Can you get late onset BPD?

[wormslearntofly]

My mum has suffered with her mental health my entire life. She had a privileged upbringing but like many of their generation her parents were old fashioned, strict and did not show affection. They also favoured my mums brother which I think traumatised her.

Anyway, although I’ve been aware my mum has depression since I was a very young child I’d generally say I had a happy although probably not “normal” childhood.   Overall I felt safe and secure and we had a good relationship, lots of laughter and affection. It’s safe to say my mum really not did want the same childhood she had for her kids.

Family life is very different now. I’m 31 and in all honesty for the past 6 years she has been an absolute nightmare. This coincides with four major events in her life:
1. Her youngest child leaving the nest.
2. Being diagnosed with fibromyalgia.
3. Stopping the anti-depressant she was on for 30 years because it gave her heart problems. She’s now on another antidepressant which doesn’t seem to be helping.
4. Leaving her job because she was being unfairly targeted by a new manager who came in.

I can’t list all the problems we’ve had with her but it ticks all the BPD boxes. Constant conflict, constant lying, constant drama. She has a nasty streak in her that I did not see before the above events happened and it can be very upsetting to have to deal with. She seems very resentful of all her children for having independent and successful lives.

At least two doctors have tried to diagnose her with BPD but at that points she cuts off contact with them. She says lazy doctors often diagnose women with BPD and tbh she does have a point. But there’s definitely something more to this behaviour than just depression. She argues “I’ve been seeing doctors my entire life and I’ve never been diagnosed before, this is a recent thing and it’s because I’m being massively disrespected by my family, friends and previous employer. You can’t suddenly get BPD at 65, it’s something you get from early adulthood”

Is she right or can BPD be triggered by later in life events? I do have lots of sympathy her and try my best, she is very unwell and is going through a lot  but I have never dealt with someone so destructive than she has been these last 6 years and I’m not equipped to deal with it. I have a sister who is 15 years older than me and she says me and my younger siblings have been shielded but mum has  always been like this deep down. Apparently when my older sister got married and had kids my mum was not coping with it at all. I’ve always known my older sister and her relationship with mum has been a little different because she had her when she was a teen, they’ve always fought like sisters.

If not BPD I think she may be a vulnerable narcissist, or both.. Often conversations with her these days are either about how great/intelligent/attractive/wealthy/funny she is or putting others down. It’s completely bizarre and exhausting. She has always been confident and maybe a bit of a snob, but it’s like all the traits she’s always had have gone to the extreme end.

Sorry for the long post! There’s a lifetime on context to give.

[Notwendy]

I think it's more possible that someone is diagnosed correctly as BPD later on than develops BPD. Often other diagnoses are used- depression, substance abuse, rather than BPD. Since BPD is on a spectrum and has behaviors that overlap, I think pwBPD are diagnosed with the behavior that is most problematic at the time. I also think there's more awareness of BPD now than in the past.

Also, a therapist can only see what the client reveals to them. My BPD mother has not been completely open with mental health providers and so they may not have seen the whole picture. Now that she has home health interacting with her for longer periods of time, they can see she has BPD.

More likely if your mother has BPD, she's had it all along, but it's not been apparent to therapists until now.

[Riv3rW0lf]

You don't develop late onset BPD, so it is more likely your mother has always been BPD. BPD is not a black and white disorder... It exists on a spectrum, and the severity of it can vary from one person to the next, and it vary over time for a same person.

My BPD mother went from very severe symptoms when she was young: alcohol made it much worst. At some point, she stopped drinking, and was diagnosed with depression. She took antidepressant and this period was calmer. She would still rage, but it was nowhere near the emotional dysregulation she had when she was drinking and not taking any antidepressants. She did better for a long period, her boyfriend stayed with her a very long time and this stability seemed to provide some sort of comfort, decreasing the dysregulation. She was still a bit odd and my H would say :"your mom is intense.", But she wasn't rageful... More... Drama oriented.

Recently she took my grandmother in for a while, and my stepfather is very sick... And she got completely dysregulated when I went over there to visit and stayed there a while. Her symptoms were in full effect, minus the alcoholism.

All this to say : she went through periods of high energy and high dysregulation, and through periods of calm... What always stayed is the drama orientation, self-sabotage tendancies, constant shifting in self image, and some kind of emotional intensity very specific to her. There were outbursts, but also intense love and clingyness. Intense love bombings... Followed by complete devaluation.

Under stress, the dysregulation is often made worst, while stability helps reduce the severity of symptoms. And your mother seems to be under lots of stress right now.

Also, it is true that BPD mothers do not always treat all their children the same. You might have been shielded from your mother's borderline if she was mainly using your sister as her emotional punching bag. I was my mother's main punching bag. Both my brothers thinks I exaggerate how she is, because she never raged at them as much as she did me. They were boys, boys are worth something. I was the only daughter, and she replayed her own trauma on me.

As for the vulnerable narcissist tendancies... You will likely find that your mother correspond best to a specific diagnosis, such as BPD, but still, she will exhibit traits of narcissism, even maybe histrionic disorder. BPD is "Cluster B", and as such, it exists on a spectrum with the order disorders as well...

Don't worry for the length of your post! Writing is essential to your own processing and understanding, so write as much as you need to...