Adult ,(18) child

[Jkc]

Hi,

I'm spiraling with not knowing what to do.

Briefly as I can:

18 DD BPD, ADHD, possibly ASD, depression, anxiety. Long long high conflict childhood. Lots of tutors, 4 different school types, therapists, doctors, etc. She graduated last spring. Had a job, newish friends but making connections and had gotten her licence finally, taking a community college class. Lots of conflict with us as parents over wanting freedom to make choices but not great with responsibility.

Summer was ok but increased focus on friends who all had hard life stuff. She decided she was moving out. We said you aren't financially ready and we can't support right now. (Husband new business, not stable) But we can next spring if things get better.

She had been getting increasingly withdrawn from us. But at 18 seemed normalish.

But some increased overspending and things came up a head and she packed garbage bags and moved out. We decided to hold a line (which we haven't routinely done) and said no car. So she moved, turned off location and only responded a little to me. They got kicked out, ended in motel and she wasn't doing anything (job school etc partly because of lack of transportation). Eventually her friend contacted me because she made an attempt since she had access to all her meds. (At home I dispense)

She didn't call me. I tried to contact hospital but 18. She finally did and said pick me up I'm coming home but I don't want to.

She did. We navigated.. let her use car to get her stuff. She got a job interview. Let her stay with friends and reconnect... Cause we can't lock her up.

She was in and out. We made some progress at reconnecting. She came to get meds one night last week and witnessed an horrible hit and run accident with her friend in tow. Friend super emotional apparently for the entire night.

Daughter came home last Friday with a cold and stayed for weekend. Sun went with friend and has not been home since. Not sure she went to therapy on Monday.

She definitely has not had meds and while she responded to me on Monday she did not yesterday.

I don't know if I should chase and help or let her fail again. I think she's just rotting in her friend's couch.

But I don't think she will be receptive to much from me.

We were supposed to do a family session this Friday but I don't know if she will come.

Do I let her spiral? So I try to take meds and food? She's not stranded like last time because she does have car. But I'm worried about meds for sure. It's been a bunch of job issues (getting one but not following through since she quit good one over summer when she got hives).

I'm scared and worried but I don't know when I'm enabling or helping.

My therapist is like she's an adult and has to choose to take meds, do therapy etc. He is on staff st the DBT place we go to.


______

Under all of this: my husband is struggling with depression and anxiety being the sole provider for our family and starting a new business that has potential but is not currently stable. It's a LOT on him.

My 15 DD has been struggling with anxiety and depression that was well managed over summer but perfect storm of break-up, her sport being in off season, school starting (and she's highly academic and has a heavy load) plus the house conflict and then her sister leaving and then making suicide attempt and in the middle of that her therapist was removed from his position so she had no support for 5-6 weeks.  She self-injured enough to warrant medical attention 2x. We have since started her on individual DBT therapy and she's attempting a PHP to reset. But she needs a lot of support and literal logistics support since she can't drive.

I...am feeling pulled in 3 directions (we will ignore my own needs that are swirling in the background with household responsibilities, need to help with husband business admin stuff occasionally, my own part time job, much less the 50# I've gained over the last 2 years)

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

[kells76]

Hi Jkc, so glad you found us and reached out.

You really have a lot of intense things going on at the same time. Trying to launch a young adult child -- well, there's no manual for that (my H has two kids, 16 & 18, so I understand some of the challenges). Adding on BPD plus other diagnoses, and the needs of the rest of your family... it's just too much; it would be too much for anyone 

Couple of questions to understand your situation better:

-does your D18 accept her BPD diagnosis -- was she more-or-less voluntarily participating in treatment?

-was she generally compliant with taking meds; did she think they helped her?

-does your whole family (you, H, D15, D18) go to the DBT center?

-does your H experience his depression & anxiety as a problem -- is he open to getting some help for that?

...

We can't do it all, even when we love our family so much. And when we burn out, nobody gets helped.

So much of being effective with a BPD family member is unintuitive, and I think a big unintuitive move is taking care of ourselves first before trying to help others in the family. You're being pulled in three directions and none of that energy is going to you... such a hard position.

I don't think it's an "all or nothing" thing -- taking more care of yourself doesn't have to mean "so I drop everyone else". Maybe more finding some small areas (less anxiety inducing) to practice not doing things for D18, and tolerating the anxiety/discomfort of that one small area.

I wonder if it'd be helpful to kind of "triage" a list of what you and your H are OK with doing for her and what you are OK with letting go of?

Many parents here make a wide variety of choices of what they're OK with doing and what they decline to keep doing, and no two families do it the same. For example, you might triage your list to decide that for safety reasons, you are always OK with your D18 sleeping at your home any time no questions asked, but you might decide you'll no longer ask her what she's doing for school/work or tell her what you think she should do. You might decide you'll always pay for food/groceries and a bus pass, but you won't provide cash or a car. Or, you might decide you will provide a car for commuting to work, or you won't give her free car access but will always drive her to work.

I guess it goes back to your questions here:

She definitely has not had meds and while she responded to me on Monday she did not yesterday.

I don't know if I should chase and help or let her fail again. I think she's just rotting in her friend's couch.

But I don't think she will be receptive to much from me.

We were supposed to do a family session this Friday but I don't know if she will come.

Do I let her spiral? So I try to take meds and food? She's not stranded like last time because she does have car. But I'm worried about meds for sure. It's been a bunch of job issues (getting one but not following through since she quit good one over summer when she got hives).

I'm scared and worried but I don't know when I'm enabling or helping.

It's good that you're asking these questions. I think 18 can be a tricky age because it's not like some switch gets flipped, and at age 17 years 364 days you can tell your D what to do and then at age 18 years 0 days suddenly "she's an adult" and can handle everything fine.

It's definitely more of a drawn out process than an instant shift from child to adult, so maybe you can give yourself some grace to do the transition as best you can, knowing it'll be bumpy at times.

Ultimately, it seems like getting on the same page with your H (maybe with the help of your therapist) could give you as the parents a solid foundation for moving forward with a united front. If you and your H feel like the two of you are a team, and are supported by the therapist, it might make the other pieces ("do we manage her meds?") fall into place.

These are such hard relationships, and then figuring out your role as parent of a "technically" adult child is no walk in the park, either.

Fill us in on more of your story whenever works best for you... we'll be here.

kells76

P.S. We do also have a section of articles on When a teen or adult child has Borderline Personality Disorder, so those could be a good resource for you, too.

[CC43]

Hi there Jkc,

Boy it sounds like you're going through a rough patch, with lots of moving parts and uncertainty.  I think you've come to the right place.  Many parents on these boards struggle with drawing the fine line between supporting their adult child with BPD and enabling them to maintain unhealthy habits.  At the same time, they tend to struggle with the FOG (acting out of fear, obligation and guilt), as well as feelings of mourning and despair.

Though clearly your daughter has issues, I think she has many things going for her.  She graduated.  She has a record of working at a real job.  She has at least one friend.  She learned to drive.  She has enough of a relationship with you to consider your home as her home base, or her home of last resort.  She has a record of attending therapy (at least sometimes), and she's been prescribed medications, which based on your post sound like they might be helping, at least when she takes them as prescribed.  All that sounds to me like she's moderately functional, and maybe even highly functional, no doubt because of your ongoing support.  You don't mention whether your daughter treats you with disrespect, which is a common problem with BPD.  Is she lashing out at you in anger, blaming you for all her problems?  If she isn't doing that, then I'd say that's a major win.

Like the other poster suggested, you're asking all the right sorts of questions about boundaries.  Do you let her stay with you, permanently or temporarily?  Do let her experience the consequences of her decisions, even if she suffers?  Do you let her take your car (I'm assuming it's your car)?  These are exactly the sort of questions that can stump us from day to day.

Maybe counterintuitively, I think you need to set boundaries to protect yourself first.  Why?  Because you're no good to your daughter if you are physically, mentally and/or financially exhausted.  Your home is no good if chaos reigns, and it's not fair to your other child, either.  You can't possibly think straight or make tough decisions if you're panicked, totally stressed out or long-term sleep deprived.  You can't force your daughter to do things, but you can control how you respond, especially in your own household.  So some boundaries to protect yourself and your home environment might be in order.  Some boundaries at my home with a stepdaughter with BPD included rules such as no smoking or illicit drug use allowed on the premises.  No opposite-sex visitors were allowed to stay overnight, and no overnight parties were allowed on school/work days.  As a stepmom, that was about all I could try to enforce.  But I would have liked to enforce additional rules to preserve the sanctity of the home, like no stealing or using another person's belongings without permission, keeping the kitchen and common areas tidy, and informing loved ones of whereabouts if leaving the home, so that nobody worries.  Looking back, I would have liked to make all adults be responsible for paying for their own phones and phone plans.  You see, my BPD stepdaughter retreated from life for an extended period (avoidance was a typical coping mechanism), spending most nights holed up in her room using social media instead of sleeping, and then sleeping the entire day away.  I think that witnessing her friends' curated lives on social media fed her unrealistic expectations about adult life and made her feelings of abandonment/alienation/immaturity much worse than they had to be.  I felt that if she wanted the privilege of her own phone, then she had to get up, get dressed, get out of the house and earn the privilege, and maybe build a healthier routine and boost her confidence in the process.  She could have been a dog walker, babysitter or part-time waitress or librarian, for example, none of which would have required transportation by the way.  She was obsessed about being treated like a child, probably because she didn't embrace typical adult responsibilities!  I would have started with the phone--all adults are responsible for their own phone bills, and the choice of whether to pay or not would be entirely up to them.

In the meantime, for my own sanity, I focused on self-care.  The tougher things got, the more I focused on self-care.  For me, that meant three things:  eating right, regular exercise and regular sleep (lying down and closing my eyes counted!).  There were times that I cancelled anything extra (outside my job) to focus on those three elements.  I wasn't perfect, but I focused on being good enough, so I could maintain my own sanity.

All my best to you.

[Jkc]

Thanks for the responses.

To answer some questions.

Husband knows he deals with anxiety and depression. Has to my knowledge zero interest in therapy as a solution. I've been poked again a tiny bit a month or so ago. He has tried meds in the past and they have all been pretty horrible. He absolutely has gained awareness over the last few years and I see improvements in some aspects...things have absolutely been way way worse in the past. I...try to sit in radical acceptance and I definitely help with regulation and encouragement and honestly carry extra at times.

Currently, 18, 15, and I have therapists at the DBT place. I have done a year of joint group skills therapy with 18. Which was pretty good honestly. 15 is just in onboarding stage for the most part. My dream is gonna be that husband is willing to do group with her but we will see.

18 has generally been really good at advocating for her needs. She has been doing therapy mostly willingly for years. She initiated meds when she was like 12 or 13.... I am not a med person (I can explain more if you want). However, I absolutely have seen meds be effective (and NOT effective) for her throughout the years. She honestly is absolutely a 'give me a pill to fix this ' mentality more than not.

Absolutely is disrespect. Absolutely is a whole mindset of blame and lack of personal responsibility. Currently there's a big scoop of the inadvertent disrespect too--just not keeping in contact like hey I'm safe and settled for the night.

And tons of either disrespect or just...not prioritizing household -doesn't clean or participate and leaves massive messes in her space and community space. The follow through is minimal. She expressed that it isn't good enough ever so she stopped trying.

She did come home on Weds afternoon. She did swing through yesterday afternoon and gave her Dad flowers (,I gave her $) because it was his birthday.

But there's increasing asks for gas and money. And I was trying to be ok with stopgap but it's sliding.

She also has attitude about the car (that we bought/own...it takes premium and doesn't get great gas mileage but she just drives... everywhere to do social stuff. None of her friends are close (15-35+ minutes,) and she blames it on the car and seems to have like cognitive dissonance about actual mileage. And then will start to attack on the car we got. Which triggers husband a bit because he's kinda killed himself to keep this car running. (Keep in mind he's in process starting/running oen business and is a car guy and wants her in something safe--she had an amazing 90s Lincoln that he updated for her but she got hit and it was totaled...saga. So the affordable replacement was something that needs work. He has put in labor but it's a used car and that's how that goes.)

She supposedly has a job interview this morning. And she's supposed to meet me for joint therapy.

Oh and besides the abrupt moving out, suicide attempt, and everything else...she's also not been upfront about debt. We had her on a joint card because we were trying to help her build credit, but when she went off the walls we pulled her name. She owes like $900 on that, plus another 400 we paid down plus probably another couple hundred from the last few weeks. And she made a bunch of attempts to get loans including one with friend as cosigner for a car (car for her because we didn't let her take car last month). Everything has been denied. But that's debt stuff is so scary and it infuriates husband a bit. We were just trying soooooo hard to help her not be in debt and to learn about stuff like this and it's completely disregarded.

[Jkc]

Also, headed into first  joint therapy in an hour. I was going to focus on a 'try to follow through on what you say ' but also now the money stuff is an issue.

There's just so much I don't know what is most effective.


And didn't mention but often if we disagree it results in long drawn out conversations and of if she's really frustrated she just is like I need a Xanax. (Which I hate)  But the effect on the household of these kind of conflicts is awful.

It's been years. And so it's hard because it's kinda easier when she is staying with friends, but not really moving things forward much.