the vaalrie Porr book. 'Overcoming borderline Personality' disorder and it has been a great help in me understanding how to help my ds22. Only the other day after doing a slabbing job and getting up early and working hard for four days. Instead of saying i was proud of him, which is about what i feel. I had read the book and told him 'you must be proud of yourself for doing such a good job', I can see now that this helps him feel good about himself and is positive thinking he needs. The only problem I have is my husband does not want to read the book and still insists on sending negative feelings to him. Like the other day he said. 'You can do some work for me but if you let me down again, I wil ring someone else instead'. I tried to tell him not to do that and read the book. But we just end up arguing about it. He seems to think all his problems are drink and drugs releted and that he can choose not to do them. He thinks that if he didnt do them he would be ok. I dont think he understands what is the underlying cause of his drink and drug abuse. All his mates  like to drink and take drugs. But because they do not have emotional dysregulation they can handle their emotions. Whereas myDD22 cannot. He thinks he wants to go out and do these things to keep his friends but then it his him who gets more emotionally dysregulated and says and does things because he can not control them and is easily triggered by what people say. His girlfriend falls out with him because when she doesnt want to see him when he has been out with his friends drinking. He starts the verbal abuse and then he becomes paranoid, accusing her of cheating and saying he has seen her places with someone. When none of this is true and it is all in his head. How do I get my husband on my side and get him to think differently about this disorder and trry and help our DD22.

[ledzep68]

Hi all, sorry for the confusion i meant DS22 not DD22

Ledzep

[Reality]

Hi again,

Your husband's fathering profile fits a typical profile of many fathers of young people with BPD, it seems.  Maybe you can model the skills and gradually explain to your husband.  Or maybe, you need to be very clear how critical it is that both parents use the proper skills with a highly-sensitive adolescent.  Maybe both.  It would depend on the situation and your relationship. 

I think it is very difficult for fathers who are not highly-sensitive to understand a child who is hyper-sensitive and overwhelmed with emotional pain. 

I agree that the substances are problematic.  Does your husband understand that they are the coping mechanism to deal with the emotional pain, etc?  Probably not, if he doesn't understand how bad the pain can be.

Would an outside T be helpful for you and your husband?  Or for you? 

Each situation is different.  Let us know what ideas you think might work.

Reality

[vivekananda]

Hi there,

I think most of us when we first come to the boards have the same issues with husbands. It took 6 mths before my dh accepted that BPD was a possibility (yes dd 32 is undiagnosed - her T says she has PTSD). He still hasn't read Porr, but he is on board now and has comes to grips with validation (enough for the moment  ) that was a slow process over 18mths.

What did I do? I used to email him little bits and pieces of info - bite sized, so he could read with little effort. I usually copied and pasted from the site here. All sorts of stuff about BPD, validation, boundaries, anything that grabbed my eye. I would then ask him later if her had read it and what did he think. He, of course thought I was brow beating him. Probably amongst the last thing I sent him was an article on verbal abuse and silence, I think you can find it here:

www.EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dorothy_M._Neddermeyer,_PhD

This stopped him in his tracks for a few days.

So, when I was at the stage you were at, that was what I was doing. In retrospect, I suspect it was helpful, but it wasn't what was important. What helped was my knowledge increasing, me changing the way I communicated (eg I used validation on him as much as I could and that was a darned hard thing to do). I dragged him along to a carers meeting and told everyone my worry was that he wasn't reading and learning like I was! (a fair bit of arrogance there  ) I didn't need to say that, when he heard the stories of the other parents, he sat up and listened. The best thing was going to a T who was spot on and understood what it meant to be a parent of an adult child with BPD.

But, I think, looking back, the most important thing for me to do was to look at myself and change myself. Validation was the key to this perhaps. I stopped trying to change others and just focussed on myself. As my relationship with dd improved, so dh saw the results... . that's what I concentrated on, improving my relationship with dd.

Now you have finished Porr's book, how about investing in "You don't have to make everything all better" by the G & J Lundsberg:

You don't have to make everything all better

Another easy way to learn is to join the conversations we have here on the board.

What do you think?

Vivek