15yo daughter with BPD, Bipolar II and Substance Abuse

[Dad1975]

Hi All,

Our family is about 3 months in to our new life journey with our daughter, 15 years old, who has been diagnosed with BPD as well as bipolar type II and substance abuse disorder (weed).


Background:
Daughter is a bright girl, in 10th grade, and up until February, high school was going reasonably well - good grades, generally no trouble. She mentioned at Christmas to suffering from low self-esteem and low self-worth, and we engaged therapists in February to start solving that. However, her behavior went downhill quite quickly from February on: poor decisions, volitional inappropriate behavior (manipulative boys, weed etc.), and threatened to jump out of a window. We took her to the ER, where she was diagnosed with depression, bipolar type ii, and then put on Sertraline. She was in-patient at a facility for a week, and then returned home and back to school.
In the next 2 weeks, she literally went "off the rails" - bad, poor decisions every single day.
This reached a head when on the Friday night, she went to a party and downed 8 beers in an hour - with us having to carry her home, and get her to bed with a bucket for her to vomit into.
And the very next day, she went to friend's house to smoke weed, wouldn't come home, and I had to go get her: only to find that not only was this friend just smoking weed, but there was crack cocaine and other bad things. The door to the house (when I collected her) smelled just... .bad. Stale sweat and clearly not good. Turns out the guy is a drug seller and this is a neighborhood 'trap house'.
Daughter felt very bad about being brought home (not for being there!) and very resentful, but I had no choice but to bring her home.
Next day, she downs a bottle of medicine and is re-admitted to ER: gastric cleansing (activated charcoal), ICU, then another 10 days in a further in-patient psych facility.
New diagnosis: BPD, as the main thing. Bipolar II & substance also, but the psych at the facility said it is mostly BPD.
Daughter comes home (it's now mid-April) and we have therapy (DBT), she has medication (so far, low does of Lamitrogene/Lamictal), and things continue to go downhill.

Current State:
She is pretty much failing in all school grades. Going to school, but missing early morning periods.
Doing little to zero homework. Continues to engage poor company and smoke weed.
Has end-of-year exams: she is already ineligble for one, and is likely going to fail the others.

She is totally addicted to her phone (instagram, snapchat) night and day - and this has affected her already-struggling lack of focus in school.

She has totally split from me: hates me, wants me to burn myself, doesn't want my love (etc.).
She is abusive, verbally and in texts.
My wife is the main interface with our daughter now, and I'm looking after her brother (who is 12) as he's pretty upset by all of this too.

We are working with the local authorities for an individual education plan, and they have residential dedicated day-school options (even thru the summer) to help her catch up on school.

Questions:

• She is pretty much "done" with me, won't talk, won't engage, hates me. This is now over 1 week of just silence, glares and minimal interaction. Is this to be expected?
• She is abusive to my wife, yet we need her to engage: she is going to therapy only when it suits her, and seems to not be fully engaged to getting herself treated. Again, to be expected?
• She seems to have little view of any consequence of her action: is this normal with BPD?
• We have tried to be calm and offer a safety net (since our new baseline is her being alive, or not), so haven't pushed her to get to school on time, do homework, not be with poor/bad friends... .and not really tackled her verbally abusive behaviours.
  We now think that this may be too "soft" and we have enabled her in the wrong way?

---

What advice/comments would you all have?

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

[Lollypop]

Hi dad1975

Welcome to the forum. I'm very glad to meet you and want to say you've come to the right place. There's many parents of teenage daughter's who are experiencing a similar situation to you and I'm sure they can provide specific guidance and share their experiences. This forum has saved my family.

I've an adult son who is 26 and a long term drug user. He was dx at 24 with BPD and returned home following a crisis. Recently he got re-dx with GAD,depression with BPD traits. It doesn't really matter that much, I see it as a label only. We are all unique and most probably display symptoms at various times of our lives. I prefer to look at it this way, my DS26 internalises and doesn't rage so it's difficult to gauge his feelings.

At 15 he was a nightmare and I can completely understand your fears and confusion. It's exhausting to cope with their behaviours knowing they are vulnerable due to their impetuousness.

She is pretty much "done" with me, won't talk, won't engage, hates me. This is now over 1 week of just silence, glares and minimal interaction. Is this to be expected?

Yes. She's highly emotional and unable to thing straight. If she feels something then it is fact. She's angry and resentful of you so therefore it is your fault in her mind. My DS can behave like a petulant toddler at times despite being 26 - he wants his own way. Your daughter needs you not to react to her behaviour but provide some calm.

She is abusive to my wife, yet we need her to engage: she is going to therapy only when it suits her, and seems to not be fully engaged to getting herself treated. Again, to be expected?

There's skills you can learn to help you both interact with your daughter through more effective communication and validation skills. Better boundaries help protect yourself from abuse (stuff that relates to your personal morals and values - "you will not hit me". Boundaries are a big deal and need carefully thinking about because they come with 6ft thick concrete and always with consequences. Limits are day to day stuff and are flexible and even negotiable. It's up to you to decide what your expectations are and demonstrate behaviours you want to see in your daughter.

She seems to have little view of any consequence of her action: is this normal with BPD?

Yes. My DS has a skewed view and cannot problem solve very well. I protected him from consequences and he didn't learn from his mistakes. We all learn from our mistakes. My DS is 26 and now maturing and I've noticed it takes 5-6 times for him to learn. He needs me not to be judgmental so he feels free to make those mistakes. He needs me to remain calm and detached and not react.

We have tried to be calm and offer a safety net (since our new baseline is her being alive, or not), so haven't pushed her to get to school on time, do homework, not be with poor/bad friends... .and not really tackled her verbally abusive behaviours.
We now think that this may be too "soft" and we have enabled her in the wrong way?

This is a tough one to comment on. We find our dreams evaporate and there's of course some grief to deal with. My DS does have limitations and I've learnt to be flexible. He has found work that he's capable of doing that can provide him with a living. It's a matter of priorities I think. There's no doubt for me that at 26 he needs to be living independently. I've given up slowly on him conforming, there a long sad story of dropping out, failed jobs and relationships. I was definitely too soft or too hard.  The trick is to improve your core relationship so she feels safe to share what's going on. I've learnt that I can be assertive but in a loving way.

There's no doubt that being 15 for anybody is incredibly difficult. They all naturally push the boundaries but with BPD they often get way in too deep and over their heads. If I can give you any advice that would be to read and learn as much as you can. Post often and ask questions just as you did here. Knowledge is power. It helps you in the difficult times. Sadly there's no quick fixes but there is hope. You can learn a way forwards for yourselves, be confident and know your doing the right thing by your daughter as she does need you more than ever. Dx is very scary for everybody.

I got myself a simple plan. It's litterally one step at a time. Baby steps with small joyous achievements by getting through one conversation without conflict.

I have a younger child and it's very distressing trying to protect the younger one and cope with the older one. I put too much energy and focus into my DS to the detriment of my younger son. He was my obsession as I tried to fix him. I'm older and wiser; I learned by my mistakes.

I hope you've found this post useful. Feel free to ask away.

LP

[Yepanotherone]

Hi there , I had to read twice because I thought it was me who had written this ! just a very short teply from me right now , I'm just so tired and I'm heading to bed having taken some new sleep aid ( im trying them all ! Hoping this next one works , just ordered it from Amazon ) my DD has gone out and right now I couldn't care less what she's doing , where she is and who she's with . Guaranteed she'll be up to no good . But just for this night , I'm not going to care .
See my post that ive just made to in another recent thread started by Slynner on gold standard treatment for BPD . Welcome to the forum dad1975 , from the mum of a 17 year old nightmare ! ( diagnosed at 15 with bipolar 2 , BPD , and in the last 7 months , poly substance abuse )
Tomorrow is another day . If we find the energy ,my husband and I might get round to tacking the removal of the eggs that were tossed on the roof of our house a couple of months ago by one of my DD's unfavorable cocaine addicted ex boyfriend . Yay for weekends !
I'm just engaging in muffled ranting right now , please excuse me

[Dad1975]

Yep, Lollypop,

Thank you both for your comments.

Last night we had not too bad a time: DD15 went out with her boyfriend and said that she'd be back by 10, at 9.58 asked for 10.30 (we said no, you need to come back), stayed out later than 10.30 and rolled in around 11PM. We remained calm and she was a little bit apologetic, and this morning wife explained that we need to honor boundaries and that next time she needs to be back by 9PM until she can learn (and earn) better control. She said 'deal' - so let's see.

We are so early into this, we are just taking each day as it comes. There are plenty of things to read that give us very little hope, and yet so few things to read where people have gone through this and come out the other side. It's hard to guage whether or not BPD is something that best case we can just learn to live with, and the life dreams (not that we had anything concrete, but the usual expectation of finishing high school. college, job) are now changed... .or whether early (15 years old) Dx and DBT etc. can be positive.

I am a realist: if the outlook is bleak and it is one of containment, then we can work to that. If the outlook can be more positive, then we can look at whatever we can do to that. Refinance the house if needed. However, so many things - expensive, too - like wilderness camps, intensive 2-3 (or longer) treatments and therapeutic boarding schools ... .they all don't seem to offer any more surety to a positive outcome than just the long, slow, patient road!

So we are really not sure, but we are working night and day to positive and supporting and loving for our DD.

A long journey ahead.

 

[Yepanotherone]

Hi again   just wondering how things are going for you and the family ?