A mother's guilt

[Grievingmom]

How do I deal with the pain and guilt that I may have unintentionally caused BPD in my child who is now an adult?

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

[Feeling Better]

Hi Grievingmom

I am glad you have posted here because that means I have seen your post.

I understand how you feel, the pain, the blame and the awful guilt. I have been there and have come out the other side. The thought that I had caused my son's illness was unbearable. I lost all my confidence and my self esteem and became depressed thinking myself as a complete failure. What use was I as a mother, as a person when I had done this to my child?

Now when I think back I realise that the signs were there when he was a little boy. He was so hyper sensitive, I didn't cause that, it was how he was. I didn't think he was ill and I wasn't sure how to deal with his sensitivity, I did give him lots of love and cuddles and thought that he would grow out of it as so many other parents on here also may have thought. I never thought for one moment that it would develop into what it is.

We unknowingly say and do things that affect our pwBPD's, things which nons would brush off and deal with in a different way.  It is not your fault that your child is predisposed to his/her way of thinking.

Try to read more about BPD, it will bring awareness, this site has helped me loads to deal with my (what I now see as), misplaced self- blaming and guilt.

I sincerely hope that you can work through this, my thoughts are with you x

[Lollypop]

Hi there grievingmom

I'm glad you found us.  My DS is 26 and I've owned up to myself my own part in the situation we found ourselves in. I take comfort in the fact that I tried to do the best I could with what I had at the time. There's no rule book to follow and dx didn't come til he was 24.

I'm in a better place now since joining this forum and learning about BPD. Feeling Better put it so eloquently.

I decided I needed to change my own approach to be a more effective parent. We've made good progress.

What's going on at the moment?

How old is your adult child?

Be kinder to yourself if you can. It's ok to look back, in fact it's needed to understand how I got there but then I needdd to let go so I could start healing by moving forwards.

LP

[Grievingmom]

Thank you everyone who responded to my post here and through PMs - especially "Feeling Better", "Lolypop", and "Gemsforeyes".

I read them again today and the comfort it gave me brought tears to my eyes. I thank God I found this site and all you wonderful people.

Blessings.