Advice needed

[Flamenco]

My daughter who had BPD has struggled hard and was making huge strides, she has a good job lovely boyfriend and a great sister who she lives with in Australia. But if the slightest thing happens she drinks and becomes quite unpleasant to her family. It is so far away from the UK, so difficult to help, she gets a lot of help and encouragement from all of us. she is in great danger of blowing everything she has worked so hard to obtain. It is so very difficult to understand why she does this?

If I rush out to Oz I know that it will not help her, but I feel utterly helpless.

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

[lbjnltx]

Hi Flamenco,

Most of our kids/adult kids with BPD have a skills deficit coupled with low distress tolerance.  The absence of healthy coping skills leaves a gap that they fill with unhealthy coping skills like drugs, alcohol, projection, etc... . 

Do you think your d needs to get treatment for alcoholism? 

Has your d had any skills training to help her learn to cope with her intense emotions and learn to problem solve?  If so, it can really help if she has someone modeling these for her and encouraging her to use what she learned in the past.  We started with validation of feelings and slowly added asking validating questions.  The validation helped her soothe the intensity of her feelings that come from her emotional mind and then asking validating questions helped her to engage her reason mind while keeping all the responsibility for a problem and it's solution on her. 

Would her sister be willing to be her validator alongside you?  If so, I recommend the book "I Don't Have to Make Everything All Better" by Gary and Joy Lundberg.  It is not a book about BPD, and it is all about the power of validation and validating questions. 

Here is a link to the book review that we have here on the site and ordering information.

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=128027.0

We have a great deal of information on validation here on the site.  Here is a link to get you started:

Validate the Valid

We are happy to help you as you learn and practice new skills to help you and your family.

lbj