Support needed

[Fabes]

My daughter has a BPD diagnosis, I love her and want to help her. She is a kind and caring person but she hates herself. She gets so upset when things go wrong or she has to deal with what I would see as a small thing, you could deal with by polite communication. She seems unable to stay calm in some every day situations and will become rude and abusive to people. She blames them for their incompetence and will say it's their fault that they have forced her to be so angry. When she has what she calls ," a melt down" she will shout at people for looking at her, even though she is so shocking, who wouldn't look. She then fluctuates between feeling terrible because she wants to be loved and liked but then not want to admit that perhaps her behaviour is her own and the situation could have been managed differently.
I have to think on my feet and be careful at all times. I try to listen and understand, but because I am not her I am told I will never understand and I am cruel in saying I would be broken hearted if she took her life. It breaks my heart every time. She actually makes me feel that I am being cruel. I feel a prisoner in a life where I am not aloud to be happy or have peace.
She takes all my attention, her sister has missed out and she has had to be self sufficient.
I am at a loss on how to motivate and help her. How to set boundaries and expectations. She is no longer working and running up debts and although genuinely feeling bad and wanting to change, seems unable to put anything in place or stick to anything she agrees to. I am sometimes desperate and feel so out of my depth. I just wish someone could tell me what to do because I don't trust my own judgement anymore. I done even dare to take a holiday or  a weekend away, but I am not sure if I am being over anxious or I am justified in my feelings.
 She is now a young adult, and trying to be independent. I am constantly caught in how much support I give her to prevent things going wrong and enabling her to learn and face consequences. She does not seem to learn from mistakes and will do the same things over and over again expecting a different outcome.
In spite of all this we do have a loving relationship. She tries to please and will often agree to do something but very often not follow through. I am not sure if she says she will do something with no intention of doing it or just wants to please but then can't follow through. I am talking small things of every day tasks, independence skills or self care not huge expectations. How can I help her but still keep some time for myself, my other child and my husband? Is this forever?

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

[Gorges]

 Welcome Fabes.  Funny, I just had a conversation about what you described with my daughter last night.  Several days ago, she did not come with us to a funeral of a family friend because "she has social anxiety and everyone will be judging her", then last night she ordered a wig as a fashion statement.  I told her I was fine with her wearing a wig, but people would be staring at her if she did that and if that stokes the fire of her social anxiety, maybe she should think about the pattern she is setting up.  Sigh... .

Which reminded me of my own patterns... .way too much attention and intrigue with my daughter's life.  Since your daughter is a young adult, it might be helpful to take a step back and let her figure it out.  Something in our society tells us that we need to help our child learn and fix things.  I think the best we can do is role model and set boundaries. 

I love this website, but I sometimes feel that it promotes fixing things for your child (especially the listening with empathy and validate the valid).  You can try these approaches for yourself, but in the end your daughter is a young adult and it is her responsibility to manage her diagnosis and her health. Sometimes if we do too much, we prevent them from moving forward.

[Lollypop]

Hi there fabes

Welcome!

I don't trust my own judgement anymore. I done even dare to take a holiday or  a weekend away, but I am not sure if I am being over anxious or I am justified in my feelings.

I could have written this myself. Deep down in my heart I knew I was doing too much for my young adult son (now 27) - I could always reason it out and justify my actions. I knew he couldn’t do these “normal” things and was constantly stepping in. What I was silently demonstrating to him was that I thought he couldn’t do them!

I taught my son to use a spoon and his shoelaces.  I’m bemused that I couldn’t see that I had to step back in his teenager years yet I ramped up my input. I got given some great advice early on in my forum days and I pass it to you. Everything he should do for himself, he should do himself. My only excuse is that I was in such a high state of anxiety reacting to his behaviours. I’d get confused. For example, a letter would arrive and Id check to see if it was from a debt collector. I’d convince myself that I needed to open it because if I knew how bad it was then I’d be able to give him good advice or help him as best I could. What I’m earyh was I doing? I wouldn’t dream of opening up a letter for any other adult yet I thought it ok when I dealt with him.  

There’s hope and our lives are very different now. My DS27 is functioning and taking (finally) full responsibility for himself. It’s taken patience and a lot of emotional support. I stopped giving him money and focussed on being the parent he needed, not the one I thought I was supposed to be. He needs me to walk beside him making no judgment, just be there if he needs emotional support.

I have s husband and younger child. I know how you’re feeling about all your attention being on your older daughter. This isn’t a healthy relationship and if something’s not working then a change of approach is needed.

Have you read much about BPD? Take s look at the top right hand side of this page. It’s a great place to learn. The more I learned the less I reacted, the more calm things got.

I’m not saying my DS is cured - he doesn’t seek treatment. I’m not saying we don’t have problems - he has a drug problem. Yet we are happier, we’ve found a way forwards as a family. It started with me learning here and putting myself and my own life first. You matter Fabes and you deserve to be happier.

Hugs to you. There’s no quick fixes, be prepared to put the groundwork in here and you’ll find a way forwards for yourself and family.

How can we help?

LP

[BoyMom]

Fabes, I could have written the identical thing you did, only in my case, it's both sons. But everything else applies. Here it is the day before Christmas Eve and a huge blowup at 3 am (over a comment about a dishwasher) has caused my youngest son to drive back to his college apartment. My oldest (24) is (not diagnosed because he refuses to admit there's a problem) in town from out of state for Christmas, and he's still walking around acting like he was totally in the right and my youngest was in the wrong. A "normal" sibling interaction about the damn dishwasher comment would have lasted 5 seconds, and not 45 minutes in the dead of night, resulting in chaos & one of them getting in his car to drive 2 hours away at nearly 4 am. Meanwhile, I still have the entire rest of the family expecting me to wrap all the gifts and cook most of the meal. Half of them don't even know what's going on. I just wanted to get through Christmas. My new year's resolution is to tackle this thing once and for all by all means necessary, including cutting ties and support until he gets the treatment he needs. This is my first post, I just discovered this forum, so I need to do a lot more reading before posting anymore.