Heartbroken

[Pammy D]

I have an 18 yo who has been so verbally abusive to my husband, myself and my daughter and it all came to a head two days ago. My kid has decided to move out and live in their car because they can’t take our abuse anymore, but we are not the abusive ones. We react as any human would when targeted so vehemently as our BPD kid does. My mother died two weeks ago and the day after her funeral my kid had an episode of despair and suicidal ideation. I definitely said the wrong things when we got home which I apologized for but my kid has decided they are moving out and living in their car, and disowning is. Everything I do is wrong and my poor husband has it even worse.  My kid will never take responsibility for how they treat others and always turns it around on us. I not only lost my mom this month but now I am losing my kid. I am heartbroken beyond belief.  They are so mean to my 11 yo daughter, she does not even want them at her graduation, which really says something and of course the older one put it back on her that her actions have consequences. Unbelievable.

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

[Sancho]

Hi Pammy D
What a terrible time of loss and grief you are going through! And that's not to mention dealing with the awful abuse that seems to go with BPD.

You have probably gathered from reading other posts here that most of us have experienced or are experiencing what you describe. It is so hard to understand this condition, and even harder to be at the end of the tirade of abuse.

It sounds like your mum's death triggered the suicide ideation? It sounds very likely especially if your children were close to your mum.

The term 'walking on eggshells' is so appropriate because even small things, let alone the death of a family member can trigger intense feelings of abandonment and the anger explodes as a consequence.

There is a great deal of information on this site to help you understand BPD. I took a long time to understand anything about BPD and a lot longer to be able to put some things in place. Trying to do this when you are grieving the loss of your mum is truly, truly hard.

I don't know if any of your family have any support in the form of a counsellor? Any medical support? Does your bpd child have any support?

The first thing that helped me was changing my response to the terrible verybal abuse. I realised that whatever I said in response just fuelled the fire of abuse.

So one day when the abuse started I just said 'I am not going to say anything because I know it makes it harder for you come down from your really high emotions' - or something like that.

Of course when I didn't say anything much the next few times, I got told off for that too, but now dd will say 'Don't say anything because you can see I am losing it'.

That has made it much better. Of course it was so hard to be accused of rubbish and to keep my mouth shut. So I started to imagine the words floating past me. I stay still and just imagine this happening. If I am forced to say anything it is just something like 'I am not going to say anything now'.

It is very freeing. I know others here have found it so too when they don't engage in the verbal abuse.

My dd also used to threaten to leave - and to actually leave. She was on the streets, in a homeless shelter for a while. The anxiety I had was enormous, to the point I felt I was physically falling apart.

That's when the mantra 'I didn't cause this, I can't control it, I can't cure it' was really helpful. I am a 'fix it' person so thinking of all the possible and terrible outcomes just tore me apart. But all I could do was just be here for them.

And that's where I still am! The chaos comes and goes and I try to just deal with things as they happen, rather than anticipate all the possibilities and steer things the way I would like them to happen.

So things haven't really changed - no that's not correct really. The abuse is much, much less. But the real change is that I am in a better place. I love her, I am here for her, I have found out how to handle some of the worst parts of this illness, but I am not in the 'corner' any more, trying to 'make it better'.

I hope you find some space in all this turmoil - for you, your husband and your daughter. Sending thoughts and hugs . . . . .

[Pammy D]

Thank you so much Sancho,

Yes I have support as does my kid, but it doesn’t stop their abuse. You are right the loss of my mom was part of this. It was the relationship with their Dad (who is amazing btw) that triggered the episode. And of course it’s “always Dad’s fault”. I do walk away and say nothing but I so appreciate the words you have used. I will use that in the future. They didn’t wind up leaving because they failed their driving test again so they are stuck with us for a little longer, which makes me even more nervous. But all I can do is take care of myself in this nightmare.

Thank you so much.

Pam