New here and lost in life

[Mom1234]

  my daughter is 17 and has not been officially diagnosed. We have been told by 3 psychiatrists they see the traits of BPD but she is to young to diagnose it. Currently she is inpatient for a suicide attempt, 4th inpatient stay this year. We are exhausted, overwhelmed, afraid, and a mix of other emotions. I guess I’m just hoping to gain some insight to what others may be experiencing. I’m not familiar with this site but am trying to expand my resources.

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! You are at the right place.  The good news is that your daughter is receiving treatment.  BPD traits/ diagnosis is very exhausting, frustrating and frightening.  There is no one easy cure for this , but there is hope.  The first recommendation is to get familiar with what BPD is.  Please have a look around this website.  Look under the "tools" tab at the top of the page.  In addition , the library here has good reading suggestions such as " Walking on Eggshells".
Self care is essential .  Can you carve out any time for you to "fill up your gas tank" so to speak?  Meditation, yoga?  There are many here who also have their own therapists as part of their support network .  I know for myself all my energy was spent on my BPD son and I completely lost myself in him and his disease .  Please write to us here as often as you need.  We are here for you.

[Juki]

Hi Mom1234 and welcome  

I'm so sorry to hear about your daughter and her suicide attempts.  That is terribly frightening and beyond stressful. I have only experienced suicidal threats on a few occasions in the past from my APD son and that sent me into another stratosphere of distress and anxiety.  Generally personality disorders such as BPD are not formally diagnosed until the person reaches adulthood, is "mature", and the behaviour has stabilized into a pattern.  This doesn't mean that the person doesn't have BPD.

As Swimmy said, it is extremely important to self-care in any way you can. My saviour has been art and therapy.   I have my own therapist who helps to keep me grounded, stable and provides me with the appropriate tools and psychoeducation.  This support has been my lifesaver on many occasions and much better than the judgemental and subjective support I have received from family or friends who do not understand BPD.  Anyone who has not had a lived experience of BPD, or is not educated about it, cannot fully understand, which is why a forum like this is great - people do understand and can relate.

Please let us know how you and your daughter are getting on.
Take care
Juki xx

[pear]

I posted on here once about a year ago. I can identify and relate to what you described. My DD is diagnosed and is 17 and we had 7 cyclical inpatient stays the last one over 15 months ago following a suicide attempt at school. When post made, I received two welcoming posts saying to self care etc. This is the first visit back because frankly I was too busy keeping my head above the water.  I would like to share what has been beneficial. I read a lot. I find Dr. Daniel? Foxes videos on youtube helpful in hindsight now. We learned about validation. DBT skill building helped. Eventually we initiated guitar lessons--it is slowly improving focus. We have been in continual therapies and such but the most helpful ones have included dogs or horses, after DBT skills learned. We had to put our foot down to escalating leading to ER visits for things. Providers continually wanted to throw her inpatient. Her med list has been pretty stable after changing to treat both anxiety and depression with Venlafaxine. I hope she will be able to wean off it within the next 6mos to a 1 year. I agree that there is a quality of losing your footing and way when things are continually in crisis. I hope you are able to get some footing back, and soothe yourself and family member for the survivor that is in each of you. Hang in there.