Is this BPD?

[Clara72]

Hi there
My 18 year old daughter is my concern. I'm looking at a lot of stuff online about BPD but am still not certain this is what we're dealing with so I'd like to know what you think.

This started when she was about 3, very difficult to manage, refuse to be corrected in any way, very difficult to communicate with and frequent meltdowns where the smallest thing could end up with her being violent. She has attacked everyone in the family at this stage and living with her is literally walking on egg shells. However the self harm thing throws me, as she would never do anything which would make her own life difficult or uncomfortable...she'd happily harm us, but never herself. I presume you don't need to match all symptoms? And she's not manic in any way, if anything she's flatline...nothing gets her very excited or happy, she's dolorous, subdued, I can't so much as ask her if she has college each day without being made aware that I have deeply annoyed her. Her teachers always thought she was the sweetest girl they'd ever met, they had no clue of what we were dealing with at home.

She's very disrespectful to myself and my husband, insults us in the worst ways possible, very mean to her younger brothers, doesn't seem to have empathy at times. She's had friends but never anyone too close. It is actually heartbreaking to think she's basically spent her entire childhood under a cloud, in trouble, up in her bedroom, skulking around as we are in a permanent state of recovering from the last outburst and getting ready for the next. It's an horrific and damaging cycle for the whole family and the boys hate her.

She was violent to me a couple of weeks ago, shoved me backwards to the ground, then spat in my face. The following day as I was driving her to the bus to meet her boyfriend I told her I couldn't live like this any more and she'd have to find somewhere to live. Then I did the most rebellious of things, I dropped her to a more convenient bus-stop, which would require waiting for the bus. She almost hit me but we were out in public...she refused to get out the car initially, but then got out in absolute fury (this is quite normal interaction) and promptly cut all social media with me, and hasn't been home since.

She's had a boyfriend for the last year or so and things have definitely got worse since then, because the way I see it is, she feels she has back up in a way she never had before. He fully believes I'm the problem not her, and where once she used to apologise after a really bad event, and talk to me about it, she now doesn't say anything, doesn't back down, doesn't accept she's in any way in the wrong. She's now staying with his family and god knows what she's told them to allow her to stay so long.

I thought I was free of her for a while and actually enjoyed the peace in the house, but over the weekend I discovered she was hacking my messenger and screenshotting some embarrassing messages and sending them to my husband. This has totally shocked me, I thought it would be out of sight out of mind but it seems she's hell bent on making my husband understand that I am the bad person, and when he refused to see it that way she was even angrier.

So a friend suggested this might be BPD and maybe there's a way to fix this. I love her, but haven't liked her for a very long time, and I'm in no doubt this has only made everything worse as she isn't getting the approval she so desperately seeks.

Any advice gratefully received. cx

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

[livednlearned]

Hi Clara72,

Welcome and hello 

What a painful betrayal to discover she hacked your messages and shared them with your husband. And dropping her off at a more convenient bus stop is perfectly reasonable, especially after she had been violent with you. Setting limits and focusing our own behaviors is one of the biggest and maybe most important steps in stabilizing what can be abusive relationships with a BPD loved one. That she now has a negative advocate in her boyfriend will probably make things challenging in the short term as they form an ally and target you, hopefully an activity that doesn't continue for too long. Did you engage her about the hacking, or was it primarily your H who responded to her?

There are quite a few of us on these boards who don't have official diagnoses for our loved ones, and like you are trying to puzzle things together to make sense of a pattern of behaviors that adds up to BPD. Based on what you're describing, you are in the right place. Pull up a chair and make yourself comfortable 

Do you plan to allow her to return to your home after she was violent with you?

[Clara72]

Thanks for the reply, glad I'm in the right place. I was very angry two weeks ago and was sure I wanted her gone for good, but the reality is rents are very high and finding a place difficult, and with her gone for two weeks frankly I'd had a lot of time to think and had started to see where I should have done things differently. I had started to feel sorry for her, so when the hacking thing happened I realised she wasn't having similar feelings of remorse on her side at all.

I can't confront her, I'm blocked on everything, but my husband did and she said she was just trying to let him see I couldn't be trusted (it was a couple of stupid drunken comments to an ex...stupid but safe, haven't seen him in 20 years and we're both very happily married)..it was unusual for me to have made them so the fact that she screenshotted them within minutes tells me she's been closely monitoring my messenger, and perhaps for quite some time. The intrusion is horrible. Luckily my husband is a very rational man who doesn't get caught up in this sort of nonsense.

The boyfriend was an ally to begin with, he could see her behaviour towards us was out of order, but since Christmas he's changed his stance and now feels we're unfair to her. I haven't helped the situation by the fact that the few times I challenge her on things has been when he was around, because i felt safer challenging her with him there (my husband works abroad)...this has convinced him I provoke her which couldn't be further from the truth, I avoid any confrontation at all costs most of the time.

I want her to come home and for us to fix this mess...I don't know what will happen next..

[FaithHopeLove]

Hello, Clara72,
I join the others in welcoming you here and assuring you that you are in the right place to get help and support for your 18 year old daughter, who may have undiagnosed BPD, and yourself. Many of us have found that, while we can't change our children, we can change ourselves in ways that bring us peace and help us improve our relationships with them. I apologize if someone asked already, but are you taking care of yourself as you go through this?

[Clara72]

Hi Faithhopelove

I have six children (my daughter is the eldest) so self care is pretty low down on the list in any case! She's been like this for 15 years, it's a way of life for us, we're careful, watchful, tolerant, and occasionally everything explodes...her brothers have no time for her at all at this stage, they are obedient and over all well behaved boys thank goodness, which I think almost makes things worse in a way...

At present she's gone and is ignoring me. I sent her an email today telling her I was sorry I had failed her (a psychologist friend suggested she needed to hear that I was taking some responsibility for it...that I was that bad person she needed me to be)..I asked her to come home and we'd get her some help, but no response. I can do no more at this point.

[stampingt1]

Welcome Clara72,

I think you did the right thing by letting your daughter off at the closer bus stop & suggesting that she find a new place to live. You & the family need to have some quiet time. Maybe even some therapy & reading some books on BPD.

Our son 18 was recently diagnosed w/ borderline personality traits. Dr's don't like to make the final diagnosis until mid 20's when the brain has stopped growing.  However, his therapist thinks is just anxiety.  Unfortunately, we don't believe that is the case. Son has almost daily breakdowns & hates school & practically everything else. Then he hits himself in the head & calls himself "retarded". It's such a roller coaster. He can not be reasoned w/ during these episodes.

He has missed 7 days in a row of school. This is his final trimester & needs to get in gear & attend school. His other diagnoses include complicated migraines, anxiety, & ibs w/ constipation.

Stampingt1

[Clara72]

Hi Stampingt1

Have you considered he's on the autism spectrum? I know that bowel issues and head banging (which are related btw...pain from gut causes these children to hit their heads to divert the pain) are both symptoms of autism, brought on by the MMR, I know many people with these problems. Just a thought. I hope things get better soon.

[Skip]

symptoms of autism, brought on by the MMR

Hi Clara, I know there is a lot of controversy regarding the MMR vaccine - a vaccine against measles, mumps, and rubella (German measles). We don't have a position on it here at  bpdfamily, nor do we encourage you to change your beliefs but we do like to let members know that there is not a medical consensus on the connection of MMR vaccine and Autism. In 1998 Andrew Wakefield et al. published a paper about twelve children, reportedly with bowel symptoms and autism acquired soon after administration of MMR vaccine. In 2010, Wakefield's research was said to contain "deliberate falsification" by the General Medical Council (UK) , and The Lancet fully retracted the paper. The research was later declared fraudulent (2011) by the British Medical Journal. Subsequent peer-reviewed studies have not shown an association between the vaccine and autism that Wakefield claimed. Currently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (USA), the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), the UK National Health Service  and the Cochrane Library have all reported that they see no evidence of a link at this time. Again, we are not challenging your beliefs - we just like to let members know that there are strongly differing opinions on this matter. Skip

[Skip]

I thought I was free of her for a while and actually enjoyed the peace in the house, but over the weekend I discovered she was hacking my messenger and screenshotting some embarrassing messages and sending them to my husband. This has totally shocked me, I thought it would be out of sight out of mind but it seems she's hell bent on making my husband understand that I am the bad person, and when he refused to see it that way she was even angrier.

I'm really sorry to hear how bad things have become. It's heartbreaking when our children turn on us.

Has she gone off and returned before or is this the first time? Do you know where she is?

[Clara72]

She's never done this before, but she turned 18 the week it happened so we were all sort of building towards it. What her leaving had done has made me realise she does need help, it's clear to me now in a way it wasn't before...I think I was so mired in just trying to  get through each day with her I never stopped to think we might be able to do something about it.

(Skip sorry, I forget this is still controversial, if you dig deeper you'll discover Wakefield was one of 13 scientists who reached that conclusion but was the only one with enough guts to stick to his guns. He paid dearly for it. But it wasn't just him saying it, it was hundreds of thousands of parents too and many other health professionals. But we'll park that discussion for another day. :-) )

[Skip]

She's never done this before, but she turned 18 the week it happened so we were all sort of building towards it. What her leaving had done has made me realise she does need help, it's clear to me now in a way it wasn't before...I think I was so mired in just trying to  get through each day with her I never stopped to think we might be able to do something about it.

Six kids is a lot of "mire".   

Have you seen this book?

Loving Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder Author: Shari Y. Manning, PhD Publisher: The Guilford Press; 1 edition (August 15, 2011) Paperback: 253 pages ISBN-10: 1593856075 ISBN-13: 978-1593856076

It's a great reference for tools that you can use  to help stabilize things.

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

[Clara72]

Thanks for the recommendation, shall order this. It's a bit of a relief to have a name for what is going on with her, I've always been criticised by my family for being too soft with her, I didn't give her enough bounderies or punish enough, what they couldn't understand was that these things just weren't workable with her, she wasn't like other children. Now I can start to understand what's going on here. cx

[stampingt1]

Clara72,

My DS18 is a lot of things, but pretty sure he's not on the autism spectrum. He's always been strong willed. However, these bad meltdowns have only started w/in the last 6 months.

Hoping a neurologist appointment & a 3 day EEG study will let us know if he is having temporal lobe seizures. Psychologist thinks that might be the problem, since it's like a light switch has been turned on.

Stampingt1