My own sanity

[3gHauSted]

My SD is 15 and although she had not been diagnosed, I have been screaming for ages that there is clearly a need for psychiatric help for her. My husband/her father does not have BPD but her mother and sister have been diagnosed. My ex was ASPD. Both my husband and I ran away from these types of personalities when we were in those relationships and now his daughter has been dropped in our laps, so to speak, as of this June. I cannot stand the manipulation she has been shown to use on my husband or anyone else around her. I am finding it difficult to even be able to be in the same room as her and my husband is thinking there is something wrong between him and I. There isn’t, there’s just a lot of unknowns at this point and I’m just a stepparent with not a lot of pull in her medical care. I am getting exhausted of hearing, well we don’t want to box her into one category or another. Or, I ran when I was involved in a BPD relationship but when it’s your kid, you can’t. Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not asking for us to just abandon her, but I am beyond tired of hearing all the bad things she does from family or community members as we live in a small town. I am totally worn out and need a break from her and I thought we were going to get one. But now she is staying with us until the courts decide her best interest in December. I am running out of battery with everything and my body is starting to feel the toll. So my question to anyone in the same position: what do you do for self care? I don’t necessarily think me leaving the house all the time puts my relationship with my husband or other children in a safe space. I just feel trapped and forced to deal with something I don’t want to deal with. I have raised 2 of our kids and they are living their best lives. I have a 14yo son and he is also finding it difficult to deal with her. We are all seeing individual therapists but I still don’t know how to handle myself from getting so upset by just her presence that I just leave the room. I’m an ADHD, so something as little as her using up everyone’s things without asking(even after she has been told many times and knows the consequences and that she shouldn’t be doing or using what she is) can get me so worked up I have to leave the room. I just cannot be around her. I have read the BPD books, I cannot meditate for the life of me. I have no desire to parent her at this point and I know she needs help. She will see a psychiatrist the middle of January and it can’t come soon enough. But I know this isn’t a quick fix and I know this just means 3 more years of more stress on the whole family. I know it’s important for me to hold it together for my son but this whole situation has me lost and unable to cope. Please tell me what I can do to help myself from resenting her presence in our lives.

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,

Dealing with BPD is bad enough, but being a stepparent is extra complicated. I was in a similar situation, bearing the consequences of living with a child with BPD while having very little say—about treatment, house rules and even finances, as I wasn’t the biological parent!  Yet it seems the second I got married, the kids all moved in with me, whereas before they were living with mom or in college. And because of undiagnosed BPD and psychological problems, college was unrealistic—both stepdaughters dropped out and moved right in with me. What was even worse was that the girls did nothing but wallow and rage; they weren’t in school or working, and their dysfunction was felt full-time at home. Meanwhile my husband was paying his ex child support. I was about to lose my mind. And my husband was in distress, not knowing what to do, and he started to take it out on me. Between the two girls we lived through five suicide attempts. We were on suicide watch most of the time for several years. The girls weren’t just bullies, throwing tantrums whenever they didn’t get their way, they were emotional terrorists. One had BPD, the other I’m not sure. Both got much worse with marijuana use, and I highly suspected abuse of stimulants as well.

I’m not sure how to advise. I really focused on eating right and exercising outdoors. If I felt like I was going to explode, I’d go for a walk. I’m pretty sure I walked a couple thousand miles over the years. I also bonded with a couple of friends with comparable struggles. It turns out that mental illness isn’t all that uncommon. Fortunately, with good doctors and a lot of patience, things did eventually get better for everyone. The very tricky part was putting a stop to “enablement” and “indulgence” of self-destructive behaviors. My husband was in a FOG for too long in my opinion. We did better when he said, I have a special-needs child and need to get her help.

[3gHauSted]

Thank you. Yes my husband used to view her differently. He’s not naive to her but tolerates way more than I do, which I guess is somewhat enabling because it’s not setting boundaries up front. It’s actually making her push harder and harder to find out what the boundaries are. She has been in my life for 12 years. It is only now he’s actually open to the idea that she may not be a functional member of society. He doesn’t like to deal with things until they become a big issue maybe. But it wasn’t until I got the ok from him was her primary care physician informed of all the things we’ve been dealing with over the years. I live where the cold hurts your face and outdoor exercise is not optimal for me. I try to get regular sleep, eat right, but it’s just not enough. I’m not really looking for a magical cure for what I feel, I just know others have dealt with this and it’s just so draining for everyone, I felt some different ideas couldn’t hurt. I do have a lot of guilt for thinking like this, feeling like this, and bringing all this back into my kids lives.