She would curl up in a ball

[Isanni]

When my daughter was 10, she would curl up in a ball and scratch her legs and pull her hair. It would take an hour or so to calm her. She was on the computer interacting with other kids or would get this way from a bad in-person interaction. I took her to a psychologist who did a day of tests and said my child was highly emotional, less logical and I needed to respect that and help her cope.
At 14, she was cutting and trying to kill her self (or at least telling her 'boyfriend' that after he left her). She was very depressed. This was a week after she was sexually assaulted by  a classmate. It seems to me she had underlying emotional issues, never was able to form long lasting friendships with girls (hate or love) and this assault kicked in high gear bd symptoms. She's in grade 9 and was given the diagnosis - borderline traits because she's not 18 and her personality is still forming. So all those tendencies that were negative and got in her way from time to time exploded. She is manipulative and terribly rude to me and my husband - take, take take, talk back, mean, angry. Although when the boyfriend left, we could not leave her side. Now that he's back and she knows we not approve (he's much older and they do online sexual stuff), she hates us and wants to go a group home (from a very privileged home environment. So yes, it was diagnosed early and really the psychologist she saw at 10 should have suggested concrete interventions for my daughter to identify and process strong emotions and to build relationships.

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