Take Poll (it functions): Do you support your adult BPD financially?

[Parents! Get help here!]

Please take my poll found above this post. Look up ^

[Leaf56]

Please take my poll found above this post. Look up ^

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

[Leaf56]

Yay! More people took the poll! It’d be great to get at least 100 responses but I guess that’s not gonna happen.

[marzipan67]

Well, I took the poll.

[Leaf56]

Thanks!

[ILMBPDC]

I took the poll but wanted to point out that my daughter just finished college and lived at home during that time and still does while she and her bf save up money to move out. I chose that I support her since she lives at home, but they pay for almost all of their expenses outside of household bills/phone.

[Leaf56]

Bumping up in the hopes that more people will take the poll.

[Leaf56]

Wow, we're up to 12 voters (she said sarcastically). Based on the views for each of the thread, I'd think there were at least 100 people here regularly. If you have an adult child, could you pretty please take the poll?

[Leaf56]

Folks, 606 views and only 14 votes, is there any way to cajole y'all to take the poll yourselves? It's obvious many people want to know by the amount of views, but the results are meaningless unless everybody with adult BPDs takes it. Pretty please?

[wendydarling]

Thanks Leaf56 for the poll.  I voted 'I support them', though also wanted to vote for 'I give no money'. My 33 DD lives at home. She gave up her job end of 2016,to focus on her health, receives a small health benefit (likely to lose this year) which she contributes to food etc and pays for her cat, mobile etc. It's time for her to gain employment ...

WDx

[Leaf56]

Bumping this up again. Would still love to get response at least to 100

[Elizabeth22]

No, we don't
Also found out DIL was grifting everyone in the family who would let her so I had to tell them all to stop sending her money or things she asked for, for herself or the kids, because she returned it or sold it for money

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

[StepMothering]

I just found your current reference to this poll. I do think there is a missing component. There is giving money and there is spending money. We don't directly give that much money to SD with BPD but we do spend a ton. We paid for a full psychiatric assessment, where they did MRI, DNA testing and all the diagnosis possible. This was valuable because it is what gave us the BPD diagnosis with trauma/PTSD at the core. We paid for inpatient treatment which she dropped out of. We paid for an outpatient program which she would only attend individual session and not group. We paid for a trade school so maybe, just maybe she would be able to graduate and support herself. It looks like she has dropped out of this too. We have paid for numerous courses & associated equipment that was "needed" for these courses. We are paying for her car so she can get to/from school. Her mother pays the auto insurance. And on and on.
How much money have we GIVEN her? Probably less than $10,000
How much money have we spent on her? Probably upwards of $300,000 just over the last 2 years

[Leaf56]

You're absolutely right. It would have been more accurate to have said "give money to" or "support in another way."

[Sancho]

I'm not sure what the purpose of this poll is? Also need to keep in mind that there are plenty of parents/family who financially support their non-bpd child.

[Leaf56]

The purpose was to find out if people were supporting their adult child with BPD because I wanted to know. I wasn’t interested in whether or not they were supporting their non-BPD adult children at the time, but that would be an interesting question. I created the poll 2 years ago, right when I was initially deciding to stop giving my son any money or pay for anything else, and I was curious to know what other parents were doing.

[Tulipps]

I took the poll when you first posted it. At that time I was still supporting but I'm not now. It's hard to believe - or not , that in spite of two+ years of notice re how funding would be reduced over time and then end, I was vilified for my apparent cruelty, "pulling the rug out", dumping (abandoning), etc. Every manipulation button was utilized. She was "on the verge of making it" and it was clearly my fault if anything happened to her. A knife in the heart... at the time. Now it's just a dull pain.

As I've mentioned before, in my view her dysregulation is an explanation, not an excuse. Her resulting impulsive behavior did not put more money in the bank. Quite the opposite. I can never replace the retirement funds spent with the intention of giving her "a leg up" in some way.

My advice to parents asking themselves money questions is to start looking for manipulation patterns. If you're hearing:
I just need this one thing/This is the last time I'll ask/I promise to pay you back
If you don't help me I'll kill myself/be on the street/be a prostitute
How dare you not help me when I need you most/what happened to my mother
I'm going to tell everyone how horrible you are and the horrible things you've said about (so and so)

If you're hearing those types of things, make a note of it. Now wait a year. Are you still hearing the same things? Is it now two years later? How about five? Are you jeopardizing your own financial security? Are you now too enmeshed to be objective? It's a tricky situation. 

I can't go backwards but I can certainly reflect on the past 14 years or so. There is a lot I'd do differently.



 

[Leaf56]

I would add to your list the recent requests my son has made:
You mean you won't even give me twenty bucks for food?
You mean you won't even pay my student loans?
You mean you won't even pay for my health insurance?
You mean you won't even pay for my therapy? (after 3 therapists in a row "fired" him as a patient)
You mean you won't even pay for my physical therapy?
You mean you won't even drive me to my doctor's appointments?

The answer to all such questions is "No, I told you 2 years ago that all requests for financial assistance of any kind or help with something you can do for yourself would be met with the word 'no' and that the continued asking of such questions would result in my not talking to you for a period of time. If you want to have a relationship with me, you have to accept that it is no longer transactional." He tries to replace my giving of money with giving of my time to talk, which I'm happy to do if the conversation stays respectful and free of all BPD nonsense. Since that rarely happens, we seldom speak.

[StepMothering]

Wow Tulipps
Your post really resonates with me. I wonder where my husband & I will be in a year if I am already asking myself questions about shutting off the pipeline.

[Sadmomforchild]

I cannot seem to take the poll.  DISREGARD! I was able to do it after I posted. I guess it was because this is my first post. My 20 yr. old daughter has decided to go no contact as she blames us for her problems. At this time I continue to pay for her cell phone, because that is my only means for knowing where she is. Unbelievably she has not turned her location off and I want that knowledge for my own sanity. I am not paying for her rent, food clothes, etc... I did have to pay off a 7000.00 student loan as I was co-signer. This month ended that ordeal. She dropped out and received no credits , so it was just tossing 7000.00 out the window.

[Leaf56]

Hi sadmom, yeah, I would not have been able to give up the cell phone link to my son when he was 20 either. It's only now that he's 27 (and one of his younger brothers is married, has his own son, and is fully supporting not only himself but his little family) that my eldest son's status of being supported by me just suddenly seemed ridiculous. When he phoned me from the first hospitalization almost 4 years ago now to call me a b****, tell me to never speak to him again, and say "and go ahead and cancel my cell phone," I decided to take him up on it. It was very scary but extremely liberating. And then I realized how absurd it is to be able to track my then 23-year-old son. I should not have been doing that at his age. In the case of my son, he is a full-fledged adult. He should be responsible for his own life and not have his mommy checking on him and keeping him safe. BPD is not cancer. It's not schizophrenia. They don't have to act like this, they choose to. And they will continue acting like this until we no longer let them.