BPD son - housing

[IMS]

Further to my previous post I wanted to ask the forum for advice regarding accommodation/housing. My son cannot live at home right now because of his violent outbursts, verbal abuse and my declining health. I understand this is part of his illness but I just cannot take it anymore. At the same time I feel he needs secure accommodation which is really hard to find without a job and on a pension income. I will be made redundant this year, so I definitely cannot afford to pay his rent in the future. However, as I will get a small payout I thought about spending that money on a small caravan. It would make me feel so good to know he has a roof over his head. He could have it on our property for a while, living totally separately from us but still be close. Or he could choose to park it somewhere else for a while, esp when he gets worked up and is very angry. Where we live there is hardly any community housing available and single males have no priority even with a mental illness, hence I'm really desperate. Thanks for reading my post.

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

[kells76]

Hi again IMS 

My son cannot live at home right now because of his violent outbursts, verbal abuse and my declining health. I understand this is part of his illness but I just cannot take it anymore.

That's a good foundation to start from -- you have thought through your values and capabilities and have decided that wherever it is he lives, it is best for both of you that you do not live in the same house.

. I will be made redundant this year, so I definitely cannot afford to pay his rent in the future.

Again, that's wise to be thinking ahead long term, as you recognize that ideally your son needs a level of care beyond a "broadly normal" child, yet you have financial limitations that are very real.

as I will get a small payout I thought about spending that money on a small caravan. It would make me feel so good to know he has a roof over his head. He could have it on our property for a while, living totally separately from us but still be close. Or he could choose to park it somewhere else for a while, esp when he gets worked up and is very angry. Where we live there is hardly any community housing available and single males have no priority even with a mental illness, hence I'm really desperate.

That could work -- you would be able to live out your value of wanting to care for him without overextending yourself, and it would provide physical space between you two.

We can think through some of the details here:

-Who would own the caravan?

     -If it were your son, as you think realistically about his capabilities, do you think he could handle being the owner?

     -If it were you, how would you navigate being the owner of his "house"? Would you have any requirements for how he kept it up, or would it be "all his" to deal
      with, no matter what?

-If you started with him parked on your property, but he became a "boundary buster" and wouldn't stay in his own space (and please, as you know him best, correct me if that is an improbable assumption), how do you think you would handle that?

-Would you have any kind of "written contract" with him, if he were to park his caravan on your property? How do you think he'd do with that -- how has he responded to those kinds of written rules in the past (if at all)? If not, would it work OK for your situation to have low or no expectations?

-How would it be for you if he did live far away? Would you feel more peaceful, would you be more anxious, would there be other feelings/concerns you'd have?

...

None of these questions are to tell you what to do; far from it! More that this is a great forum for working through the "nuts and bolts" of an idea, to make it work the best possible for you and your child. I have leaned on these forums myself for drafting emails to my H's kids' mom (she has many BPD type traits) and it's really helpful to get feedback out in the open about best practices.

Anyway, let us know more of your thoughts, and how we can help and support you best.

-kells76

[IMS]

Hi kells76,
Thanks for taking time to respond. You analysed my issues really well. On the one hand he is my 29 year old son and I still feel responsibility for him. On the other hand we have tried to live under one roof which doesn't work. I guess I'm just trying to help him without me being too heavily impacted by his illness. I feel it is a human right to have a safe place to sleep but on the other hand he has sabotaged most of my attempts to help. When he had a rental recently he stopped paying rent, when he was house sharing he was on drugs most of the time and his flat mates left.
I'm glad you're pointing out a few things. I'm not sure who would own the caravan. The fact however is that he might just sell it to have cash. He would be able to look after it technically, he is a mechanic. But he would not have the money to do so. The only option is to have the caravan on my property so that I would be able to have more control but I'm certain he would break the physical boundary and rock up inside my house. Honestly, I think it would not work giving it a second thought. He can be very intrusive and disrespectful of boundaries in general. I need to think more how I could help him in other ways.

[PearlsBefore]

Easy solution is to get a 1984 style tow-behind caravan, so it's worth almost nothing on the secondary market - drafty but you know, that gives him some ambition to get it fixed up better. A caravan in liveable-but-rough quality, at least over here, goes for less than a month's rent costs.

[kells76]

As PearlsBefore suggested, a way to balance your desire to care for and shelter him with your knowledge that he is the kind of person to sell a nice gift, could be to get him a "no frills, just the basics, nothing fancy" caravan. Again, that could be a way to care for him without overextending yourself. That could make sense.

Perhaps a followup question to all of these details would be:

when would you know that you had "done enough"?

For example, if every time you cared about him by providing him with a "plain yet decent" caravan, he turned around and sold it... how many times might you feel like you needed to do that, before telling yourself "I have done more than enough for him"?

There isn't a "right or wrong" answer here, because each situation is different. Some parents of adult children wBPD might say "no matter what, I will keep a room in my home available for my child, but that is all -- no car, no cash, no clothes". Other parents might say "I will tell my child in writing that after providing her with 3 months' rent and an old car, there is nothing more I am able to do for her". Still other parents might go through a process of their child selling/trading/trashing gifts multiple times, and after watching their child do that the 3rd time, decide to themselves "I see what our child chooses to do with gifts, so no matter what, I cannot give any more, after seeing this pattern".

It's a lot to work through. It could make sense to provide an old yet workable caravan, plus a few months' rent at a caravan park a bit away from you, and see what your son does with that situation. Maybe that would give you more information about how your son would manage and if it would be truly helping him to continue that kind of support.

For many parents here, it is so difficult to watch their children make choices that seem truly dreadful. Many parents have had to watch as their children live out of vans, on the street, bouncing from house to house, etc. One way of looking at these choices is that the children are choosing a level of responsibility that they can handle, due to their mental health capabilities. We many not like that a son/daughter is living in a van, yet s/he may not be able to take on the executive-function heavy responsibilities of rent, mortgage, utilities, bills, etc. Which circles back to your question of providing that kind of "lower responsibility" shelter for your son -- how to make that work the "least worst" way possible.

Again, stepping back to a "higher level" view, perhaps one way to approach the situation is to do what you feel your integrity requires of you, no matter what anyone else thinks, and then let go of the outcome on his end -- you may want to try "one more thing" and can decide within yourself "Yes, I will do XYZ for him, and then I think I will feel like I have done my part, and can let go with love knowing that I did everything I could right now". He may step up and be able to resourcefully fend for himself, or he may have stumbles along his journey. Perhaps it would be less difficult for you to watch if you beforehand decided, I can let go of the outcome of what he chooses to do with this gift, as it is his adult choice and responsibility.

Of course, none of that makes it easy, and I do hear how your situation is compounded by the fact that you effectively have to problem solve on your own for him, because of the lack of social services/resources for young men.

...

I need to think more how I could help him in other ways.

We can keep brainstorming here -- maybe with the "group wisdom" there will be some more parents chiming in with thoughts and "out of the box" ideas on how to support an adult child wBPD, while maintaining boundaries, in a social situation with few public resources.

Keep posting whenever you need to, IMS;

-kells76

[IMS]

Hello Kells76 and PearlsBefore and Board Members,

Sorry I didn't reply earlier. I wanted to wait until I have spoken to my son. So I offered him a caravan to live in and he completely refused. He said this is an insult. He used to work on caravans, so I thought he could improve it, esp if I purchased a basic and old model. However he said he hates caravans and told me what a stupid idea this is. He had also refused to stay in a mental health sub-acute facility where he would have been cared for up to 1 month as I mentioned earlier. He is breaking my heart time over again. Now he is sleeping in his car. However since my last post he also got himself into deep water and will need to sell his car. He told me his life is in danger and he might even have to leave our city to avoid being bashed...I am so scared for him but this is just one more reason why he cannot live at home with us. He has made other bad decisions which again could potentially put my daughter's and my life in danger. Our city isn't that large and it would be easy to find out where we live.
He has also threatened to take legal actions against me and said he will record our conversations over the phone. He says he has printed off all my e-mails, texts and messages to proof that I'm abusive. This is coming from my son who has a DV against him from last year's vandalism of my home and also from 2 months ago when we got very scary threats whilst he was on probation.
Sometimes I just feel like I want to give up but I can't. I have a loving daughter and our relationship means so much for me. At the same time I love him so much and all I wanted to achieve is help for him and me being in his life from a distance as I had to take a step back to save myself. The horrible things he has said about me haunt me on a daily basis despite understanding it is his illness talking.
I would like to ask the Board how other parents deal with daily emotional abuse. He is telling me I need to be diagnosed for my illness before he will talk to me. He insists that I'm the sick on in the family...it hurts so much. Has anyone else had threats of legal action? It just feels so unreal. I'm so sad.
IMS

[PearlsBefore]

I'm sorry to hear that things are sliding that direction, although if there's a silver lining to be had it's that you have a definitive refusal from him on the caravan instead of wasting your money and six months only to find out it doesn't help. Certainly one risk for people like him when living out of their car is that they end up in a co-dependent relationship, "hobo-sexual" if you will - which obviously doesn't have a high success rate for either party. One thought that occurs to me is that in the interests of getting him onto some social services and willing to accept help, instead of just bringing him groceries yourself - you imght stop into a private food bank (govt ones need ID and applications often) and get a hamper and then deliver it to his car. After doing this 2-3 times, tell him your circumstance has changed and you can't do those trips any more but it's just that building right there, you just go in and  ask, can he do it himself this week?

The logical response is that "It doesn't matter if she is mentally ill or your accusations are true, that doesn't change the fact YOU need to shape up and get things in order for YOUR own good regardless of whether she's hanging off chandeliers or braying like a donkey, right?"...but he's never going to accept that FROM you, so it might be worth seeing if a relative or friend can give him the dose of tough love advice.

Out of interest, is he the type of person who is frequently on social media/internet/phone, or not really? I've often been curious about the types of people who are drawn into those feedback loops.