My 19 year old daughter

[smrsd5]

Hello,
My daughter was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and therefore treated accordingly and it has been a disaster for too many years.  We finally broke down and took a loan out on our retirement to send her to a treatment center.  It has been a lot of work on everyone's part.
We have been relieved to know she is safe and getting help but it has been a roller coaster of its own. They have been amazing and we have learned so much.  We have been reading all the books they recommended and doing the eggshells workbook.  These have given us great insight and better ways to listen and communicate.  We just are not sure how to initiate it.  She is scheduled to come home at the end of the week.  We are absolutely in the fight with her.  Always have been and always will be.  It is just terrifying to go back to living on eggshells never knowing when the next breakdown will be and the threats that come with them.  Hospitals don't do anything except house her for a week or until she convinces them she isn't a threat to herself or others and then sends her back no matter what because of insurance.  We would really love some advice on how to get off on the right foot with communicating with her as soon as she comes home.  We want to show a balance of our unconditional love with a strong declaration of conditional help.
Thank you so very much for listening and for any advice!

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

[Feeling Better]

Hello smrsd5, welcome.

I am so sorry to hear that your daughter was originally misdiagnosed with bipolar, how awful, you must wonder at all those wasted years while she was taking the wrong meds and presumably no improvement in her. I am so glad that despite this you finally managed to break through and are now on the right track.

You are very wise to realise that you need to change your way of communicating with her, it can feel awkward at first but I am sure you will soon get to grips with it. There is a lot of information here on communication skills, it is listed over on the right 

I encourage you to read others posts too, there is a wealth of experience on this site and you will gain lots of help and support by participating here x 

[Mutt]

Hi smrsd5,



I’d like to join FeelingBetter and welcome you to bpdfamily. I’m sorry for the circumstances that led you here I am very glad that you decided to join us, there is hope.

As you probably already know change takes time, FeelingBetter directed you to the lessons in this board. A pwBPD have low self worth, self loath and need a lot of validation. Feelings = facts to a owBPD validate the feelings first.

I look forward to reading more of your posts.