Overwhelmed

[devastatedmom]

This is my first post and I have tried to post a number of times before.  The problem is, I am so overwhelmed and there is so much going on inside me that I have difficulty figuring out what to type and then my post becomes so long I am sure no one would read it.  Hopefully this time I will end by pressing "Post".

I have a 24 year old daughter who has BPD.  She was told by a psychiatrist about 3 years ago that she has a personality disorder, but he didn't work with her long enough to determine which type because my daughter hated him.  I assume it was because of him telling her this.  However, in light of the psychiatrist's opinion, I have done a mountain of research on the disease, and my husband and I did some sessions with a psychologist sharing our experiences, etc., and we now firmly believe that she has BPD.

Two years ago after an altercation between my daughter and I, she split us for four months.  Told us point blank she never wanted to see us again.  She accuses us (mainly me) of abuse and has done since she was in her teens.  It started small, she would randomly and generically tell her friends that she had a crappy upbringing and was abused at home.  She began calling us "my parent" because she said that she didn't consider us mom and dad because we were so horrible. When it first started we were confused, but because she was a teenager, we thought that it was something she would grow out of.  We also thought that maybe she was doing it to fit in with her friends, because many of them came from broken homes and challenging circumstances.  We used to joke "heaven forbid we should be in a supportive loving relationship and still raise children".  Eventually the accusations escalated and became more detailed.  She accused me of telling her every day that she is ugly or unlovable.  She has said in an online blog that every bad thought she has about herself comes from me telling her all the time what a bad person she is.  She has also accused us of calling her names (I have never done so even once because I have a strong stance against name calling).  Our daughter's definition of abuse appears to be when someone either disagrees with her or she doesn't like what is being said.  A simple "no" from us can be recounted to others as "they screamed and yelled at me that I was stupid".

Was I a perfect parent?  Of course not, but I did not abuse my daughter the way she portrays (or at all).  The problem is, I have severe guilt surrounding this that I cannot get under control.  My daughter was born after a 5-year struggle with infertility and I couldn't mistreat her if I tried, but there have been a handful of times when I know I have lost my temper and have not handled things appropriately, and these roll over and over in my mind constantly.  I wanted to be a great parent, and I have two non BPD sons who remind me every day that I was, and I feel like I have done nothing different than any other parent, but my parenting journey is under a microscope constantly being analyzed and others experiences are not, simply because I have a daughter with BPD.  I'm dying inside.  I have a long-term marriage and a very supportive husband, but I fear he will eventually tire of listening to me (he says he won't and that we are both in the same boat).  He loves our daughter too, but he is better able to keep things in perspective and realize that we did the best we could.

Unfortunately, this problem is very much at the forefront right now for another reason as well.  Our daughter started seeing a psychologist about a year ago, and she has recently shared with us a number of startling revelations from her sessions that have made me feel like I am living a nightmare within a nightmare. 

I chose this psychologist myself at my daughter's request, based on the research on BPD that I did, and found that she had experience in DBT so I thought she would be ideal, however my husband and I did not go to see her to give her any background, because we didn't want to smother our daughter and we wanted the journey to recovery to be hers, not ours.  This was a huge mistake.

Our daughter has been suffering lately with a great deal of suicidal ideation due to some losses she has had in her life, and due to that, I have had some lengthy chats with her, validating and trying to help.  During these chats, my daughter has shared a number of alarming things with me.  Firstly, she advised me that her psychologist has not diagnosed her with BPD, but rather PTSD due to "all of the abuse she endured in her upbringing".  She told me that they have come to the conclusion that she is damaged because of "all the times she was yelled at as a small child".  Except for the fact that this yelling did not occur.  She told me that the psychologist has advised her not to spend time with us because we are unsafe.  And the piece de resistance, she has told my daughter that it is her opinion that I have NPD.  To many people, this would be more annoying than devastating, but to me, it is crushing.  You see, I have an older sibling who DOES have severe NPD, and I have been abused and belittled by her all of my life, so to be compared to the monster that hurt me is unbelievably hurtful.  My daughter then went on to tell me that I have "brought my abuse from my sister into my parenting" - these are not my daughter's words - they have come from her psychologist.  The frustrating thing about this is that I saw my sister raise her children (she is quite a bit older than me), and I vowed that mine would not go through the same things, and I made damn sure that mine didn't.  At one point, my niece told me she wanted to move in with me because of her mother!  Not to mention the fact that I had my own non-personality disordered mother who is the one I was role modeled by! 

This psychologist has everything wrong, and the worst part is, there is nothing I can do about it, because my daughter is now emotionally invested in this lady and I can't pull her away from that (even though it is my husband and I that pay for her sessions).  My daughter is suffering and she needs help, but if this psychologist is turning her against me, I can't help her and it appears that this is what is happening.  I don't even have words to describe what I am going through, except to say that the last time I felt like this was the day after my father died.  I feel like I am going to have to back away from my beautiful daughter who I love so, so much because I can't stand the pain, or that she is going to leave me again.

I don't think anyone can help, but I need to reach out somewhere.  I have a therapist that I see a couple of times a month, but the lion's share of the money goes to my daughter, and I need help.  I'm afraid I won't survive this and I haven't felt that with anything before.  There is more I could have typed, but this is today's crisis. ... .   

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

[Naughty Nibbler]

Welcome Overwhelmed:    

I'm glad you decided to hit the post button this time!  This is a safe place to share and you will find support from other mothers here.

I'm sorry about what you are dealing with, in regard to your daughter.  I can see how disturbing it is for you.  Is has to be frustrating to have your daughter lie to her therapist.  I'm thinking you have likely shared this with your personal therapist.  What does your therapist say about the best way to handle the situation  Is it possible to have the two therapists chat and/or can you have a session with your daughter's therapist?  A therapist should consider the fact that your daughter could be lying in some regard.

I've read several accounts of where  people state that the person in their life with BPD has had multiple diagnoses, sometimes flipping between PTSD (plus others), or BPD.

My sister is the one in my family who has the signs of a high functioning BPD, but she hasn't been diagnosed and doesn't think anything is wrong with her.  Her daughter (my niece), is currently diagnosed with PTSD, but she appears to be a higher functioning BPD.

It really doesn't matter that much about the label.  What matters is dealing with the behaviors.  You can't change your daughter, but you can change the way your interact with her and react to her.  There are some great tools to the right of this post, in the margin.  It can be a good place to start learning about some communication tools that can make it easier to communicate with your daughter.

[HaveFaithNow]

I just joined this forum today and this is my first post. I have a 21 year old daughter that had BPD. I am also feel like I am living a nightmare going through the DBT actions she has. I am incredibly sorry you are going through that with the therapist. I can imagine the hopelessness you must feel over that situation. If there was some way you "weren't able to pay for" the therapist, maybe you could get her away from that situation and after some time, maybe you can better your relationship with your daughter again to the point that you can get her to the right therapist. If you go to this link, www.linehaninstitute.org/, click on "resources", then "Find a therapist", then plug in your information, hopefully you could find an actual DBT certified therapist. if you aren't familiar with DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy), that is the main therapy that helps BPD. I have my daughter in the therapy right now and it is very good.  You have to go to classes and have one-on-one therapy. Hope this might help. I want to use this forum to have a place where I can express what I am going through and get feed back from people that are going through the same thing. At this second I am not able to do that because of my schedule today but I thought I would start by responding to you. Hope I can be of some encouragement to you. I know your BPD pain and nightmare.

[devastatedmom]

HaveFaithNow, thank you for your reply.  I am familiar with DBT, and there is a private DBT clinic in our city which would have been my very first choice for treatment for my daughter when she approached us saying that she wanted to see a psych.  The problem at the time though was that my daughter was adamant that she see someone who is in the same suburb as her, because at the time she didn't have her driver's license and she feared that if she had to get on a lengthy bus ride, she wouldn't go.  So this is why we found this psych, and my understanding from this lady's website was that she was experienced in DBT, so I stupidly thought that where there is knowledge of DBT, there is knowledge of BPD.  Unfortunately, we have recently had the psych tell my husband and I directly that she knows very little about it.  We should have made an appointment to see her prior to our daughter seeing her to give her our impressions and find out how much she knew about BPD, but at the time, our relationship with our daughter was very tenuous (as it pretty much always is) and we just wanted to get her started with some kind of treatment.  I just assumed that if a psychiatrist was able to see so easily that our daughter had BPD that this lady would as well.  I have since learned from a video that I watched with Marsha Linehan that BPD should be diagnosed by someone with experience in it, because many of the nuances can make a diagnosis difficult. 

Also, and what makes the situation even more frustrating is this.  About 6 months into my daughter's treatment with the psych I talk about above, she advised us that she was going to go to the local mental health unit in our community to get DBT treatment.  We were elated!  I thought she was finally going to get what she needed.  She was on a waiting list for DBT groups and she began seeing a therapist one on one who was doing DBT with her and had been trained by the DBT clinic downtown.  But it went downhill.  Our daughter told us one day that she didn't like this therapist, because the therapist told her that she was delusional, and about a week ago, my daughter decided to stop seeing the therapist at the mental health unit and told us that she wanted to double up on the amount of times that she sees her psychologist.  It is impossible for her to do this, financially and otherwise,  but my worry is that she is backing away from the lady that she truly would have received help from who probably was keeping it very real with DBT, and she is gravitating to the lady who allows her to be a victim by believing her claims of hardship and doesn't realize that they are due to BPD and not based in reality.

I hear you when you say that we should just stop funding the psychologist, and believe me, the resentful side of me would do that in a heartbeat because I am very hurt by many of the opinions about me that are coming out of this treatment, however right now my daughter has been suicidal for a months, and we don't want to pull what she sees right now as her lifeline, in case it makes her life more insufferable and sends her further into despair, and to make matters worse (and this is totally and completely my fault), I communicated with my daughter that it is my opinion that she has BPD, so now my chances of getting her into the private DBT clinic are slim.  She is on a waiting list to see someone there, but she is still about 4 to 6 months away from being at the top, so I am hoping beyond hope that by then she will be open to going. 

[devastatedmom]

HaveFaithNow, I forgot to say in my previous Reply that I thank you for making me feel like I was heard and it is encouraging to know that DBT is helping your daughter.  I hope you are able to find support here too.  This is a horrific disorder and those of us who have a loved one who has it are very much alone, because unless you've lived it, it is very difficult for others to understand because the symptomology of it all is at times almost unbelievable.