20 year old daughter w/eating disorder and BPD

[Becca1]

Hello, just finding this forum and so grateful.

My 20 year old daughter has been struggling with an eating disorder and was recently told she has BPD from her psychologist who she just started seeing. The BPD makes so much sense. I am really scared that the eating disorder is getting worse and really want her to get more serious treatment for it, but she is pretty much refusing. She lives in a city 3 hours away. Does anyone have any advice about how I can get her to agree to treatment? I'm at a loss. And I'm scared. Thanks in advance.

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

[wendydarling]

Hi Becca1

Welcome to bpdfamily   I'm glad you found us and sorry for what your dealing with your daughter.   I understand it's scary when the eating disorder is getting worse, my 28DD is BPD and has an eating disorder.

The medics approach for my DD is DBT, they've been addressing all issues through the skills learning  and therapy. This has been very successful in many areas, though from what I gather they've  recently started focusing on the ED and that's after 12 months. I am hopeful.

That your DD has just started seeing a psychologist is a positive, she is engaging. I'm sorry she's refusing more serious treatment, what kind have you suggested to her?

WDx

[Howdit hapn]

Hi. I also have a daughter with an ED. She was diagnosed with BPD by a psychiatrist while in residential treatment for her ED. The therapy was DBT, which is the preferred treatment, from I have read. Being in treatment helped get her weight restored, but now that she's out she's lost all that weight and is practically back at square one. She was in residential and PHP for quite a while, and in a couple different cities. At age 20, there really isn't much you can do to get her into treatment if she doesn't agree to it. If her ED progresses, she will hit bottom at some point, which is what we are also waiting for (again). It's easier for us, because she lives at home, but she's 26, so we can't make her go into treatment again. It's so hard to just watch and wait, but I think all we can do is be there when she hits bottom and steer her toward treatment. The cycle seems never ending for us, but I hope you have better luck. Most people with ED do recover, but not always as soon as we would hope. To tell you the truth, the BPD is even harder for us to take, because of the way she has come to interact (or not) with us. Between the two disorders, we feel that we have lost our loving and very normal daughter. We're hoping she's still in there somewhere.

[wendydarling]

Hi Howdit hapn and welcome to bpdfamily   

I'm glad you found us and sorry for what you are going through with your daughter. This journey is not linear as we know, step forwards, back, two forwards... .  I'm sorry your DD has stopped engaging in treatment, do you understand why, has she told you? 

WDx

[profe4]

I recently found a therapist who works with BPD but they told me they can not start working on rewiring her brain/emotional reactions if she is too underweight/ active in her eating disorder

[Howdit hapn]

It's true that being severely underweight affects the chemistry of the brain itself, and the thought process is garbled. That is why they do the re-feeding process to put weight back on quickly. If they are unable to get them to eat the regular way, they intubate through the nose to get the nutrients into their body. It's a sad and sometimes necessary process to address the malnutrition when things have gotten bad. They don't usually wait until the weight has been restored to deal with therapy, though. At least not from what I saw in residential treatment. I wish you and your child strength to deal with this. It's not an easy road, for sure. Take care.