BPD

[Smilealways]

Hi all you lovely people this is my first post,   where to start! my daughter is 37 and has just been diagnosed with BPD she was always told she had Bipolar, my daughter is a lovely girl when she is my daughter she has different traits the main one is a very angry and abusive person who I don't recognise, I sometimes trigger this other person with things i say she may take them the wrong way and like a light switch she has changed i never know what to say or how to say them i walk on egg shells all the time i talk to friends and its difficult for them to understand as they are not living it so its good to chat with people who actually know where we are coming from Thank you    

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

[Roisin]

Welcome    I too am new this on- line group. I have found it to be so helpful knowing I am not alone. Knowing that other parents do, say & feel as I do. My 23 yr old daughter is diagnosed BPD. For many years professionals tried to put it off to bipolar & tried all sorts of medications. Then it was the medication cocktails. None of them worked, often times in made the situation worse. I think a lot of parents have had similar experiences. It’s difficult to get a diagnosis. It certainly is a very disturbing mental health illness to live with. I was raised [ if you could call it that ] by a mother with severe BPD. To then have my daughter have this disorder was heartbreaking. Is still heartbreaking.
My daughter like yours has those very different sides to herself. Rarely do I see the tender loving side, more often she is in an agitated state, snarky & extremely self absorbed.I lived my childhood walking on eggshells & had been in therapy for a long time before having this daughter. The problem I encountered was that I wasn’t going to tolerate unacceptable behaviors. She was not having that, she’d escalate to physical violence at which point I would have to call emergency services or the police. That was an eye opener for me a young child being so violent. I was use to it with my mother but she was an adult. Not a child.
Still to this day she can go from 0 to 60 with a blink of the eye. The physical violence had stopped in her teens for the most part. I think because she got tired of me calling the police spending days in an emergency room waiting for a bed at some sorry excuse for a psychiatric hospital. Living like that takes its toll on the strongest of people. This illness will knock one to their knees. It’s so important to get help for ones self. l use to say to my therapist “ I should be drooling on a back ward by now. “ She would laugh and agree but remind me of the mother I am & the love I have for my children. I had to keep going, taking care of myself & keeping to the boundaries set regarding her. Two years ago I had to have her leave my home for threatening to do violence. She now lives in her own apartment. And I still can do nothing right, & I am the one always messing things up for her. I’m powerless over that when she is in that space I refuse to be around her. She does not want to look at herself or engage in any real therapy. She does have a therapist. She requested he be a male. Men work best for her. She is absolutely stunning, engaging when she wants to be and can play the part of the victim quite well. If ever I was ask to join in her therapy & another side was shared therapy would be over. Always the same routine, therapist said  “ it’s good to take a break. “
And yes it’s good to take a break for ourselves. Time to rest & regenerate.

[Smilealways]

Thank you Roisin, its good to know I'm not alone, its funny how you mentioned your mum having the same illness, my mum too showed similar signs but we put it down to (going through the change, she would snap and turn into this other person ) makes you wonder? like your daughter my daughter refuses counselling, and when its mentioned she flips this other person takes over, my daughter can certainly hurt you with her words, she evens says she can hear the words coming from her mouth but she cannot stop them this other person is too strong, itis good to talk about what I'm going through thank you