Please help me understand my child

[JanetB24]

I think my 7 year old has BPD
Not that I need a diagnosis for him, but after reading some of the descriptions for BPD, I finally have hope that I might be able to understand and help him.
My son has huge mood swings - he's either super euphorically happy, or uncontrollably angry and full of rage. He always blames his anger on the actions of someone else. Usually his rage is followed by severe guilt, pain, unhappiness, self-blame, he's convinced no one cares about him. He's convinced he's a and person. Our family is always  walking on eggshell not knowing what will set him off.
We've seen therapists who have told us to use reward charts for behavior modification but the charts make my son worse - he gets so stressed and obsessed over the chart that he just gets angrier!
I have two older children and we are all just at the end of our rope. I love my son but I don't know how to deal with him and I'm terrified this will only get worse as he gets older. Sometimes I worry about him hurting himself or his siblings (or me) but then again he can't even kill an insect he's so sensitive.
Please help us - any advice is so appreciated.

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

[Worriedmum99]

My daughter was diagnosed two months ago.  She is older than your son and looking back now I'm unsure if we would be in an better position had we been more alert or aware of her symptoms from a younger age.

I want to give you something positive to read.  Well I can, we are not a broken family.  Living with someone with BPD has made us unite, non judgmental and thankful.  It's not easy and a bit of a roller coaster at times.  We lap up the moments of eutrophic happiness and laughter and worry intensely when her mood is low.  There is not much you can say to make things better.   But I would say, talk amongst your immediate family,  tell your extended family what you are dealing with so you have their help, love and understanding.  Speak to your doctor as he need external intervention to help him make sense of his head.

Be as strong as you can.  There are days when I just want to cry but mostly now I am trying my hardest to grow a thick skin and not take any outbursts too personally. This is not your fault.

[JanetB24]

Thank you so much for your reply and for the positive message.  I truly appreciate it!  My question is - when your daughter has outbursts of anger, how do you cope as a family?  Do you have other children?  How do you handle the anger / rage without it causing serious disruption to your family's harmony and equilibrium?  My son's outbursts of anger cause all of us to momentarily frozen until he snaps out of it.  We can't send him to his room because he is terrified of being alone.  So we let him be among us and just scream, berate everyone, even chase his siblings with kitchen utensils (which we have to wrestle out of his hands).  Its just so disruptive and exhausting.  Will this get better and more controllable with age?  What can I do to help my child?

[Turkish]

Hi Janet B24,

My son,  now 7, didn't express quite the level of dysregulation that you describe,  but like you we sought help.  He ended up being diagnosed with ASD 1, level 1 autism, what they used to call Asperger's before the DSM-5. How long has he been exhibiting these behaviors? Have you always noticed something a little "off" or was there a point when his behaviors or personality markedly changed?

We've kind of always had an issue with him hitting his little sister, 5 (unfortunately she's taken to copying this). Other issues are him head slapping himself,  which I think it's a coping behavior due to anxiety.

I'm not a fan of reward charts. It seems gimmicky to me (take this as a personal bias). Mom used them in the other home,  we're divorced. We did go through parenting classes last summer, 6 weeks each for both of the kids' age groups. They gave us reward charts to try. Seems like a low level first try. It may work for some kids.  

I remember a couple having trouble with their son,  and it seems similar to you.  The first class,  we heard the kid,  6, banging and yelling in the other room across the hall.  His parents were at a loss.  It went on for half an hour before it stopped.

The next five sessions, there wasn't a repeat. We were all blown away.  

As best I can recollect, the therapists explained that they laid out the rules (boundaries) to the kids in the room.  They kept the other kids safe,  but let the one kid pound the walls and basically ignored him.  When the kid saw he wasn't getting the reaction he was looking for,  he eventually stopped trying.

I'm not trying to say that your son has autism, but ABA concepts may help.  Truthfully, I've found the parent training portion lacking thus far,  but I'll hopefully learn more.  The supervisor pointed out that ABA is about human behavior, and the concepts can be applied to anyone (I was asking about D5).

The first step in solving a problem is to observe and measure it.  They gave us something similar to this chart:



I finger-zoom on my tablet to see this.  PC users can do Cntrl+middle mouse wheel up to zoom.

Original here: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f6/b5/3f/f6b53fa328f5089c6dd720222f7cd579.jpg

I'd never thought of this,  but it may be helpful to parents here with adult children with BPD... .keep in mind that ABA is most used for ASD, but I think logging or measuring behaviors and our reactions can be helpful.  Antecedent--->Behavior--->Consequence.

Let me know if this seems helpful.  I only can log in for long replies at night in my time zone, but I want to help in any way which I can.  We can help support you delve into the communication tools which can help reduce conflict, too.

He's convinced he's a and person.

What did you mean to write here,  that he thinks he's a different person?

I hope to hear more and how best weer can help  

Turkish