Intro

[Taka]

Hello. My daughter has been diagnosed with BPD in the past and certainly fits the description. She also suffers with significant anxiety/OCD,ADD, and hoarding issues. She is 28 years old and still struggling with being able to consistently support herself. She is very intelligent and creative but unfortunately her mental health issues have hindered her talents. Planned on going to college but this was derailed at age 18 by suicide attempt. She has taken a few community college classes since then and made As, but stressed herself out to verbalizing suicidal ideation each time. Went to work as a stage hand instead, eventually moving out to a different state to become a lighting tech. This all fell through with the pandemic and she returned to our state and moved in to the house I had been living in. I had been living with my ex-spouse (her father),  in his house a mile away. Five years later, I am still living there, we have remarried and are actually very happy. Our daughter continues to live in the other house. She paid bills for maybe a year out of that time, when she worked as lighting tech for a nightclub. She has worked random gigs other than that. She has never done taxes and refuses to do so, screaming at me that I “stole her identity”, some 10 years ago. How I did this, I still do not know. She is very physically fit, works out a lot and enjoys pole dancing. She is very graceful and good at it but when she started doing it professionally I enthusiastically encouraged her newfound interest in becoming a professional wrestler. We told her we would support over the year the wrestling course she started would take. Not your typical career aspiration, but we were desperate to keep her out of the “gentlemen’s clubs”.  The current precipitating issue is her hoarding. The 1800sq ft house she is living in is completely trashed. She has complained of plumbing issues, oven not working, etc, yet does not want anyone in house. I went over there to assess situation when she was not there and found that would not even be able to get a plumber in there-mess so bad it is inaccessible. There are gnats flying everywhere. I am retired, dealing with cancer and living on fixed income. I have cleaned up her various living spaces numerous times in the past. Always with the hope that THIS time, once I gave her a clean slate, she would do things differently. But it always ends up the same. Not only do I not have the energy anymore, I realize it would be pointless. Would have sold the house but she needs somewhere to live and we don’t want to live with her 24/7-she comes over every evening and now has started showering and cooking over here- and we know it is because things have once again reached critical mass where she is living. Of note is that her 35 year old brother has been finally diagnosed with high functioning autism spectrum disorder, which explains what we went through in earlier years. He is currently living semi -independently in apartment across town with a roommate. We supported him for a year after he got fired from office job, until he got his current job working with autistic children. Though we had huge struggles, he is actually doing better than his sister-completed bachelors degree in English in 9 years, has a few friends.Okay- going to stop now, because of course this is a long story……..

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

[CC43]

Hi Taka,

Wow, it sounds like you have a lot on your plate, with two adult children who have had various struggles.  Indeed it sounds like your daughter's living situation is more unstable right now.  Having said that, is there a chance that she's basically OK, and happy with her own choices?

Let's face it--getting a college degree takes a lot of sustained, concerted effort and planning, which is a struggle for pwBPD given their dysregulated emotions and impulsivity.  A college education might not be worth the time, expense and frustration for many people.  In fact, I suspect that it's not worth it for a majority of students, because they end up working in fields that have little to do with their degrees.  Granted, getting an education isn't necessarily only about job preparation, but education isn't restricted to classrooms, either.  Does it seem that your daughter truly wants to pursue more education?  Or maybe is she sticking with it because of pressure from you?  Is there a chance she's trying to convince you that she's "normal" by taking college classes, when she really isn't?  Or might she be studying mainly to defer independence and/or employment?  Would it be terrible if she focused on other things, like maybe figuring out a job situation that works for her?

I can't help but wonder if your daughter complains about her living situation, or does she appear to be OK with living in a mess?  When you cleaned up her space in the past, did she resent you for taking over and trying to control her?  Did you throw things away that she wanted to keep?  It may be that she's choosing to live the way she wants.  Having said that, living in chaos might be a reflection of her mental state, which is chaotic, too.  Fortunately, she can go to your place when she needs a working bathroom or kitchen.  Do you mind that?  Is it a burden for you when she comes to your place and uses your things?  Or might it be a way to keep tabs on her?  It may be that this situation is actually working for both you and your daughter right now.

It sounds like your main concern right now is getting your daughter on a path to being able to support herself, because you won't always be around to support her.  Without diminishing her challenges or the level of support you've provided to get her this far, I think she has some positive things going for her.  It sounds like she has had some success in maintaining employment.  Surely Covid was a tough blow to her, but it sounds like she's found some alternatives for working.  I understand the reservations about pole dancing, and maybe even wrestling; aside from issues of safety, these jobs are unlikely to offer stability or benefits, correct?  At any rate, it sounds like your daughter is physically strong and coordinated, as well as smart, and that she might gravitate to physical labor.  In my opinion, there's certainly nothing wrong with manual labor, and it may be an excellent fit for your daughter!  There are countless potential jobs with a physical component, from dog walker/groomer to mechanic to warehouse worker to mail carrier to roofer to plumber.  It's interesting that she worked as a lighting technician; she might try being a stagehand too (I have a couple of friends who belong to the stagehands union).

I have a stepdaughter with BPD, and she's about your daughter's age.  She's taking some college courses, but the time is quickly coming when she needs to find stable employment and get on a path towards supporting herself.  One of the main messages that her dad has been sending her over the last couple of years is that she'll need to work full-time to get benefits, the principal one being employer-subsidized health insurance.  Because of her BPD, she is an active consumer of healthcare, and so she'll really need an employer-sponsored plan to retain her current level of coverage.  This is exactly the sort of information that my stepdaughter doesn't want to hear--because it's complicated, and it's demanding of her.  Like your daughter, she hates the idea of thinking about taxes, too.  My stepdaughter's typical coping mechanism for unpleasant realities has been AVOIDANCE.  She either ignores the issue, or expects her dad to take care of it.  Historically, her expectation was for her dad to take care of all those adult responsibilities like health insurance, auto insurance, rent, utilities and taxes.  But as she's well past childhood now, she can't continue to defer adult realities much longer.  So our approach has been to talk about these realities when she's not emotionally dysregulated, and to create a timeline for ceding responsibility to her.  I can't say if she'll be successful in gaining independence, but I can say that she's more knowledgeable than she was before.  (Before, I don't believe she knew that health and auto insurance existed. . . ).

Look, I know all about the suicide threats and attempts.  My stepdaughter had what I called a "nuclear" phase, which was when she threatened suicide any time she was overwhelmed or didn't get what she wanted.  Those episodes landed her in the hospital, which turned out to be a good thing, because she got some care that she desperately needed.  She also got some ultimatums--basically, if she attempted suicide again, she'd be committed involuntarily.  Fortunately, that ended her nuclear phase, and she's taken suicide threats off the table.  With therapy and medications, I think she's slowly learning how to handle stress and disappointments better.  She still has a tendency to catastrophize, ruminate and blame, but the frequency, severity and duration of episodes have diminished.