18yr old daughter with BPD... struggling to support her.

[Peppa]

Hi

I am brand new to this forum.

I have 3 children, dd 18, dd 3, ds 7 months.

My eldest dd was diagnosed with BPD in march this year.

To be honest i really don't know where to start as her situation is so very complex. As a family we have gone through hell in recent years, partly due to my dd's behaviour which became increasingly erratic as she hit her teenage years. It progressively got worse, mainly due to her lack of being able to form healthy friendships and relationships. She was often bullied at school. Her ability to lie to us and invent situations holds no bounds.

After lurching from one bad relationship to another including a rather horiffic incident involving her natural father when she was 15 (he was absent until this point) she was diagnosed just after she turned 18.

Since then she attached herself to someone who also has mental health issues. She quickly became pregnant and moved in with him. This relationship fell apart 2 months ago after his inability to cope with her behaviour.

She is now living alone, close to us.

It has just emerged that she has been inventing situations to such a degree that we are at a loss to how she is managing to function. For example we were led to believe she had cut all contact with her ex and his family. This is a lie, she has been having them to her house and telling them she had nothing to do with us which is totally untrue. She had been weaving such a web of lies and deceite i am not sure she knows the reality. When confronted with some evidence she was aghast that we would suggest she had been living essentially a double life. We have since found out more and its truly shocking. We are at our wits end. We want to help her so much but she seems to be hell bent on self destruction and inventing a reality she is happy with.

Sorry for the waffly post but i don't know where to turn as i am worried also for the baby she is expecting.

I hope someone can help/offer advice.

Thanks in advance.

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

[Phoenix.Rising]

  Peppa,

You sound like you are struggling and understandably so!  I'm sorry you are having such a rough time.  However, I am glad you found this website.  It has helped me tremendously. 

This book has a lot of good information on communicating with someone who has BPD. 

Loving Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder - Shari Manning, Ph.D

They often process information different than we do, and they often require a lot of validation of their feelings.

Communication using validation. What it is; how to do it

A parent's greatest wish is for their child, whatever their age, to be healthy and happy. When a child suffers from BPD, often not only is the child unhappy and unhealthy, but so is everyone who loves them. This mental illness severely affects everyone, creating drama and heartbreak, while also piling on the guilt and anxiety. Most parents search desperately for answers, and try all the gimmicks that popular culture tells us should work - only to face even more severe rages and acting out behavior.

There are answers though, and we are here to offer you the support and encouragement to help you reach those goals. There are things that can be done to stop making things worse and begin to make them better. A great place to start is with this set of resources:

What can a parent do? We look forward to seeing you on the Supporting a son or daughter suffering from BPD board and hope you join us on this journey.

Has your daughter ever received any therapy or treatment?  Please open the link "What can a parent do?" as there is a lot of information for you there.

Best to you,

Phoenix.Rising

[Rapt Reader]

Hi, Peppa... .I'd like to join Phoenix.Rising in welcoming you to this site.

It sounds really tough, what you are dealing with regarding your daughter. There actually are quite a few parents on this site who are dealing with very similar behaviors, and it turns out that what she is doing is not that uncommon with people who have BPD.

I don't have any experience with the symptoms and behaviors you are talking about, but there's an Informational Thread on here that might answer some questions for you:

BPD BEHAVIORS: Dissociation and Dysphoria

In that thread, there are 2 links to research articles that also might help you:

About BPD and depersonalisation and dissociation:

www.aapel.org/BPD/BLdissoUS.html

About BPD and lying, remembering facts different than others:

www.aapel.org/BPD/BLlieUS.html

Please read all of the links that Phoenix.Rising gave you in his post, above; they will be very helpful to you, and I think you'll learn a lot from them... .and when you have the chance to check out the links in this post, I hope they help you understand your child a bit more. Life can be stressful, painful and confusing with a BPD child; but knowledge is your first step to finding the light at the end of the tunnel 

[js friend]

Hi Peppa,

you story sounds very simliar to my own with my own dd and many of the others members here.

Dont worry... .we get it totally. I have also experienced my dd lying to one group of people and then saying the total opposite the other. In hindesight my dd has done this sort of thing most of her life beginning when she about 3 yo!

I stopped confronting my dd a few years ago as it just made her more agitated and i was becoming a nervous wreck with everything i was discovering.

If I could advise you to do 2 things to support your dd it would be to read, read and read some more, and post as often to get other members perspectives on your situation. Youll be suprised how many other members have probably been through or are going through exactly the same things as you and your family.

There are many good informative books out there about Bpd. This site is also great place for information, and tools to use with your dd. The support from the others members here who truly understand has also helped me through some very tough times with my own dd19.

One of the books I would highly reccomend is BPD in Adolescents by blaise A Aguirre. This book was real eye opener for me about what was really going on with my dd. Once I had a better understanding about Bpd as a mental illness I was better able to put the tools I learnt here into practice.