Stepson I haven’t seen in years reaches out for help

[Warriorprincess]

Hi everyone  ,
Four years ago I posted on this Board about how difficult it was trying to co-parent two stepsons with their mother, my exWwBPD. Today I am broken up from another partner wBPD that I didn’t recognize because it looked different from my exW. My therapist asked me, “Aren’t you tired of being the villain?” I was devastated that I ended up in another relationship with someone with uBPD, although new partner didn’t rage at me or call me names. What I heard most was, “Why are you talking to me like that?” (When I didn’t raise my voice AT ALL; he detected the slightest change in tone and took it as criticism) and “Can we talk?” which left me with a pit in my stomach because it was always about something I did wrong. He’s also a perpetual victim and needs endless emotional validation (which ironically reminds me a lot of how I used to be). When I broke up with him, I told him I don’t want to have a relationship with anyone for at least 4 years. I felt I had to say that because he keeps vacillating between telling me how devastated he is at our breakup and trying to get me back. I’m attempting friendship because he doesn’t have many friends and is in a dark place right now with a lot of physical and psychological challenges. I absolutely have the BPD FOG, and [DBT] I’m trying hard to start speaking my truth more. I completed months of trauma treatment and have grown a lot since I was with my exWwBPD. And I still have lots of healing to do. I also referred SOwBPD to the same trauma program and he’s learning a lot!

So after all this time, SS22 who is diagnosed on the autism spectrum and schizophrenia spectrum (and with whom I haven’t had much contact since my divorce from his mom) called me from the hospital needing help. He blew up his life by going off his meds after moving downstate with his (now ex) fiancé and won’t have anywhere to go when he’s discharged. He hasn’t had a job in months and has been smoking weed heavily everyday. He’s called me 10 times in 3 days asking if I’ll pick him up if he has nowhere to go. His fiancé doesn’t want him back (and it’s her apartment since she’s the one working) and neither his parents nor his grandparents will take him in. I want to help him but I also know he can’t live with me for long. I have a tiny apartment and too much on my plate already. I asked the hospital social worker what the long-term housing options are for him, and she said mental health nursing homes. He doesn’t have Medicaid but he should be able to get it since he has no income. How much should I help him? I did let his mom know he contacted me but I didn’t give her any details. She said the family is fed up with him. He’s an adult so I know I don’t have to ask anyone’s permission to help him; I also don’t want to be taken advantage of or get sucked into an impossible situation. I also feel like this is an opportunity to help him get on his feet and find more permanent solutions to his continual mental health crises. Does anyone have any advice? I love both my stepsons so much.
Thank you,
Warriorprincess

[Notwendy]

I was devastated that I ended up in another relationship with someone with uBPD

He’s also a perpetual victim and needs endless emotional validation (which ironically reminds me a lot of how I used to be).

When I broke up with him, I told him I don’t want to have a relationship with anyone for at least 4 years.

I’m attempting friendship because he doesn’t have many friends and is in a dark place right now with a lot of physical and psychological challenges. I absolutely have the BPD FOG.

And I still have lots of healing to do.

I also referred SOwBPD to the same trauma program and he’s learning a lot!

So after all this time, SS22 who is diagnosed on the autism spectrum and schizophrenia spectrum.

He blew up his life by going off his meds after moving downstate with his (now ex) fiancé and won’t have anywhere to go when he’s discharged.

I want to help him but I also know he can’t live with me for long. I have a tiny apartment and too much on my plate already. I asked the hospital social worker what the long-term housing options are for him, and she said mental health nursing homes.

How much should I help him?

He’s an adult so I know I don’t have to ask anyone’s permission to help him; I also don’t want to be taken advantage of or get sucked into an impossible situation. I also feel like this is an opportunity to help him get on his feet and find more permanent solutions to his continual mental health crises. Does anyone have any advice? I love both my stepsons so much.
Thank you,
Warriorprincess

I highlighted some of these statements. The underlined ones are statements you made for yourself. You feel you need some healing to do and don't want to be in a relationship where you have been a caretaker emotionally to someone.

That means all relationships. Now, out of the blue, an adult SS with nowhere to do is calling you. An adult with serious mental health issues who needs mental health care that he's so far, not been compliant with on an outpatient basis.

It's good you have been working with a therapist on your own trauma. Sometimes we repeat trauma with other people due to an unconscious drive to replay the situation and with the hope of "fixing" the other person this time. But we can not "fix" another person.

You've had two relationships with partners who have BPD, who think of themselves as victims. While you are no longer in a romantic relationship, there's still some fixing involved. Trying friendship as he doesn't have friends, getting your ex into trauma therapy.

Now, you are wondering if you should bring your seriously mentally ill SS into your home to give him a chance to get his life in order.

He has schitzophrenia. This is a lifelong serious mental illness. He has the opportunity to be in a mental health home where there are professionals, nurses to monitor his medication. Of course he doesn't want to go, but it sounds like it may be in his best interest to be there. So he's calling everyone he knows to get what he wants and you are one of them.

And in your best interest too. He's a grown man, with uncontrollable behavior. You are a female living alone. I assume he's much larger than you are. I won't asume he's deliberately dangerous but if he's hallucinating and out of control- he needs the staff at the nursing home to keep him and others safe.

Read about the bridge story.
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=65164.0;all

You've stated no relationships for 4 years. You want to emotionally heal. Consider this could mean all "fixing" relationships so you can focus on what you need to be doing.

[Pook075]

I completely agree with Wendy. 

My first thought was, "Let him crash on the couch for a few days."  But I have a savior complex, believing that I can save anyone...even when it will lead to my own downfall.  I've been down that road many times and let too many people in that I shouldn't have.  Every single time, chaos ensued, and I paid the price physically and mentally.

It's a good thing to want to help him.  But you must come first in this journey and you still have some healing to do.  His needs cannot come before yours.

There are other ways to offer support.  You can be his mentor, his advocate.  These things might be more helpful long-term than just a guy with a couch.  It's completely your call though on how to proceed.

[ForeverDad]

In my early years I was  a religious volunteer in NYC.  For most of that time I was handling matters for a couple hotels and assorted smaller buildings.  I became very familiar with the landlord-tenant environment there, a city where the occupants had more sway than the landlords.  I remember one time in L/T court listening to a small owner trying to evict some unknown woman found occupying the apartment after the tenants left.  She had no legal right there but the judge refused to order her removal, at least at that appearance.  The judge asked the owner to consider paying the young woman "moving expenses" for her to move out.  The landlady exclaimed, "Why should I pay her? I don't even know this woman nor have a legal connection to her!"

While we don't know the housing environment in your area, what if you allowed him to stay and he refused to leave?  That you asked us our thoughts makes evident you have concerns and are uncomfortable with the situation.  I would greatly encourage you not to risk letting him make his problems your problems.  And that brings up another story...

Reminds me of when years ago I manned lobby reception desks in a couple NYC hotels.  Passersby would walk in and ask to use a restroom.  Sometimes even a mother with kids jumping up and down.  "Sorry, the restrooms are in the rooms." I'd be asked, putting me on the spot, where do you go?  "I go through a locked door in the basement for staff facilities.  Why don't you go across the street and use a nearby restaurant?"  But they would say the restaurants said their restrooms are only for their customers and they'd have to buy something.

I would turn to my less experienced coworkers and enlighten them, "While we want to help people, there are limits and there are times when we can't let other people transform their problems into our problems."

[Notwendy]

I think we have to recognize our own limits. I knew someone who sadly, in middle age, developed schitzophrenia. Sometimes she would stop taking her medicine and call me. Her conversations were so distorted, it was alarming. There was no way to reason with her. If love and care could have helped- it would have. She was a much loved person with friends, family, but what she needed was a mental health professional.

I have another friend who has a grown son with schitzophrenia. They converted their basement into an apartment. In one of his episodes, he trashed it, broke walls, and tiles. He's also been found wandering around where he could be a possible danger to himself. He's not a bad person. He also has good parents. It's that he needs specialized mental health.

You may feel this is an opportunity for you to get him get on his feet and get more stable with his mental health but in actuality- a mental health facility, with professional staff, counseling, has the capacity and resources to do that.  If they aren't able to achieve that - and if he does need long term residential care - then that is the best situation for him.

[EyesUp]

I too would want to help.

I've been in situations where someone wanted to stay with me. However, I've got three teen/pre-teen girls and I take pains to avoid disrupting their home situation.

This has helped me to recognize two things:

1) there are different ways to help, e.g., you can explore other options.
2) I've started to learn that I can look out for my own interests at least as much as I look out for others.

[CC43]

I agree with the general consensus that you don’t let him in your home. However you might help him in other ways, if you choose to do so. You could give him a ride or accompany him to another facility. You could visit/check in regularly. You could give him care packages. You could call or write him regularly, encouraging him to follow doctors’ recommendations. You could help him navigate resources like insurance, public assistance or recommended programs or housing. I’d advise not to provide cash assistance because it sounds like he’d use that for drugs, and it wouldn’t get him back on his feet. Most of all, you could model for him what a healthy, responsible adult’s life looks like.  That includes doing some things you don’t necessarily want to do, but you do them because you are responsible as you work towards your long-term goals. It may be that your stepson needs to live in a transitional facility to get the support he requires. It could be temporary, until he normalizes his meds and finds stable employment. The timeline is up to your stepson, not you. But I get the sense that your stepson doesn’t really want that path; it sounds to me like he prefers the status quo, which is living in someone else’s apartment, not working, not taking meds and smoking pot all day. I’d say, please don’t set yourself up for that scenario. You’d be enabling him and probably be preventing him from getting back on his feet.

Good luck.

[Warriorprincess]

Dear All,
I’m so happy I posted on this Board. Your thoughtful responses have been so validating and helped me think about the extreme I need to take as I move forward. Notwendy, you are absolutely correct that SS is much bigger than me and I’ll be worried about my safety if he’s in my condo since he craves the status quo rollercoaster of going on and off his meds. I read “The Bridge” and it was so powerful for me!! Thankfully, it looks like SS will be accepted into a residential mental health program which will provide a few more weeks/months to look into options for him. The nursing home only takes Medicaid and other residential programs only accept SSDI, so I’d like to focus on helping him get those two things.

Also, I want to thank Pook075 for the tenderness and reassurance I needed when I was feeling very low, on a thread about “Why do I keep repeating these patterns?”
“Understand that loving someone with mental illness is not a weakness...it's a gift.  It means you're loving and compassionate.  It means you easily forgive and show empathy, even when you're not being treated fairly.  In my book, it means that you're probably a pretty good person and we might be great friends if we met in real life. In my opinion, you need to stop searching for "what's wrong with me?"  There's nothing wrong with being loving and compassionate towards complicated people.  If we're honest, we are just as complicated since we make mistakes as well.  Showing grace is never a mistake though, it's a blessing to give freely to others.” (Pook075)

I know it’s both/and…I want to be giving and caring, and I want to stop being a doormat and thinking I can fix people. Again, I appreciate the support I find here. I know you all understand and are trying to help me. I’m going to spend the weekend camping with friends who make me feel good and strong and independent.
Wp