New member, Newly diagnosis does

[Thunder8]

Hi all

So my 23 yo daughter was just diagnosed with BPD. We have been estranged for several years but since a serious suicide attempt and residential treatment we are mending fences. Guilty is so strong right now. Why didn’t we catch this earlier, did we patent wrong, or could we have done something different. Growing up we attributed her behavior as normal child or teen behavior when now looking back it was more extreme then normal. Just trying to figure this all out.

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

[FaithHopeLove]

Hello Thunder
Welcome to the support group. I am glad you found us. I am sorry to hear about your daughter. If anyone understands what you are going through it is us. Feeling guilty and second guessing yourself is totally understandable but I am sure you were the best parent you could possibly be so there really is no reason to beat yourself up over your daughter's condition. No one can change the past but we can all work toward a better future. I am glad to hear you and your daughter are mending fences already. How are you doing that? Are you interested in learning more communication skills? We are all here for you.
Hugs
Faith

[Thunder8]

So a little more information might help to explain our journey. At 18 things had escalated to the point our daughter moved out with her boyfriend after about 1 year of infrequent communication she decided to move home. Nothing seemed to improve still having emotional ups and downs, fits of rage and very self centered. Everything exploded on a family trip to Colorado when she didn’t get here act way. My husband said “another family trip ruined”. It was time to look for other housing options. I hate to say it but a complete calm came over the house when she moved out. More time could be spent with our younger child who really was put aside because we always had to deal with a crisis with his sister. After living on her own she became involved with a man twice her age who was a registered sex offender. Of course according to her he didn’t do it. At that time we set up boundaries and said she would always be welcome but he would never be. We became estranged for about 3 years with little contact. 8 weeks ago she attempted suicide and was in ICU for a week and on a psych hold for another week. She reached out to us for help and wanted help. Thank goodness we have excellent insurance and she has been in an excellent residential treatment center that uses CBT and DBT and she has been embracing it. This also was were the diagnosis was discovered. This treatment center has helped us develop a more health relationship and mend the broken bridges. She also has broken off her relationship and decide to get out of state and stay with her grandparents to go to a partial hospitalization and the intensive outpatient therapy. Living in a rural area these are not available so thank goodness my parents live in a larger area that offers.

I know we are lucky in so many ways ( good insurance, daughter that has good school and work ethics and daughter wanting to work a program), but we still feel like we are on eggshells waiting for it to fall apart again.

[FaithHopeLove]

Thanks for that bigger picture. I agree that you are lucky in many ways but I can also see how you might still feel like you are walking on eggshells. Have you read the book, "Stop Walking on Eggshells"? I think it would be perfect for you.

[Resiliant]

Hi Thunder,
I too attributed my son's behaviour to teenage rebellion, and looking back I have some of the same feelings of guilt that you expressed.   The good news is that she reached out to you at her time of crisis.  And, you have been good at setting limits in the past. Even though we have things to learn about BPD and may handle things differently in the future, at least we know how to set limits.
When I look back I often think that if I did things differently what really would have changed?   You could have struggled to help her and struggled to get her away from the situations that she put herself in but would you have been successful or would she have been strong-willed enough to do what she did anyways.
My son too was out of the house at a young age.   It seemed to us that he just didn't want to work or take care of himself and we felt that he had to learn that if you don't work you don't eat.  He spent some time wandering, spent some years busking for a living and now he actually holds a full-time job.  He pulled himself out of it.  Still not easy, he's angry at me that he's not well off and that we lived in a nice house while he was homeless.  He is now 31, and me until he was 30 to realize that he was BPD.   For years I just thought, oh - he takes after his father.  All the ranting and raging and anger management issues etc.  Now I realize that his father shows traits of BPD as well.   Now that I understand BPD and have compassion for the emotional disregulation and other issues I can relate to him much better.
This could be a good turning point for your daughter.  I encourage you to read all that you can, get some good books and use the resources that this site offers.
On a side note -  like your daughter I too took off with an older man when I was young.  Our relationship started when I was 15 and he was 38.   My parents found out when I was 18, kicked me out of the house and they were so upset they moved across the country.  I eventually married the man and he is the father of my two children.  We ended up having a very sucessful business together but in the end it didn't last.   I don't believe that I have any of the traits of BPD and so maybe that is different but I do believe my parents did the right thing.  They didn't let me ruin their lives, didn't fight with me about things.  They tried talking to me, had elders of the church try talking to me and when it didn't work they "detached with love".   We ended up having a good relationship in time after that.  They set limits and stuck to them.
Again, I hope this is a turning point for your family.  All the best! 

[livednlearned]

Loving Someone with BPD by Shari Manning is excellent, and so is When Your Daughter Has BPD by Lobel, especially the section that focuses on family members and how BPD impacts them.

Struggles with emotion regulation are largely genetic. It's true that creating a more validating environment for sensitive kids can offset some of the challenges, but there are no guarantees.

The best thing you did was to set a firm boundary about the sex offender BF. That suggests that you will take to limit setting like a duck to water  which is one of the most important and challenging aspects of loving a child with BPD.

If you are a reader, the book Buddha and the Borderline is a memoir written by a lovely woman whose BPD symptoms go into remission as she works DBT into her daily life and searches to create a life worth living for herself. It helped me get in touch with my compassion.

I know it's easier said than done to say don't feel guilty ... it's a process that hopefully ends in forgiveness for yourself so that when your daughter seeks to offload what are now her responsibilities going forward, she encounters your self-love at the same time as validation of her feelings. It's a tricky tight rope walk that can be deeply healing for a sensitive child whose emotions tend to sabotage her from getting what she desperately wants.