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Author Topic: BPD 40 yo brother worse off after residential program  (Read 353 times)
gratefulbob

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What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Sibling
Relationship status: brother
Posts: 3


« on: March 28, 2021, 04:54:34 PM »

Hi everyone! I posted on this forum back in July 2020 about my brother. I copy pasted that post below. Not much has changed since my brother left the program. He was in a sober living home for a while. He was sharing a room and apparently kept it quite filthy and upset multiple roommates. He ended up moving back to my parents house because several people at the SL house got covid. Now he's been at my parents house sleeping a lot, watching YT videos all day, and probably more overweight than ever after working with a diet mentor for many months. He won't get a job and basically yells at anyone who tells him to do even basic things like clean trash in his room, get a job, or do something productive. Now he wants to go to music school. He has never done anything related to music except fiddle around with a guitar occasionally. There is no reasoning with him on any level.

At this point I'm not expecting anyone to post a solution. He's had so much help from so many dedicated professionals and nothing works. I feel like he's just going to suck my parents of their retirement savings and when they get too old, I will be guilted into providing care for him and deal with his erratic behavior for the reminder of my life.

Thanks for reading!


I am writing regarding my brother who has multiple mental health issues. He is 39 years old and lives north of Los Angeles. Since childhood, he has had multiple psychiatric diagnoses including ADHD, OCD, depression. He's seen many psychiatrists and psychologists and been on countless medication regimens. He has been on and off abusing substance like adderall, benzos, marijuana, alcohol. He plays video games all night since his early 20s and avoiding other pursuits like employment, dating, friendships, and family. He has episodes of becoming aggressive at times and cutting himself. Based on all his behaviors, I believe he has borderline personality disorder.

He is a smart guy in a lot of ways. He earned a bachelors in english, and is well read. However over the last 10-15 years he has progressively struggled with finding stability and independence in his life and is becoming less functional. He was recently living in a subsidized apartment and could barely keep it clean or cook for himself.

Our family doesn’t know how to help him succeed.  He has been in and out of many sober living homes over the past 10 yrs.  Last year he started working full time after 10 yrs of refusing to work and living off my parents. Every time they tried to establish boundaries, or cut him off, he would say that he’s feeling suicidal, goto the ER, or cut himself. They were scared so they continued their financial support. He quit his last job because his anxiety worsened. He thought that his co-workers were all talking about him and conspiring against him.

For the last 3 months, he has been in a residential mental health program and living at their affiliated sober living home. Many of the patients who went there had been in horrible shape before and ended up benefiting tremendously, going on to do well afterwards. However, he seems to be getting worse. His therapist there told him he’s the most resistant to treatment patient she has seen in 20 years! He doesn’t want to work. My parents won’t totally withdraw support because they feel like he will be homeless, do drugs, and end up actually killing himself. The social worker says he doesn’t qualify for disability. The psychiatrist says he could write a letter for disability but it would be doing him a big disservice. It seems like almost everyone involved in his care says he can work.

We are trying to figure out where he can go after this. He refuses to go to sober living. We are trying to get him into a group home but the one’s we visited have people who can barely talk and have serious cognitive issues. My parents are getting older, more tired, stressed and don't have the mental strength to set boundaries or cut him off as so many people recommend.

I would be extremely grateful for any advise.

Sincerely,

Bob
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PearlsBefore
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What is your sexual orientation: Confidential
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Family other
Posts: 420



« Reply #1 on: March 29, 2021, 12:37:13 PM »

Sounds like a rough situation; I have a second-degree non-BPD relative who similarly is left living with his aging parents while his depression and substance abuse consume those around him. Once upon a time he liked ready edgy fiction like Bukowski or Palahnuik, but that gradually gave way as alcohol and drugs essentially left him without the attention span to process them - it's been years since anyone's had much beyond a conversation about Reddit headlines with him.

The debate, as you touch on, is whether to push him onto disability/social services, or if that will just further enable him to think of himself as permanently in this rut. Personally I'm in the "Get him on disability" camp, most other relatives are in the "just wait until he finds Jesus and turns his life around, disability would hold him back then!" camp...but both sides do have valid points.

The messiness and lack of hygiene can often come about "just" from depression without the overlapping diagnoses - and possibly you'll be able to come up with a specific plan that motivates him enough to earn $x this year at least. I'm guessing "independence" is too abstract a notion - but "if you can earn $4000 and buy that truck" or "earn $4000 and come with me on that cruise" or "earn $4000 and buy a snowmobile" or something might help to at least get him dipping his toe back in the water?

Benzos are often prescribed for BPD symptoms due to drastically reducing the anxiety, so I do often remind people that what looks like Benzo-abuse to the regular world might be a BPD person's attempts to legitimately self-medicate (in a way that is healthier than alcohol and marijuana). Even if he doesn't have a prescription, it's possible relatives could "make a deal" with him where they'll allow/pay for twenty five .25s of alprazolam or whatever he's currently getting...in exchange for cutting his alcohol back from hard/wine to just beer or something?

One thing I've noticed myself just anecdotally is that while "true" alcoholics need a certain blood level to feel sated, "BPD Alcoholics" can be a little more easily "tricked" into reducing their intake because they just want to believe they're drunk, believe they're making a point, believe they're numb...because reality and belief are so blurred together in BPD. So it's possible he'll learn to prefer five beers a day that he can show off more often, rather than three glasses of wine...not realizing that he's actually damaging his liver less and a little more sober than he was with the wine/hard. On that note, I'd hoped years ago to be able to convince this particular relative that the "hemp/cannabis-infused beer" could help him save money by giving him both buzzes at once (while realistically being way, way less harmful to him) - though it didn't work because apparently he viewed marijuana as his hedonist bliss and beer as his masochist self-harm. *shrugs*

Best of luck to you, know that we're here for you and while we don't always respond...we're always reading it, it's just that sometimes we're at a loss for words and don't know how to respond. After all, if any of us knew how to cure the damned BPD then we'd hardly be on this forum ;)
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