An adult daughter has BPD

[Finally314]

I am new to this site.  My adult daughter who is 40 years old has just been diagnosed with BPD.  As a teenager she was diagnosed as having addictions to alcohol and drugs.  She went to treatment for drug and alcohol addiction four times and nothing seemed to work for her.  All of this impacted dramatically on our family from the time she was 15 until she was 22 years old.  She had a child at 21 and that seemed to calm her down somewhat.  By that I mean that there wasn't any more legal involvement and she was living a lifestyle that was more normal.  She tried to take college courses for upgrading but couldn't continue with that and took a job working as a server in a casino.  She met a man and had a 16 year relationship with him that just ended.  Over this time period, her behaviours began to deteriorate.  She went to see psychiatrists a couple of times but just ended up being put on antidepressants, anti-anxiety pills and other things I just don't remember or she hadn't told us about.  Her behaviours to me, her mother, were almost always unacceptable.  But I loved her and wanted a relationship with her even if it had to be at a distance and abusive.  Her relationship with her father was more distant than with me and not as abusive.  He had decided he would not put up with abuse and distanced himself from her.  Her brother who is two years older than her has not had direct verbal abuse from her but has been cut out of her life for many years.  We all have thought that she just didn't like us and had accepted that as a fact of life.  I've never given up trying to keep our lines of communication open.  When her relationship broke up this year, she told me she was going to see another psychiatrist at a large hospital in a large city.  I thought that it would just be the same outcome.  More pills. I hadn't thought much about it because I had become used to being ignored and left out of her life.  If I phoned her she wouldn't answer her phone. If I texted her she wouldn't answer my text.  Then every once in a while I'd get a text from her as if nothing had happened.  Usually, it was to ask me for something.  Then about a month ago she texted me and asked me how I was.  I was really surprised and so was my husband.  She never had asked me that before. Then she FaceTimed me and it was a lovely conversation and no abusive language was used.  She then divulged to me that she had been seeing a psychiatrist and psychiatric team at the large hospital referred to above, and had received a diagnosis of BPD.  She was very definite in stating that the BPD was not our fault.  That it was how she was born.  She was very informative and happy when I told her a couple of days later that I had purchased a book on BPD that had been written expressly for families with BPD children.   I found this site recommended in the text book that I purchased and thought that I would see what I could learn from those involved with BPD people both professionally and personally.  In the past I have attended parent support group meetings for parents of children with addictions.  I attended those faithfully on a weekly basis with my husband for seven years.  I found those very helpful and supportive.  I am hoping to have a similar experience with the bpdfamily site.

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]

Hello Finally314 

Welcome to bpdfamily, you've come to the right place for support and learning. I'm so very touched your daughter is receiving help after all you've been through as a family must feel great.  My 29DD is doing well managing her BPD after 12 months DBT and getting the meds right, which took some time. It was such a relief for her to receive the diagnosis and find out that she could actually help herself, like your daughter is doing. At the top of the board is the thread Lessons: What can a parent do and to your right tools and lessons, there is plenty you can do to support your daughter

Which book did you read?

WDx