New here

[windswept]

Hi community!  I'm here because my partner's daughter displays signs of BPD.  A friend told me about the Essential Family Guide and I found this site through the book.  My partner and I have been feeling completely overwhelmed and out of our league in dealing with his daughter's volatility, rage, and extreme reactivity.  I'm hoping that the book, the group and counseling can help us to understand BPD and learn to interact with our child in a healthy way.
I look forward to connecting.

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

[Swimmy55]

Welcome! We are glad you found us.  If you are comfortable can you tell us the age of your partners child ? Can you go into more detail about the rages? Just want to be able to respond to you better. It sounds that you all are off to a great start with the counseling.

[FaithHopeLove]

Hello Windswept
I join Swimmy in welcoming you to the group. You must be a very loving person to care so much about your partner's child. The EFG is a great resource. If you are a bookworm like me and want to really read up on BPD this is definitely the place to do it. There is a ton of clinically responsible information here along with some pretty great people (if I so say so myself). I am happy you joined us and look forward to hearing more about the journey of love and understanding you and your partner are on.
Faith

[windswept]

Thank you for the warm welcome!  My partner's daughter is 12.  She is adopted (at age 2) and has struggled the whole of the time that she's been with her adopted parents.  When I read the part of the book that described BP behavior as being extreme, it really resonated with what I've seen in her.  She has extreme reactions to everything.  Even "good" things will send her into a highly stimulated state where she is unable to calm down.  But, "bad" things or times when things aren't going the way she wants are "the end of the world."  She's has a lot of trouble getting along at school with peers and teachers. I've known her for a year and a half.  Her rages are usually the result of something not going her way, but it's often difficult to figure out what triggered her because she creates stories about what's happening and seems to live in her own version of reality.  I am her current target and she rages at her dad about me.  She screams at him that she hates me and doesn't want to live with us, then she throws things, slams doors, etc.  The thing that's interesting to me about that is that I would be able to more easily understand her "hating me" if I had more of a parenting/authoritarian role in her life.  But, I don't. In fact, I work evenings, so I don't have much interaction with her at all most days.  Even so, I can be at work until 9:00pm, then come home to her raging to her dad about me.  This behavior is part of what is helping me understand that it's not actually about me and that she most likely does have BP or something similar. She and I initially had a really good connection and she would talk to me and ask me questions.  She liked the attention I gave her and we had a good bond.  Things have definitely shifted, though, and now I'm completely unsettled.  I keep reminding myself that she's ill, in an effort to keep from taking the things she says about me personally, but it can be extremely difficult when I'm being called horrible names at the top of her lungs.  Things are always worse after she returns from her mom's house (her mom and dad have joint custody), so I wonder if there is an element of trash-talking happening from her mom that is escalating the situation. It's confusing and frustrating and some days I just want to run for the hills. 

[FaithHopeLove]

I don't blame you for wanting to head for the hills. I would feel the same way in your situation. The blame game can be very wearing.  Perhaps it would help to understand the reason behind it? People with BPD experience very intense emotions, as you have already observed. Sometimes these emotions become intolerable. They feel bad inside and they are not able to connect that bad feeling to their own behavior so they decide it must be someone else who is causing the bad feeling and who better than a new step mom to go at? No, it isn't fair or even logical by non-BPD standards. But there is a reason for it. Deep down they are not hateful. They are hurting.

My son plays the blame game too. My husband and I are learning not to take it personally by constantly reminding ourselves that he really is doing the best he can for now. Meanwhile we focus on self care by taking time out away from BPD related drama and seeing therapists who help us keep our own sanity in the midst of a tough situation.

What do you do for self care?

hugs
Faith