Daughter with bpd traits, we are struggling

[Parents! Get help here!]

We have four children. She is our youngest,age 17. She was adopted at birth, biological she is my niece. Her bio mother, my sister has bpd, bi polar and developmental delays.

She was difficult as a young child. Tantrums that lasted hours, turned the house upside down, broke things, threw things, struggled in school. She has always pushed boundaries and broke rules, disrespectful to her parent and teachers.

As her mother I want to help her. She doesn’t want help. Everything I say is twisted negativly. She refuses counseling. Calls me a narcissis. Her words are cutting. I get reactive.

She wants out of our home. I am terrified of what will happen to her if she leaves. .

[MaternallTired]

We have four children. She is our youngest,age 17. She was adopted at birth, biological she is my niece. Her bio mother, my sister has bpd, bi polar and developmental delays.

She was difficult as a young child. Tantrums that lasted hours, turned the house upside down, broke things, threw things, struggled in school. She has always pushed boundaries and broke rules, disrespectful to her parent and teachers.

As her mother I want to help her. She doesn’t want help. Everything I say is twisted negativly. She refuses counseling. Calls me a narcissis. Her words are cutting. I get reactive.

She wants out of our home. I am terrified of what will happen to her if she leaves. .

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

[Sancho]

Hi MaternallTired
I have to say that you are amazing! I can only imagine how things would have been if you had not been there and opened your home and heart. Your whole family have had to adjust so much around DD’s needs for 17 years now.

Are your other children living at home and how are they coping?  Is your sister still in her/your life and if so how does that pan out? The other question I have is whether DD has specific diagnoses? Given her biol mum has quite a few conditions, DD could have complex needs for sure.

The reason I ask is that I wondered if there were any services available for DD – or any medications etc that have been useful. It sounds as though the dysfunction has been there all along so I am wondering if anything has been able to be implemented along the way?

I can understand fully your anxiety around what will happen if DD moves from your home. Like so many of us here, we are cornered by BPD – on the one hand we face a daily challenge to deal with extraordinary emotional and other issues and on the other hand we know too well that our loved child is not capable of making rational choices (and we can see the consequences of these).

I wish I had some helpful things to say. I can only say that you are not alone in what you are going through. It is something that makes a difference to me – knowing others are out there ‘cornered’ in the same way as I am at the moment.

I have found it really helpful to let my DD's incredibly abusive words go 'past' me. It took a while but I hardly ever react now. There is nothing 'real' about what my DD says about me - it is a torrent of pain from a distorted mind that lands on a safe target - ie me!

I used to be so affected by the words - in fact I could hardly believe how fluent etc DD was when in this state because she was normally not very articulate.

The only thing we can control often is how we react. When we can put a barrier around ourselves against the verbal abuse, it is so much better I have found.