Introduction, feel cheated BPD was never mentioned, ultimately lost my daughter

[Leota]

Hello,
I recently concluded after 7 years that my daughter has BPD. She will be 19. I haven’t read anything on BPD until recently and I feel that the books I’ve read and research I’ve done could be written about her. Then this week while packing some old paperwork, I found some of her psychiatric test results from 2012 stating that her behaviors very strongly appear as BPD but diagnosed her with anxiety and PTSD. I’m sure at the time I had no understanding what this meant and I’ve just trusted the diagnosis of PTSD and anxiety for all these years, as had she.  This testing was shortly after the chaos started and well before I knew much about mental health at all. There were multiple hospitalizations for suicide attempts (15 attempts that I am aware of), scar repairs from self harming, inpatient psychiatric unit stays with court battles, placement outside the family and ultimately my daughter disowning me and going down the path of daily marijuana use to treat what she has been told by her therapists is PTSD as the explanation for her mental health. I realize at this point there isn’t much I can do to help her but my way of working through things is to learn as much as I can. I feel cheated that after years and years of therapy, BPD was never mentioned and I didn’t get the chance to see if maybe learning correct techniques could have helped. That’s a quick summary of something that gets way more complicated but ultimately I’ve lost my daughter and fear every day I will get called to report that she’s died.
Thank you for your time,
Leota

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 Leota 

Welcome to bpdfamily son/daughter board.

I am so sorry to hear that you feel cheated because it looks as though your daughter got the wrong diagnosis years ago, unfortunately many professionals do not like to give a BPD diagnosis until a child is 18 years old because normal teenage behaviour can be similar to BPD or BPD traits.

I know how devastating it is when an adult child disowns their parent, this has happened to me, so I do know what you are going through, and my heart goes out to you 

I only found out a very short time before my uBPD son went NC (no contact) with me, that he most likely had BPD. I had never heard of the disorder before, and now, like you, I wish that I had known sooner but more importantly for me, I wish that I had found this site sooner than I did. I also wonder if learning different techniques then would have made a difference to how things are now. One thing I do know though is that I cannot change the past, I can only change things now in the present, in the hope of a better future. I sense that you probably feel this way too when you say that your way of working through things is to learn as much as you can. By saying that you are already half way there and I can tell you that you have come to the right place to learn, there is a wealth of knowledge to be found on this site and we are here to help and support you x 

[Merlot]

Hi Leota

Along with Feeling Better, I welcome you hear and I'm very sorry for what you are going through.  The extensive issues and hospitalisations associated with self harm must be very confronting and your daughter so young.

I would be interested to know how you came to be here, was it a particular trigger or crisis event, you have clearly been going through a lot for  a long time.  

One of the most helpful books that I have read about BPD, is "I hate you don't leave me".  It explores BPD in depth and goes right to the heart of some of the issues you raise about diagnosis.  Many of the behavioural traits that are common to BPD are also common to many other disorders and mental health being such a complex issue, it's no wonder that there can be some confusion.  We do hear about multiple diagnoses for children on this board.

I'm glad you are hear with us as we all share your journey and you will find much support here.  I would be interested to know a little more of your story and how we can best help you as we move through this together.  I hope you are taking very good care of yourself, you have been through a lot.

Merlot

[Hyacinth Bucket]

Hi Leota,

I wanted to join Feeling Better and Merlot in welcoming you to this board. I'm so sorry for everything you've been through. It must be so disconcerting to see that old paperwork mentioning BPD.  One of the worst things about dealing with this disorder is the inevitable "what ifs... ." You did so much to help your daughter, and have been through so much with her.

I'm writing on my phone so I am not good at linking, but there is a concept called Radical Acceptance that has helped me immensely. You can search for it on this site, it has a great amount of information. The idea behind radical acceptance is reducing suffering by accepting what is, and not going down the road of, "what if, if only, I should have... ." Etc.  We can't avoid pain but we can lessen our own suffering. It's a concept from Buddhist psychology and I know has helped a lot of people on this board.

I hope you are doing something for yourself and taking good care of yourself. Please let us know how we can best support you.

[wendydarling]

Hi Leota  

Welcome to the community, I too am glad you've joined us for support and so very sorry for what you've been through with you daughter

Here is the link Hyacinth Bucket was referring to, as HB says this has helped a lot of people here including me

1:06|Radical Acceptance For Family Members (DBT Skill)

Do let us know if you find this of any help.

Welcome again, you are not alone.

WDx

[Leota]

Hello and thank you for your responses. I am familiar with radical acceptance. One of the therapies that was taught to my daughter was dbt so I wanted to learn what that consisted of. I joined a year long class that was taught by the wife of my daughters therapist and was very useful in learning what she was learning. I have 5 other children, 3 adopted as older children with lots of trauma so I thought it would be helpful all around. It eventually back fired because last year when my daughter was with this therapist again (we had moved to another state-complicated story), she then brought up in one of her rages how the therapist’s wife whose dbt group I went to had bad things to say about me. I know this is highly unlikely but it was still hard to hear. It did help to show me how my choice to step back, thinking this was a good thing, actually helped to convince herself and others that I was the problem. However, the past can’t be changed so I just try to learn from it.

What led me to this forum was her social media page popped up that  shows her smoking bongs and trying to become a marijuana photographer (which I’m not sure what that even is). Apparently she is trying to become a marijuana social media star?  I took a long drive and during that time, I recalled someone recommending many years ago the book Stop Walking on Eggshells so I finally looked it up and was blown away way by how much it could have been written about my experiences with her. So then I started learning more and found this site. I don’t expect her to want any kind of contact soon but I want to understand more and also be more knowledgeable on how to respond if she ever does reach out. I feel my other kids are pretty angry at me though for trying to figure this out.

And honestly, I’m just trying to come to terms with how this daughter of mine that I devoted my life to helping, can now hate me. It just hurts. Part of all of this is that I raised these kids on my own, willingly made tons of sacrifices for their well being and it isn’t a job that any one should have to do on there own. I’m just trying to make it, if that makes sense. I will look at the resources suggested.
Thanks for listening

[loveandcare]

Hello and Welcome 

I have similar feelings. I suggested many times to various therapists that our daughter was displaying BPD, but I was told over and over I was either wrong, or she was too young to diagnose. Finally, after she turned 18, the psychiatrist diagnosed her within the first session (after a lengthy discussion) as being "quiet borderline"... .there are 4 sub-types of borderline, and since she is "quiet", she didn't fit the stereotypical bill of BPD, which further explains how it was missed I think.

Anyway - my point is, I absolutely understand your frustration! I so wish we had been able to get therapy specific to BPD instead of wasting years and years on other things that didn't help at all. She eventually turned to smoking drugs to relieve the emptiness/lack of emotions. We recently tried ketamine to no avail, but we now suspect she was smoking a bit during that, which would render the treatment pointless.

I have the same sadness. It's almost like a death, I feel we've lost her... .it's so sad.
HUGS!