Frustrated dad w/19 yr old daughter w/BPD

[jthorpejr]

my wife and i have been dealing with this for 4 years now. 2 suicide attempts and 2 drug rehabs and crisis center stays.  we are tired of going around the same mountain over and over again. we are stuck, we have tried everything, 4-5 counselars, medications, home schooling and nothing works. when she leaves the house and begins to make bad decisions, we try and cut her off but she picks herself up and starts showing progress. so we try and support her, not abandon her and then eventually she self destructs again. we just want to get off the carrousel. people from our church tell us we need to cut her off and force her to suffer the consequences of her actions. let her hit rock bottom but that fills like abandonment but it also feels like we are enabling her. searching for answers... .

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

[DreamGirl]

Hi jthorpejr,



The mountain ride of Borderline Personality Disorder can be a treacherous one. 

people from our church tell us we need to cut her off and force her to suffer the consequences of her actions

Well intentioned people who sometimes offer advice that seems so simple to them. "Cutting off" a child isn't something most parents are in the habit of wanting or even being able to do --- and it's the not really even a feasible solution. 

Our Parenting Board has so many members, who like you, just want to get a handle on how they are dealing with their child who functions in the same pretty self-destructive ways.  There's hope in this, jthorpejr. We have members who know what you're going through and have found success.

Is she in counseling now? Were you able to take anything from the previous therapists?

searching for answers... .

You're in the right place for those. I promise.

Welcome to our family. 

---DG

[maxen]

hi jthorpejr and i join Dreamgirl in saying 

i don't have a child with BPD myself, but as Dreamgirl mentioned we have a board dedicated to those who do. the stories i read there show a commitment and heroism that i can scarcely imagine. the stories also show great pain, and you will now meet others who know what you are facing and what you are feeling. please do follow the link to Parenting a son or daughter suffering from BPD board. there is a great variety of information there, including sub-boards for treatment options.

how about yourselves? do you have psychological or pastoral support? please keep posting jthorpejr!

[Daedalus]

        hello. I only recently realized that my daughter has all the symptoms of BPD- she turned 18 and everything just exploded... .though I had felt the time-bomb ticking for years. Ultimately my daughter chose to take off to go stay with a guy 11 years older than her- only 4 days after admitting she had been seeing him for almost a year. Anyhow, without knowing who the guy is or where my daughter was staying, my son (19) and I felt overwhelmed and utterly confused at her behavior- I had realized countless lies because she had also confessed several other things that just lead to a thorny spiral of other untruths- more than a year long- and then she just ditches us for this 28 yr old guy who had been kept a secret?  She was gone for 4 days with no contact and then she just showed up and said we all just needed time to "cool off". Here's the tricky thing: in the 4 days she was gone, my son and I had time to talk about how we could easily see that without her in the house, it was like a gloomy, suffocating presence had lifted. It was sad and also strangely liberating. We agreed that her lying& secrets, disregard for our family respect, etc. could not continue- we were exhausted   We did not know what to do, but we knew we could not allow her to keep us emotionally wrecked and never knowing when the next bomb would land in our laps. (That same day as we decided this is when she showed up back at home.) The hardest thing I have ever done, was to keep her on the porch, while she whimpered and said that she wanted to come back home... .My sense of self protection was raised so high that all I could think of was how NOT to allow her back into my home. How awful to feel that about your own child who you love so fiercely, right? I asked if she figured she could just come & go as she pleased & be with this man, now that she was 18?... .was that what she imagined I was going to allow her to do?... .I asked her what she had thought an entire year of lying was going to get her & after just 4 days of telling me & my trying SO hard to understand, she just takes off?... .She didn't contact us for 4 days & she thinks she can just come back and continue the lies, etc, etc? Well, not surprisingly She said she hadn't thought of all that... .but, that she would still see him as she pleased and nothing had changed. So, I told her that if "nothing had changed" then she could not stay at home yet. She said this guy would take her in & that was no problem, but she was deeply saddened & surprised that I didn't let her come home. She got a few things from her room & used my phone to call the guy, and in 15 mins she was gone again. I have since realized that her behaviors for the last several years all point to BPD. I was crushed when I realized how my actions may have affected her already strong sense of abandonment    But, visits with my therapist, online research, & even advice from folks here- all points to the importance of self preservation and helping my family unit be healthy.  I do not regret that she is not at home, I made a conscious choice that I can live with. No matter what happens, I can live with it. I HATE it & cry over the situation, but all is not lost! On the contrary, I feel that because I love her so fiercely, I want to be a whole person who does not just resent her and despise her. I know she will make choices that she will struggle with, thats for certain. But, they are HER choices, and I do believe that she is capable of learning without my influence or guidance- no matter how many years it may take. I never wanted to have any of the bad things that have happened to her, and I never wanted to have a day where I wouldn't allow her in my home... .But, it turned out this way & I still want to live my life fully and allow my son to thrive- and my daughter will not be the reason that we fail to do so. I don't say this out of spite- NO! The way I choose to see it is that by moving on and working at MY happiness, maybe that's the only way we can teach her why its worth it to keep trying. And I NEVER want her to feel that she ruined our family or is just a burden for us. I have felt that before, but I refuse to accept that is all there is to it.   

[maxsterling]

hijthorpejr, 

I'm glad you found us here, but truly sorry for the circumstances that brought you here.  Every time I read a post from a parent, I get a tear in my eye imagining how hard it must be to watch your own child self destruct.  The pwBPD in my life is a romantic partner, and while I can't relate to having the parental role, I can certainly relate to the emotional frustration over dealing with such a volatile person.

I wanted to comment on one thing you wrote about advice people at your church gave to you.  While that advice is certainly well intentioned, it is more directed towards the drug addict side of her behavior.  If you attend al-anon meetings, plenty of people will talk about "enabling" and how when they quit enabling their addict, the addict finally hit rock bottom and came clean.  My feeling is that doesn't work as well when you are dealing with someone with BPD.  "Cutting her off" is aimed at "teaching her a lesson", and probably won't work for someone with BPD.  Instead, it's more constructive to enforce a boundary - that you will no longer tolerate her behavior.  Setting boundaries is about protecting you from hurtful or damaging behavior, not about forcing her to suffer the consequences and learn a lesson.

I'm glad to see you here.  I hope you stick around and read and start posting to the message board set up just for parents.  There's a lot of good information here, and information that will help you understand and communicate better with your daughter.

[lever.]

Hello and welcome.

I do agree with maxsterling that cutting her off is not likely to teach anything to a person with BPD and will just lead her to feel abandoned and lead to the difficult behaviour escalating.

People who don't know a great deal about BPD often try to give advice for the best of motives when they see us struggling- but BPD is a complex condition and the difficult behaviour is only a surface manifestation of the inner turmoil.

Many of us here struggle with the fine line between enabling and supporting and there is a lot of discussion on setting boundaries.

Many posters have come to the conclusion that they will only help with things that support recovery and will give a strong NO to everything else-even if the person with BPD rages about it.

One book that I have found extremely helpful as a parent is "Overcoming Borderline Personality Disorder" by Valerie Porr.

I am currently reading "Boundaries" by Henry Cloud and John Townsend.

I will post when I am further into it to let people know if I find it helpful.

There is a middle way between enabling and abandoning and we are all striving for it- feel welcome to post on any specific issue where you are finding it difficult and we will try to help.

We are all learning from each other.

[nomoreoptions]

Hi,

I want to present a position that is somewhat in between here.  Most of us want the best for our kids. In our case we took in a 16 year old homeless kid who had been abused (severely, including repeated head trauma) by his birth mother. His working memory score was in the first percentile, despite normal intelligence scores. He had no knowledge of how to deal with authority, including a parent. He is now 18, almost 19.

It wasn't working. At all. The abuse toward me was endless and extreme. We told him he had to find alternative living arrangements by a certain date, and we would provide limited funds for housing and living, but would only continue to do so if he goes to therapy, is drug-compliant and goes to school.  I had to tell him I would call the cops and have him removed for trespassing if he didn't comply. He found a decent place that day. It was ugly, but done.

We haven't had any "trigger" events recently, he found a decent place to live. He's pleasant, so far, and the monetization (which is extremely limited, especially for NYC ) seems to be working.

My only point is that you never know what might work, and sometimes at older ages the home triggers may be hurting more than the benefit of keeping your kid safe and at home.

[Daedalus]

I recently viewed this Youtube discussion & it really moved me.    

I wanted to share it with you because it may help you also.  It is truly empowering to hear- from someone else's mouth- how they have handled their own emotions and their own children with BPD, and come to terms with the intensity of it all... .  please view this away from your child, and have a kleenex handy!             -->  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEKnfomVb_k

[HealingSpirit]

Dear jthorpejr,

I'd like to join everyone else in welcoming you to our family.  I'm so sorry for all the pain and suffering that brought you here.  My DD is almost 18 and was diagnosed a few months ago after a severe cutting incident landed her in the mental hospital for a 3-day hold.  So, I know much of what you're going through.  It is heart-wrenching, stressful and exhausting!  And in a lot of ways, it is harder when well-meaning people who care about you give you advice that makes things worse.  Then that's when guilt follows... .maybe I didn't do it right?

I'm glad you found us!  There is a way to stop that carrousel.  (Great analogy, by the way!)  There are lots of "Tools" and "Lessons" here on this site that can help YOU to cope.  There are things we can do to help our loved ones get better by not making things worse.  The validation and support I've received here have helped me be ready to learn those things.

Check out the "Tools" to the right of this board.  --------------------------------------------------------->

I have found that simply by validating my DD's intense (often warped feelings) and listening with S.E.T. (sympathy, empathy, and truth), it has transformed our relationship.  I was starving for validation that I'm not crazy, and that I'm still a good parent when I got here.  I didn't know my DD was starving for validation from me too.

Loving someone with BPD is a delicate balance between being supportive and enabling.  There are a lot of discussions about that here on this board, but I'd like to invite you to start your own discussion and bring up questions we can all think about.  The more you share, the more we can help.

I'm really glad you joined us!  How old is your DD?

[madmom]

Thank you Daedalus for the video link, it was awesome and so right on the money.  jthorpejr, welcome---all of here are struggling to understand and help our loved ones, while some how maintaining a life of our own with healthy boundaries and some sort of contentment and peacefulness.  If you are like me, you will find some great support from the other members and from the tools and lessons that are here.  My daughter is 26.  We ride a roller coaster with her of sometimes she seems to get better, and like you try to offer help and support, only to get "burned" and so filled with sadness and disappointment.  Using the validation techniques and SET has really helped my husband and I communicate with her and with each other.  We are working on understanding the difference between support and enabling and also setting boundaries and like the video said, coming to an acceptance.  Best wishes, keep posting, ask for the help and support you need.  We are here for you, you are not alone