New member - child with BPD

[clmorsecoded]

Hello group. I am new, and looking to connect with others who have BPDs in their lives, especially children.  I have a 17YO BPD / bi-polar daughter who has been in and out of residential programs over the last year and a half. Our journey kicked off with our daughter attempting suicide and admitting she has an eating disorder.  It is very difficult to have conversations with our daughter, and she is not interested still even after the residential stays, to engage in long-term treatments. As her caretaker, I'm exhausted.

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

[love never fails]

Welcome.  I have an 18 y.o. D that has had a number of diagnoses, bpd and bipolar among them.  I have found this site helpful especially reading about the experiences of others to know I am not alone.

There are no easy answers with bpd, but I have learned several things that have been helpful.  The first is to validate the valid.  My D tends to scream about so many things that upset her.  She turns everything into a crisis and catastrophe.   I used to try to point out how things weren't that bad, help her see the bright side, but that would make her more angry.  Now, I try to understand how it feels to her and find something that I can say that affirms how difficult, frustrating, etc. it must be.  I will admit that when she is screaming accusations at me that I am an evil, horrible person, I don't try to find anything to affirm :-)

Keep reading and posting.  Make sure to take care of yourself.  I think many of us have found that we have allowed our bpd children to basically destroy us.

[Sancho]

I think you make a really important point Loveneverfails.

I used to do the same thing - when Dd was going crazy about some small thing I would try to help her see that it wasn't that bad, which made it worse of course because it just added 'nobody understands' to the response.

Validating is much better 'Yes it's really disappointing when that happens'
and silence when abuse is flowing.

So understand your exhaustion clmorsecoded. The constant emotional and physical drain takes its toll. I hope you are able to find even small amounts of time out to breathe away the tension and be kind to yourself.

[RobertX]

Hello  - so sorry to hear that you are exhausted.  Having read a number of posts on various sites this is a very common theme.  It is so punishing it's unbelievable.   My son is intelligent, bright (when not consumed with weed) and at University.   However he is just so nasty.  He is obsessed with his BPD condition and blames us for having it - citing various moments in his childhood where we should have acted differently.  He claims we manipulate him and 'gaslight' him and use narratives to confuse him.  All very tricky.  After the last incident we have decided to make it his responsibility to improve his condition.  It is his responsibility to get help and we will support him if needed.  We are also reducing his weekly allowance at Uni as a consequence of recent issues.  If he has enough money to buy weed then he can do so without us financing it.  Clearly we are worried about being too harsh but all other attempts to appease him  over the last 18 months have failed and if anything it's made things worse.  He is actually quite controlling and is a real bully with my wife.  Who knows what the right approach is...do others have experience of taking a harder line?

[Rev]

Hi Coded,

My 25yr old D is also Bi-Polar.

My heart goes out to you about the exhaustion. This does take alot of energy doesn't it.

I don't have any "advice" to offer here. I'll take time to follow the post to see what I can learn about my own situation and wade in if I notice something that others haven't seen. There's so many experienced people here.

For now - I'll just say this - Hang in there. You're not alone.

Rev

[clmorsecoded]

Thanks so much for everyone's kind words of support. I apologize for not responding sooner - as I'm sure you all understand, it's a bit busy.  On top of my 17YO, I have an almost-6 month old daughter as well with my second husband (17YO's step dad).  She is a bright light.

@loveneverfails and @sancho - I took some DBT classes with my daughter, and am hoping to do more reading and working at DBT.  Validating can be hard especially when they seem so out of control. Like you both, pretty much everything for our daughter is a complete crisis, and resilience is just not a word in her vocabulary. How do you validate feelings and also make sure they understand you don't agree in times that you cannot let certain thinking continue?

@robertx - mine is also very verbally abusive, and a bully when she isn't getting what she wants, but sweet when she wants something (until she is told no).  I have started being tougher on her too.  I'm in the process now of letting her miss school with unexcused absences because I just can't spend an hour every day fighting with her to get out of bed on time to eat, and then go.  Now I tell her once, get her breakfast ready since we are still in the middle of meal support, and she cannot go to school until she has eaten.  If she has unexcused absences, we are letting her deal with the consequences.  It's hard, but it sounds like you are being a brave parent by reducing his finances. 

@Rev - yes it does take a lot of energy.  I'm also looking forward to what I can learn on here. 

And to all of you - thanks... it's really nice not to be alone.