Hello and a warm
Wow... three years of intense treatment for you son, and he's only 17 -- my heart goes out to you all. You must have been dealing with some intense behaviors since he was young.
So he has an out-of-home placement and is now in an acute care facility.
When he was just in the OOH placement, before the facility, what kind of schedule or structure did you have for interacting with him (if any)? I'm curious if you had a set day of the week to spend a set amount of time with him, or if there was some other kind of setup?
Maybe that could give you some ideas for how to support him while balancing that with caring for your other children. That is -- if the plan had been "parent spends time with S17 for 2 hours every Friday", then maybe you can keep that going -- set aside two hours every Friday (or two hours total per week) for supporting him, and mentally release the rest to his care team. I might be off base -- just some ideas.
How many other kids do you have? What are their ages? And do they all still live at home?
That transition point from "legal child" to "legal adult" does sound incredibly intense when BPD is involved.
Has your S17 had any areas of success in his life -- a subject in school, a hobby, caring for a pet, an area of knowledge about an interest (even if it's "just" knowing a lot about a TV show), cooking, volunteering (even if briefly), sports, artistic endeavors...? Getting a feel for how pervasive/impactful his diagnoses are.
Glad you are also getting IOP support right now. Other members here have also done inpatient and outpatient treatment to take care of themselves, so you're not alone.
This is really a group that gets it about the beyond-intense challenges of having a pwBPD in the family system, and how it's not "one size fits all" for how to cope, especially when it's your own child.
Fill us in some more, whenever you feel up for it;
kells76
