I thought I'd share about my son's life - maybe it'll help someone

[JsMom]

My 45 yr old swbpd was a very sensitive child and clingy to me even as an infant. For the most part he wanted to stay by my side playing or reading. His brother 4yrs younger was the opposite and would easily entertain himself. Swbpd never bonded with his Dad who has mental health issues. His Dad was jealous of him and of him taking my time. We divorced when my sons were in their teens. What I did not find this out until swbpd was 20 was that he was repeatedly molested by friends who I traded babysitting with. Both husband and wife were involved and threatened our lives if he ever told. Evil people. 
My son didn't display any issues I noticed until about 12rs old. He would at times lay on his bed and cry that he was going to die. I tried to talk with him and comfort him at those moments. He was a sweet kid.  At 15 he began to bully his younger brother, push back with his Dad.  He ran away, he started hanging out with a rough group of guys. He shared many years  later he was involved in beating another kid with this group. The bullying of his brother got so bad - I tried family counseling, SAY counseling... I attend parenting meetings for kid acting out... We had him move in with his grandparents to protect our younger son. He loved his grandfather and bonded with him but they let him run as he pleased.. He dropped out of high school, worked with the  Conservation Corp. Younger son and I visited him and he seemed to be doing well. I got a call at midnight- he left the Corp (got kicked out?) and was in a bus station hours away and was in a panic that he wasn't safe and wanted me to drive and get him. I did not, he was 18. I told him to wait until the morning to take a bus home. At 19 he married a woman 14yrs his senior. She had a 17yr old and a 6yr old.  Lots of drama and violence. Turns out she was on probation.  She took swbpd and her young daughter to the mall and taught them how to steal small items. She pushed him to join the Navy. He did but was quickly sent to what he called Nuts and Bolts and discharged. He divorced 1st wife after she was sent to prison. He married a high school sweetheart at 21. Lots of drama, some good times and two beautiful children who lived through it. I paid for couples, individual and family therapy. I was in the middle of their struggles. My granddaughter asked to live with us as a little girl.
My daughter inlaw carried the brunt of the bpd fallout for many years. Inspite of the trauma and triangulation  - she and I love each other dearly. It must be like the bond soldiers in war have with each other. She eventually divorced him. We had him stay with us. He was suicidal and I drove him to the hospital ranting where he was placed in a facility for 2 weeks. He came back and lived with us for 2yrs until we nudged him out. He shares rent with his younger brother and uncle in his ex wife's house she moved out of. .They've shared custody and he has worked off and on until December where his ex helped him find a full-time job after he talked suicide again because of feeling like a failure in supporting himself and kids. He was an independent electrical contractor.  He tried real estate for a couple years and before that. It isn't that he is not intelligent it is that he is impaired and suffers from bpd. I don't use the word suffer lightly. He can ooze pain.
I wish I understood what was going on for him when he was younger maybe he'd be in a better place now. I do know I did try to get help for him, myself and our family as I knew how.
I don't if reading this might help someone who is scared for their child but in denial as how serious what they was dealing with is.
With proper understanding maybe another kid can get help that works much sooner.

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

[Notwendy]

I hope your post about your son helps others but also helps you, because I hope you can arrive at some self forgiveness. Some of the issues you mentioned were beyond your control. You didn't cause them.

While there is a genetic component to mental illness, it's not always a straightforward one, like hair color, or blood type. It could be many genes, a genetic susceptibility or something we don't understand yet. That your son's father has mental ilness does indicate a genetic possibility- but you have no control over what genes your son has.

You made the best choice of child care you knew. It was impossible to predict that your child faced that trauma. It's not good for a child to sequester them from any other people. Kids will go to school, to friends' houses. Most people are decent people. We just can't predict all the time.

As adults, while it is helpful to explore family of origin issues for understanding, adults have to work on their own issues and any childhood trauma in therapy themselves. To do nothing to change and just blame parents isn't helpful. At 45, your son's best chance at his own emotional health is to make use of the therapy resources he has. Compromising yourself after retirement is detrimental to you and won't help your son.

Pw BPD may tend to see themselves through a victim perspective and blame others, so forgiveness may not come from your son, if he's not able to give that. I hope you can give this to yourself and be OK with taking care of yourself now and conserving your financial resources.

[Pook075]

With my 27 year old BPD daughter, we don't know what the catalyst was.  My ex wife (likely BPD but diagnosed major depressive) showed the same traits and so did many of my ex's closest relatives (brothers, her mom, her grandpa).  Little is known how much genetics come into play, but I clearly saw a pattern on my in-laws side.

Anyway, back to my kid.  She started acting out around 5 or 6, very big mood swings, refused to apologize, bullied her sister fiercely, etc.  If you'd punish her, then she would do everything she could to punish everyone else too.  Breaking things in the house, hurting our pets, running away, spreading lies, etc.

We kept having therapists at school say she was manipulative, but clearly super smart and missing her potential.  She scored in the top .1% in the nation for math in 6th grade, yet she was had a D in 6th grade math.  Make that make sense.  Her score was the best in the history of the state yet she was close to repeating 6th grade.  Everyone was sort of baffled.

Around 12, she was getting more violent and more out of control.  During one of her manic episodes, I screamed at her and she suddenly got quiet and went to her room.  And we thought, "OMG, something got through to her."  So that became the norm, when she'd be out of control, I'd yell and she'd back down.  But before you knew it, I was always yelling and she started yelling back...not just at me.  She'd scream at her mom, threaten her friends and teachers, and it truly became a nightmate.

By the way, I was comletely wrong for yelling all the time.  When nothing else worked and that did, I went with it.  But I now believe that my aggression drove her aggression.  A lot of that is 100% my fault because she was learning all the wrong lessons in a house that was complete chaos.

By 19, we kicked her out.  She returned home briefly at 21 and 22, but quickly fell into old patterns.  She couldn't hold a job, couldn't keep friends for very long, and these patterns just kept repeating.  But at 23, she had basically a mental breakdown and took therapy seriously for the first time.  A lot changed in the next year and she's one of the "success stories."

She's not cured, not always mentally stable, but she's worked about 75% of it all out and is now a productive citizen.  She has a pretty good career and lots of potential, but she still crosses boundaries far too often and gets super close to the wrong types of people.  If she could figure that part out, I think she'd be closer to 90-95% "cured".  But the friends continually bring her down.

I think inner circles play such a crucial role in BPD people's lives; at an early age and throughout their lives.  My kid and i get each other now and our relationship is pretty good, but at the same time I don't try to influence her life in any way.  If she asks for advice, I give it.  Otherwise I keep silent and stick to the small talk that works for us.  It's not a perfect relationship by any means but I think it's the best it can possibly be.

[JsMom]

Thanks again to both of you for your encouragement and support. I've been off the Forum for a bit. You're right NotWendy,  writing my son's story helps me in seeing the lifelong struggle and pattern. A good day, week, month would tempt me to believe all is well. He's finally getting things figured out. Like your daughter Pook075, my son is very intelligent and can be quite charming.
Yes, I will protect my nest egg. It isn't easy for me. Thankfully my husband is supportive,  One of my big problems is I buy hook line and sinker the manipulation. His approach is very loving, and slowly builds over texts or calls checking in. First  a simple request- Are you in town? I'm trying to figure out how to get lunch for my son (my grandson). I live 20 min away. He said, I won't get paid for a few days and have no money.  I said no I won't be - I had company over.  He figured it out.
A couple days later he called with a bigger request about how he'd pay me back with 10% additional to start paying off all he's borrowed, if I would let him charge materials for jobs on my Credit Card. He said he made an Excel spreadsheet and worked up the nerve to ask me. And feels really bad asking.
I truly thought he wouldn't ask for quite awhile after our talk. 
So for me it feels like I need to harden my heart to his unending neediness. I love him but I also need to create some emotional distance. Any thoughts.?   My journey is seeing my son more clearly and learning to be ok with detaching from him on many levels.

[Pook075]

Thanks again to both of you for your encouragement and support. I've been off the Forum for a bit. You're right NotWendy,  writing my son's story helps me in seeing the lifelong struggle and pattern. A good day, week, month would tempt me to believe all is well. He's finally getting things figured out. Like your daughter Pook075, my son is very intelligent and can be quite charming.
Yes, I will protect my nest egg. It isn't easy for me. Thankfully my husband is supportive,  One of my big problems is I buy hook line and sinker the manipulation. His approach is very loving, and slowly builds over texts or calls checking in. First  a simple request- Are you in town? I'm trying to figure out how to get lunch for my son (my grandson). I live 20 min away. He said, I won't get paid for a few days and have no money.  I said no I won't be - I had company over.  He figured it out.
A couple days later he called with a bigger request about how he'd pay me back with 10% additional to start paying off all he's borrowed, if I would let him charge materials for jobs on my Credit Card. He said he made an Excel spreadsheet and worked up the nerve to ask me. And feels really bad asking.
I truly thought he wouldn't ask for quite awhile after our talk. 
So for me it feels like I need to harden my heart to his unending neediness. I love him but I also need to create some emotional distance. Any thoughts.?   My journey is seeing my son more clearly and learning to be ok with detaching from him on many levels.

My daughter did exactly the same thing until I cut her off completely financially.  At first, it was very ugly but in time, she figured it out that she couldn't just rely on mom and dad for money.  It forced her to budget, to figure out other ways to make her finances work.  And today I think she does fairly well with money.  Not with savings, but at least she gets the bills paid.

At first, yes, it feels like hardening your heart and being like Pharoah.  But that's not what is actually happening.  If you want to get Biblical, we're given a blueprint for how to spend our money.  Tithe the first 10%.  Save 20% for a rainy day.  Live on the other 70%.  Also, don't be in debt to anyone, for any reason.  Live within your means and make that 70% work.

How does this apply?  First, your son should be living by the same principals, so should my daughter.  But they're not.  So they're going into debt (to us, others) to chase the things of this world.  Just because they're living foolishly doesn't mean the guidance to us changes- we stick to the 70/20/10 rule for our household.  If you can give more than 10% to those in need then great, but that was never meant to be your lifelong burden for one person in particular.  Not even your son.  He's meant to learn responsible finance like the rest of us and helping him all the time prevents that.

[Notwendy]

Thanks again to both of you for your encouragement and support. I've been off the Forum for a bit. You're right NotWendy,  writing my son's story helps me in seeing the lifelong struggle and pattern. A good day, week, month would tempt me to believe all is well. He's finally getting things figured out. Like your daughter Pook075, my son is very intelligent and can be quite charming.
Yes, I will protect my nest egg. It isn't easy for me. Thankfully my husband is supportive,  One of my big problems is I buy hook line and sinker the manipulation. His approach is very loving, and slowly builds over texts or calls checking in. First  a simple request- Are you in town? I'm trying to figure out how to get lunch for my son (my grandson). I live 20 min away. He said, I won't get paid for a few days and have no money.  I said no I won't be - I had company over.  He figured it out.
A couple days later he called with a bigger request about how he'd pay me back with 10% additional to start paying off all he's borrowed, if I would let him charge materials for jobs on my Credit Card. He said he made an Excel spreadsheet and worked up the nerve to ask me. And feels really bad asking.
I truly thought he wouldn't ask for quite awhile after our talk. 
So for me it feels like I need to harden my heart to his unending neediness. I love him but I also need to create some emotional distance. Any thoughts.?   My journey is seeing my son more clearly and learning to be ok with detaching from him on many levels.

My BPD mother could be very charming and manipulative. I don't say this to insinuate that her manipulative aspect was something evil- but it served a purpose for her- it got her what she wanted.

Think of this as a tool- a hammer. If someone has a hammer that works for them for a long time, and suddenly it doesn't work- they will keep on trying that hammer until they figure out it doesn't work. It's the tool they've used for years and they don't have any other one right now.

A verbal "no" for someone who has usually gotten a "yes" isn't going to stop them from asking (using the hammer) over and over until they realize it's not going to get them a "yes". You had the talk with your son but this is his "hammer". He hasn't seen that it doesn't work yet. So he keeps trying it.

On your part, you need to be consistent with the "no". If you give in once, then he sees his hammer is still working. He's not going to stop using it until he realizes it doesn't work.

You are a part of this reinforcement- and emotionally, it can be a challenge to say no when you have been saying yes, but to boundaries are actions, not only words. Stay the course.

[Notwendy]

At first, yes, it feels like hardening your heart and being like Pharoah.  But that's not what is actually happening.  If you want to get Biblical, we're given a blueprint for how to spend our money.  Tithe the first 10%.  Save 20% for a rainy day.  Live on the other 70%.  Also, don't be in debt to anyone, for any reason.  Live within your means and make that 70% work.

It's a good way to manage money, but your son is also not in need of charity. He is able bodied and can work. This is an ongoing behavior for him. We think of charity as helping people who are in true need, but enabling financial irresponsibility is not charity. The 10% in this situation does not go to him.

I don't think saying "no" is hardening your heart. It's a form of love- tough love. It is acting in the best interest of the person- even if they don't like it. In the example of the toddler wanting cookies for dinner. Saying "no" isn't due to having a hard heart. It's saying "no" because eating cookies for dinner is not good for the child. It's not nutritious. Love is giving them a nutritious dinner, even if they want cookies.

Saying "no" requires managing your own feelings and fears. Maybe you fear your son won't call if you don't say yes, or he will think you are a bad person, or he will go without. He's a grown man, he has a job. But if you think of saying "yes" as dealing with your own fears, it becomes more self serving than helping.

Imagine if he doesn't call once he can't get money from you. That would be very sad, but if the reason for the relationship is you being used as an ATM machine- then that isn't the kind of relationship anyone would want. It would be a difficult thing to process but better to realize this than to continue to be on the financial "hook" for contact.

It was a hard realization for me to see that my mother's interactions with me and other people were mostly to meet her emotional needs. Whether or not she cared about anyone else- her BPD emotions took most of her focused. She wanted what she wanted, in the moment. Her spending was a part of that behavior- she spent to meet an emotional need. Talking to her, trying to be rational, didn't work, because emotionally driven behavior isn't rational.

You are not saying "no" to your son because you need to harden your heart. You are saying no, out of love- so that you aren't enabling this self destructive behavior of his that hurts him and you. You said no to cookies for dinner when he was 4 because it wasn't good for him. You can say no to him now too.

[JsMom]

I could hug you both. The truth you speak I use to combat the lies I tell myself and the fears I respond to. I get it in my head, I need to get it down deeper.
I love the 10/20/70  guide. I get my son isn't my 10% and this is a guide for him as well.
I also am learning the true meaning behind, we are to carry each others burdens and others are to carry their own loads. Because my swbpd would react to his load (after mismanagement) and react emotionally and melt down  I felt it was a burden to him and I'd knee jerk react and rescue.
This is about me maybe even more than my son. I'm going to tell on myself, something I'm ashamed of. I'm doing it because I don't want this a part of me anymore. When my son was about 14 yrs his grandfather paid for him to wear braces. He wore them about a year. Then he started to get into this illness on a deeper level. He screamed and cried he needed them off,  The pain was too much (I believe internally) anyway, I had the orthodontist take them off. I could weep over doing that. I still am on the inside. Years later when my son was in his 30's he brought up the incident and said What kind of a mother would do that? 

[CC43]

Hi JsMom,

I know it's hard not to jump in and rescue your son.  Surely he's great at inducing you to do that.  He frames his needs as essential food for your grandson, as supplies for his job--and if you don't help, then it's your fault that your grandson is starving and that your son can't do his job, right?  Your son makes it seem like his financial needs are dire, urgent, and important, right?  Like it's one-time help to get him on his feet, to get through a temporary setback, right?  But the record shows that he's not spending or saving wisely.  He's 45, not 15.  He can work.  He just chooses not to, because pushing the Mom ATM button is so much easier and more immediate.

I think you have many solid reasons to say no.  You can't afford it.  You don't want to be a burden to your sons in the future because you didn't save for your own retirement.  And by giving your son money, you're actually getting in the way of him learning how to budget.  You're depriving him of the knowledge that he can find solutions for himself.  He's smart, right?  It's not like he has a severe learning disability and doesn't understand prices, how credit cards work, what a paycheck is.  He is capable.  But he chooses his easiest alternative:  ask Mom for money.  He knows how to butter you up, how to make it look like he's on the verge of collapse, unless you bail him out, correct?

If saying "No" to financial requests is too hard for you, maybe your boundary could be not to entertain any discussion about money with your son.  You could say, "I'm not discussing finances with you."  If there's a text with a request for money, you delete the text.  If he begs you on the phone, you say, "If you continue talking about finances, I'm hanging up."  After all, you're a mom, not a bank.  You deserve to be treated like a human, not an ATM.  So take money talk off the table completely.  Maybe you say, "Son, I love you, and I'm a mom, not a bank."

If that's too harsh for you, another tactic you might try is to involve your husband.  You could say, you have to consult with him and get his OK for any spending that is outside your household budget.  Then your son would have to make the request to the two of you together.  Maybe that would help?  At the very least, it would help you to slow walk.

In my mind, the easiest route would be to say no because you don't have the money.  You say, "I'd like to help, but I don't have the money to spare."  That's the truth.  In reality, you don't have the money, because you need to finance YEARS of your own retirement, and all your money is already allocated for that purpose.  But maybe you don't see it that way, because you think, you're prepared to sacrifice your lifestyle to help your son this one time.  But my guess is, your sacrifice won't do your son any good.  In fact, I think it might harm you both in the long term, because you're getting in his way of learning money management and harming yourself in the process.  I'd advise, take the short-term discomfort of saying no to save you both from further hardship and heartache.