Need help

[Parents! Get help here!]

My daughter is 19 and says that she was diagnosed with bpd. She has had multiple mental health diagnoses. I do believe that she has bpd and she needs help, we need help. I don’t know where to start. She has a doctors appointment next week and I’m not sure what to ask for.

[Belmont 454]

My daughter is 19 and says that she was diagnosed with bpd. She has had multiple mental health diagnoses. I do believe that she has bpd and she needs help, we need help. I don’t know where to start. She has a doctors appointment next week and I’m not sure what to ask for.

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

[PearlsBefore]

If she's meeting with a general family doctor next week, they'll likely refer her to a therapist and possibly prescribe her medication if she has problems with self-harm, suicidalism or panic attacks. Those three symptoms can lead to three different types of medication depending which is currently most pressing (self-harm will result in something like daily escitalopram taken on a schedule, suicidalism may result in similar or may result in a more common anti-depressant intended to alleviate depression but not necessarily as effective against BPD-suicidalism, panic attacks will lead to a more acute solution like alprazolam or lorazepam that are taken only as-needed).

Ultimately you may want her to see a professional who has experience dealing with BPD rather than a general therapist, but in the meantime often BPD patients will still improve just from the feeling of "validation" that they get from common therapists who are typically pretty good at mirroring CBT/DBT skills in communication and thus leave BPD patients feeling like they're getting better even if it's a placebo-effect.