Gap year or public service travel

[Jkc]

Hi,

Long shot, but curious if your adult child with BPD has ever tried an gap year program or an ADHD or ASD travel program or a community service type travel program.

Not sure ours 18 is capable right now, but she is so stuck in a cycle of chasing social connections instead of job/school. I've posted a bit since finding this group and it's just so stressful. She's home a bit more but applies for a job but doesn't go, we are reducing financial support gradually, but it's hard. I get glimmers of hope so try to reinforce good things (like I paid for a haircut yesterday because that seemed like a positive thing to take care of?). She's been trying to go to therapy --also positive.

But mostly just driving around with friends that are going nowhere and in highschool (she graduated last spring). And seriously not taking care of her health (finally went to urgent care and she has bronchitis!!) and increasingly we are worried about the people she's choosing to surround herself with (poverty/low education/few opportunities or desire for growth). It's just a downward spiral.

We tentatively would offer either some inpatient care or I was wondering about some kind of travel program or something... Just to get her thinking about future or get her out of this location and offer different perspectives on the world.

I'm guessing she feels a lot of pressure from is and guessing she's just so caught in avoidance of her own self that she's fixated on other people/friends (even if they aren't really friends she's chasing hard to feel inclusion?). Plus a very large scoop of trying to rebell/seperate herself from us (parents).

It's just so stressful and I know we can't fix and we are trying to figure out the enabling we do. She also made an attempt a month ago and ended up in hospital after going kinda low contact with us in conjunction with moving out with nothing as I've previously posted. So also that's in my head, full of fear that she gets desperate feeling again.

BUT my husband, myself, and my 15 (who struggles too but is very much trying to be proactive) all suffer from 18 actions. It's scary when she's gone but hard when she is home.

Ugh.

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 there,

If your daughter hasn’t been doing much of anything lately, I’d advise not to invest in grand plans or large commitments, lest you set her up to fail. PwBPD tend to be impulsive and quit things. She might initially like the idea of a gap year because it releases her of bigger commitments (college or work), but she might crumble under stress

I’d advise baby steps, like a part-time job or an online class first. Only when she demonstrates a basic level of commitment and functioning do you invest in grander schemes. And I think she should be the one to research and sign up for things. Technically she’s an adult now.

Just my two cents. All the best to you.

[CC43]

Hi again Jkc,

You might think, my daughter can't work.  She might make some tentative efforts in finding something productive to do, but then she doesn't follow through.  Or maybe she lands a job, but she quits on her first or second day.

My diagnosed stepdaughter did that, several times.  It felt like she was just "going along with" her father's demands to seek gainful employment, in order to preserve the status quo of 100% dependence on him and minimal responsibilities (while acting very entitled and angry, by the way).  She'd take ages to find a job, even though there were Help Wanted signs just about everywhere.  She had a car, and she lived right next to public transportation (trains and busses), so transportation wasn't an issue.  Then she'd say, I have an interview in a couple of weeks.  That would buy her two more weeks of "vacation."  Eventually, maybe she'd start a job, but she'd promptly quit, because the job was demanding, or she didn't figure out the commute, or she didn't like one of the workers there.  Whatever her reasoning, logical or not, she'd be jobless.  Then she'd be on "vacation" once again.  You'd think she'd enjoy that, right?  Maybe she did enjoy "vacation" for a time, but when she was basically doing nothing, she likely felt like nothing--useless, hopeless and identity-less.  She self-medicated with marijuana, which sapped any remaining motivation she might have had, and pot made her delusional and paranoid when under stress.  I think she lost her sense of identity at a fundamental level during this period of "non-life".  Meanwhile, her online friends were moving on with their lives--college, careers, romantic relationships--but she felt stuck, left out and alienated.  Then she'd spiral, and attempt suicide and/or land in the hospital.  Does this sound familiar?  Maybe not yet, because your daughter is only 18.  My stepdaughter went through her non-life, full-time vacation phase for about five years.  She was miserable, and she made her family miserable right along with her.  I wish my husband hadn't enabled her non-life for so long!  But he did, in the name of trying to keep her alive.  He loves his daughter, but he just didn't have the heart to enforce boundaries, because she seemed to be suffering so much.  Does that ring true?  Unfortunately, BPD can be all-consuming and utterly painful, and even if you give your daughter everything she wants and demands, she won't be happy, and she'll likely hate you anyway, blaming you for all her problems.  She might end up resenting you precisely because she's so dependent on you.  Worse, she'll lash out at you and/or family, with hatred and cruelty, even though all you've tried to do is help her.  Crazy, right?  That's BPD.  So if you want to help her, you and your family, I think you need to enforce some healthy boundaries.

So I have a couple possible tips for you to consider.  First would be to start with the smartphone.  Your daughter is an adult, and she should be responsible for paying for her own phone.  Take her off your plan.  That will be a good starting point to wean her off your ongoing financial support.  I bet her phone is her most prized possession, and if she wants to keep it, she'll have to work for it.  If she wants an upgrade, she'll have to work for that too.  That might be exactly the motivation she needs.  If she refuses to work, then her spare time won't be spent on the screen, which would probably be better for her mental health anyway.  Maybe then she'll crack a book open, or get out of the house for entertainment.  If she says she can't find a job without a phone, that's baloney.  There are help wanted signs everywhere, even now.  If she needs to apply online, then she can use a computer at a library for free.  Or maybe she could stop by your house to borrow your computer, and that way, you can keep an eye on her.

Second, there are all sorts of part-time jobs that might be a good fit for your daughter.  My stepdaughter started with dog-walking, which was as little as a couple of hours a week.  She said she loved how the dogs were excited to see her.  It was low-stress and required no training.  I imagine that there are abundant part-time jobs out there.  Could your daughter pet-sit?  Baby-sit?  Rake leaves?  Deliver groceries?  Shelve books at the library?  Tutor kids or adults learning English?  Waitress?  Answer phones?  Be a lifeguard at a gym pool?  My point is, doing something, practically anything, to earn a little money could help build her self-esteem as well as her pocketbook, while paying for her smartphone like an adult should.  She'd have to get dressed and out of the house at least once a week.  She'd have some semblance of a weekly "routine," and she'd have plenty of time to continue her therapy.  Once she masters that schedule, I think it gets easier to build from there, adding online classes, more work hours or a job with more responsibility, pay and/or runway.  That's what my stepdaughter has been doing of late.  But this was only after losing tuition and rent for college semesters that she dropped.  I felt her dad was being too optimistic about her ability to function, when her baseline was doing nothing for an extended period.  I think taking "baby steps"--allowing for part-time responsibilities and part-time therapy--worked much better.

You see, handling stress is tough for pwBPD, especially as they bump up against the reality of adulthood with inadequate emotional skills.  So I think it's prudent to give your daughter a lot of practice in handling adult stress, before you make a big investment in her that she's really not ready for yet.  In summary, I'd start with the phone as a motivation to get a part-time job (maybe as little as 5-10 hours per week), and try to build from there.

All my best to you.