Glad to find this group... 17yo son with BPD ~

[aimbech71]

Hello - I am the mother of four children ages 17-boy, 14-boy, 11-girl, 5-boy.  My 17 year old has the BPD symptoms.  He was a difficult child, temperamental and defiant.  He was a lovely baby and toddler, but after his brother was born and had bad colic, and my husband was traveling, he changed.  I also suffered a depression at this time.  By 13 he was drinking and smoking pot.  By 16 he went off the rails, he got addicted to marijuana, and we placed him in a residential treatment center for 7 months.  He's been home a month and the BPD behaviors are clearer than ever.  Situational temper tantrums, loves something one minute, hates it the next.  Lying, manipulating, defiant.  We walk on eggshells around him.  He won't accept no for an answer and he is constantly pushing boundaries and looking for loopholes in the rules.  When he gets caught lying or breaking a rule, he plays the victim and uses shaming and guilt loading to turn it on us.  He cusses us out.  He is committed to his sobriety it seems.  One day he's in a great mood, the next a bad one.  He also has erratic sleep.  He is on Luvox for anti-anxiety, and it makes him tired, but the sleep cycles are crazy!  He meets with a psychiatrist tomorrow for medication evaluation, but I gave her the whole history so she is going to diagnose him.  I can't live with this kid!  But I love him, I just have a hard time liking him.

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

[Kate4queen]

Hi, I have 4 kids as well, 3 boys and a girl. My second son who is almost 24 now has BPD with a side of narcism and was incredibly difficult to live with between the ages of 16 and 18 when he was still in our care and our responsibility.

I feel your pain. I hope you are getting some counseling not only for your son but for your whole family as I found the only thing I could make better during that trying time period was how I reacted to my son.

All you can do is protect yourself as best you can, establish boundaries for your sake and your family's sake and keep reaching out to the professionals to help you through this-even if that means allowing your son to experience the full consequences of his actions.

[js friend]

Hi aimbech71,

The description of the behaviour of your son now he is home would have been the way I would have also described my udd (now20yo) when she also lived at home. She left home at 17yo, but I do remember being totally stressed out   with dd at 14yo -17yo and it being the worse period in my life so far. The first piece of advice I to give you... .And this is a big one... .

is  to stop confronting your sons lies. It may afterall be your sons version of reality and nothing you say or do may make him see otherwise. He  may also have a compulsion to lie and once it is out there may think he cannot backtrack or he may be doing it for attention... .the reasons why may be endless. All I know is that confronting my dd with her lies would make her anger worse. It is too time consuming and stressful to try to figure out so it is just better to just let it go.Once I accepted that the lies were part of my dds illness and stopped confronting her with them, it lessened the circular arguments we were having and I now find that I dont have the need to challenge her all the time which has reduced the stress I was suffering from considerably.

The next piece of advice is to maintain strong boundaries with your son. Do not put up with him abusing you.It is your home and your have a right to peace within it. If he starts on you tell him you will go no further with the conversation or leave the room. If you stick to your boundaries his  outbursts should hopefully lessen around you, but you must give it time and not give up and become less reactionary in this time.

Your sons erractic sleep pattern will also impact on how he is feeling... There are major highs of mania and lows of depression which can shift very quickly... .how they manage I dont know. Once my dd told me that often she would only get 2hrs sleep before she got up for school as her mind would be constantly racing all night. Eventually we tried sparring sessions at a local boxing school  to wear her out which seemed to work for a short time before she gave it up.

A mood stabiliser was prescribed by dd's psychiatrist which she refused to take as she says she does not like to take any form of medication... .even the the herbal kind is ruled out. I think she wont take anything because she is not accepting the idea that there is anything wrong with her. I hope you have more luck with your son getting his mood stabilised. and his psychiatrist can give you some more ideas.

Hopefully your son will be more compliant about taking medication prescribed to him if he is also maintaining his sobriety. 

Best wishes

jsf.