Hi. I am a very tired and often sad dad

[Mseltz]

My daughter and I are very close.  We called her "Jr." when she was little cause she followed me everywhere, walked, taught, thought, and played my games and sports, and shared attributes and appearance.  Something was wrong from infancy, however.  Her fear of abandonment was so extreme in preschool we had to go to a therapist.  Now as an adult, she has every symptom of BPD.  She is having some real success in DBT.  It helps, but she is yet far away from stable.  She has drained us financially with many hospital bills, wasted student loans, and unused gym memberships still pending.  She has lived a see saw life under the roof of her Mom and then back and forth to Grandma, my fiancé and I, and then back to Mom for another round.  She is the perfect housemate for about one month and then everything begins to twist until drinking, pot, stealing, lying, and confusion ultimately lead to viscous  verbal assault, resulting in her being asked to leave or just walking out.  She loves all creatures great and small.  She spends her last dollar buying a cheeseburger to offer to a homeless person.  She stayed at her Grandfather's bedside for two days until he finally passed in her arms.  She has a brilliant mind for poetry and philosophy, but is focused on massage and energy work and yoga.  She is one of the finest people I know and she frightens and exhausts me.  My alcoholism, divorce, recovery, bankruptcy -- as well as some of my finest achievements -- were all woven with my daughter's BPD behavior.  I look forward to asking for help and sharing what I can.

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

[madmom]

Welcome Mseltz, it sounds like you have a very painful and roller coaster existence with your daughter.  Many of us have experienced it also.  You love her so much, and she is lucky to have you.  Like you my husband and I struggled for years with our BPD daughter.  We were at the end of our rope and didn't know what else to do.  Luckily, I found this place and the help and support has been incredible.  I would encourage you to work with the tools and lessons found on the right hand side of this page.  It wasn't until my husband and I did that and started making changes in ourselves and the way we dealt with our daughter using SET, validation, boundaries and letting natural consequences happen that she started getting better and so did we.  Best wishes on your journey, you are not alone.

[lbjnltx]

Hi MSeltz,

So glad you are here and sharing your story with us.  I can feel the deep sadness and connection you have for your daughter.

How old is she?

I'm glad to learn that she is in DBT and that it is helpful to her.  Are you also learning the DBT skills?  It really does help us cope and can also help with supporting your daughter in using her skills.  Being a model of the behaviors/skills/choices we want our kids to make can be very powerful.

If you need some DBT info we have it here.

lbjnltx