My BPD Father

[Vararth]

Hey.

I've been through some of the boards here and there seems to be a lot of support coming from all different avenues from people who have experienced living with a BPD relative.

Naturally, I've had my fair share of experiences too and would like to express them here.

I live in India, where BPD is relatively unknown and I had the good fortune of meeting with my University's counsellor who happened to be one of the rare gems who specialises in BPD. She discovered that my father had BPD and said that I too have some traits, but not diagnosable. Therein lay the catch.

My dad is now 58 years old and the apparent 'thumb rule' of introducing the idea to them having the disorder is to conduct at least 58 sessions (as per his age) to convince him that he has it. Now, my dad has hardly visited her and continues to avoid visiting her and stops me too because he is convinced that my counsellor is a no good cheat who is 'selling' information to the authorities and blackmailing him because she once suggested meeting in her private practise (naturally) at a cost.

He has been convinced that my mother is the source of all our problems (not him, obviously) and that through her negligence, I have been severely impacted in a big way. He even took me for a psychological evaluation where the evaluators said that him having 'a personality disorder' was starkly visible but they wouldn't be allowed to say it to him as the evaluation was meant for me, not him.

They suggested family therapy and my dad being the most perfect human decided that he didn't need it so my mom, my brother and I ended up wasting hours in counselling just venting out emotions without a solution.

Since then, the family therapy has also stopped (it was with my same University counsellor) and doesn't look like it is going to resume any time soon. I am still meeting with her (the counsellor) but no one else is.

I am really concerned as to whether or not he will ever even realise that he is the one with a problem and needs to work on it.

There was even him 'promising' to have a psychological evaluation done for himself and made sure that even with an appointment, neither I nor he would meet the counsellors.

I am sure others here are going through something similar or have been through something similar...

I really need support and have to ask if there is any hope for my dad. Despite all he has put me through, I do love him, now more than ever since I found out about his problem. I want him to get better but the situation seems so bleak, I have come here.

Thank You.

[Turkish]

Hi Vararth,

Possibly kind of similar to your situation,  my mother abandoned me in family therapy when I was 13. To my knowledge,  the T never picked up on my mother's traits, thus I was stuck. My mother entered therapy some years later on her own.  It just help stabilise her. 

It can be very difficult to get someone into therapy, especially if there is a pride factor with them,  which I'm guessing with your father.  If so,  a better path may be learning communication techniques which can help you and your family cope. Have you had achance to look at the suggested reading at the top of the board yet?

What kinds of behaviors have you been dealing with so we can better direct you?

Turkish

[Vararth]

Hey Turkish, thanks for replying to my post.

My dad definitely has a lot of narcissistic traits and a huge supporting aura of self importance. It doesn't help that he also DOES have a big impact on his work circles (he IS an influential man) which further boosts his ego.

Other than that, he has most BPD symptoms except for self-harm or substance abuse.

His anger in unmanageable, his sadness and emotions require little to no stimuli to be pushed into full throttle. His driving is reckless and he binge eats way more often than he should (and naturally blames my mom for making 'unhealthy' and 'rich' food). His frantic gestures at trying to keep his family close are always through threats and aggression with the classic lines ':)o it and see what happens', 'Try it and see my reaction' etc.

He used to be abusive in the past (slapping and hitting) me for the slightest of the 'perceived' provocations. Once I started playing with my handheld gaming device after taking a bath and he walked in to see my doing so. He went into a frenzy (god only knows what exactly ticked him off) and he was slapping, punching and even kicking. I didn't understand it and blamed myself at the start with an anger I didn't understand either. This was long ago and I have no resentment toward him for it, today.

He simply cannot allow me to live my own life simply because he sees me as a 'damaged person' while at the same time believing that I have extraordinary potential and capability far surpassing anyone. I guess this is an example of the extremes which a BPD individual sees things in. He feels he is the perfect person to lead me into the future and now my only goal is to remain connected to him with the bond of a father and son (though it is a 20 year old me treating him as a 5 year old) but to be independant of his influence.

He isn't a bad person, I do love him so much for who he is and how he has reached where he is today in life (he comes from an impoverished background and I from what may be called the upper-middle class of Delhi in India, which pretty much is elite to most of the population).

I just wanna KNOW if there is any hope of him even going for a single goddamn psych eval or is he actually smart enough to know that something is wrong with him and is afraid of that being validated. Do I create a supporting environment for him so he doesn't get wary of it? I have no clue. I do know that until someone tells him that he needs healing, he won't improve in any way.

Thanks again, for your support.

[Turkish]

Though I don't want to make unwarranted assumptions here,  I've worked with a lot of people from India in high tech in the past 25 years,  so this sounds familiar. 

He simply cannot allow me to live my own life simply because he sees me as a 'damaged person' while at the same time believing that I have extraordinary potential and capability far surpassing anyone. I guess this is an example of the extremes which a BPD individual sees things in. He feels he is the perfect person to lead me into the future and now my only goal is to remain connected to him with the bond of a father and son (though it is a 20 year old me treating him as a 5 year old) but to be independant of his influence.

From what I understand,  what I highlighted might be a hard thing from which to detach. That you wanting to do so is good,  but there is a fine line here where it may cross into disrespect from his point-of-view,  yes?

It sounds like you love him a lot,  as you say,  but are struggling not only to assert independence, but also to get him help.  Two issues here,  intertwined. 

just wanna KNOW if there is any hope of him even going for a single goddamn psych eval or is he actually smart enough to know that something is wrong with him and is afraid of that being validated. Do I create a supporting environment for him so he doesn't get wary of it? I have no clue. I do know that until someone tells him that he needs healing, he won't improve in any way.

This may be,  and he may be hiding behind pride.  At the core of BPD is a sense of shame: "I'm a bad person,  not worth loving." If there are narcissistic tendencies, they may manifest differently than BPD, but the core feelings are the same. 

I posted this from a doctor who is working on changing the ways in which family courts deal with parental alienation, but he gives a good,  top-level summary of borderline and narcissistic pathologies: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=310385.msg12875854#msg12875854

Childress talks about "the abused or neglected child all grown up."

It may be hard to think of parents on this way (my mother is both), and I don't know your father's family history, but it may be a good baseline from which to start, at least to attempt to understand where he's coming from. My mother shared her history with me.  I don't know if your father would be so willing. What do you know of your family on his side,  any clues?