Adult Child with BPD

[Parents! Get help here!]

Our daughter is 22 years old and we adopted her from Russia when she was 10 months old.  She struggled in school and had an IEP her whole school career.  We noticed "issues" even at 1st grade.  By the time she reached middle school, I quit my job and took on the task of homework, etc.  This worked well for us since I seemed to have a bit more patience with her than my wife.  She is now 4 years out of high school and about a year ago was diagnosed with BPD.  As I have read in a couple of the more basic/popular books, I know now that she had this way back in grade school but just never realized it.  She started counseling back in Jan 2024 and went for about 6 sessions.  I didn't notice much change and she wasn't getting much out of it so she stopped.  Towards the end of the summer after reading more about BPD, I realized that stopping the counseling was a mistake.  She is starting up again in 2 weeks, and both of us are looking forward to it.  I know it is a good thing that she "wants" to go to counseling, but I think it is going to be hard and I hope she has the ability to learn what she needs to help her and can apply it.  I'm also interested in potentially finding other parents that have young adult children with this and any insight that I to help the parents dealing with this.  My wife and I find it very exhausting and can not 100% understand the phrase "Walking on Eggshells."

[Vikings]

Our daughter is 22 years old and we adopted her from Russia when she was 10 months old.  She struggled in school and had an IEP her whole school career.  We noticed "issues" even at 1st grade.  By the time she reached middle school, I quit my job and took on the task of homework, etc.  This worked well for us since I seemed to have a bit more patience with her than my wife.  She is now 4 years out of high school and about a year ago was diagnosed with BPD.  As I have read in a couple of the more basic/popular books, I know now that she had this way back in grade school but just never realized it.  She started counseling back in Jan 2024 and went for about 6 sessions.  I didn't notice much change and she wasn't getting much out of it so she stopped.  Towards the end of the summer after reading more about BPD, I realized that stopping the counseling was a mistake.  She is starting up again in 2 weeks, and both of us are looking forward to it.  I know it is a good thing that she "wants" to go to counseling, but I think it is going to be hard and I hope she has the ability to learn what she needs to help her and can apply it.  I'm also interested in potentially finding other parents that have young adult children with this and any insight that I to help the parents dealing with this.  My wife and I find it very exhausting and can not 100% understand the phrase "Walking on Eggshells."

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

[Swimmy55]

Welcome and thanks for writing here.
Your story is very familiar.  First, the " walking on eggshells"  phrase means how the family mal adaptively deals with a family member with bpd.  In order to keep the BPD person " stable" or " happy", the family changes their behavior to try to accommodate the BPD member by trying not to cause him/ her to get upset.   Thus being very careful ( like walking on eggshells and trying not to break them) ,which is an impossible way to live .   

Very good indeed she wants help. Now for you and your wife:  You did a great first step by joining this forum.  We understand here.  Please read through this website, take a look at the suggested readings in the " library" here- one of the books that is very helpful to many of us is actually called," Stop Walking on Eggshells".  It states to put the focus on yourself first.   Other resources some folks have found helpful is finding their own therapist as well ( depending on your health insurance, of course) .  Self care is the key here - you have to rescue yourself before you can begin to support another , including your adult child.  I say this for me as well as for you.  I  have an adult child as well. Please write in as you have need.  We are here for you.

[Vikings]

Our daughter has her first counseling session tomorrow morning.  I have "journaled" since Christmas with what has taken place each day to help give the counselor information to truly understand the situation. I'm planning to do my best to just hand over the material I have generated and let our daughter, and the counselor discuss.  I have thought about having my own counselor and after reading your note above again, I really need to do that.
What is coming out now is she is just adamant that she has something medically wrong with her.  She has gone to the ER at least 3 separate times since Christmas and just called me over lunch today stating that she needs to get back in to see her primary to discuss these issues she is having.  She is a chronic liar, so I don't think the symptoms are real.  But if I push to far, she goes into full melt down.  So, I calm her down and tell her we can discuss it further tonight.  That has seemed to calm her down and let her get back to her job.
That is the latest for now.