My ‘child’ is now a 36 year old man, I grieve for the lovely little boy l lost

[yougenie]

It’s so hard to reconcile the boy I raised with the man who expresses so much anger and attacks his family and self-sabotages again and again. Living with a sense of powerlessness is very challenging each day. It’s a lonely place to be and I guess I can gave comfort from knowing I’m not alone.

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

[AcheyMom]

You are definitely not alone.  I can very much relate.  My daughter is 34 and was my little sidekick growing up. She came with me everywhere and we had so much fun together.  For her to turn on her family like she has, distorting reality and inflicting rage filled rants upon us not to mention the character assassinations!  It’s broken me.  I think I need to admit that having a good relationship with her may just be a fantasy at this point.  She is only nice if she needs something from me now.

[yougenie]

Thank you for your response and I’m sad that you experience similar reactions from your daughter as I do from my son, both of whom are now in their mid-thirties. I use to think my son was just going through an extended arsy teenage phase but now they are approaching middle-age and it seems their behaviour can only be explained as a personality disorder, and that is certainly no consolation. I hope you don’t continue to see yourself as broken acheymum, but more that you are deeply hurt and missing the relationship you once had with your daughter. I hope you find the support you need.

[kady]

My son is 44. I have hoped for years that experience and various treatment programs and maturity would help him change. It hasn't. So now his father and I are grieving and accepting the fact that he has a mental illness, his life has been largely chaotic and likely will continue to be that way, at least much of the time. We will probably never have the kind of relationship with him that we had wanted, a relationship marked by respect, appreciation and trust without regular anger, denigration, manipulation and disappointment. It's a hard thing to accept this finally because we truly had always thought he would improve. Our story isn't everybody's story. I have talked to some parents whose adult offspring have improved. I haven't given up hope entirely but I'm trying to be realistic.

[yougenie]

I totally get that you are trying to be realistic Kady and at the same time not giving up hope. My main worry as one of mature years (albeit young at heart and active for my age) is the trajectory of seeing his life go from one crisis to another and I believe he will be worse without access to the support his dad and I offer whenever he needs it. I have to discipline myself to stay in the here and now and take each day a step at a time…otherwise I wouldn’t sleep or function.

[ChitChatCharley]

Mourning the loss of our children is so hard - I am doing the same right now, so I really feel for you.

(My daughter was born at 31 weeks, and spent 25 days in the NICU, so I like to say I've mourned so many versions of what I thought she would be than I can count.)

[MrsHaversham]

Oh I totally hear you! My son (now aged 32) was such a wonderful boy, charming, funny, adventurous and he loved to spend time with me. Then from age 14 almost overnight he began to despise me, now he seems to hate me. I feel right now I'm teetering on the edge of no contact and I'm really struggling. Life seems terribly cruel. I doted on him as a boy, I was a single parent but did all I could for him, worked two jobs so he didn't go without and feel disadvantaged. I'm heartbroken, and feel cheated of warm, caring son I expected him to grow into. But what can we do?

[MrsHaversham]

Just for interest, was your son very active on Xbox etc? I've always wondered whether excessive use of computer games (yes my fault...) resulted in an underdeveloped brain...

[CC43]

Hi there,

I can relate to the bouts of anger, and the self-sabotaging.  My diagnosed stepdaughter would experience both.  Then, she would retreat and sink into a pit of shame and despair, for as long as her funds would last.

Mrs., you ask if too much time on Xbox resulted in an underdeveloped brain.  The person with BPD in my life is female, and I think the female equivalent to Xbox is social media.  My opinion is that too much time in front of screens doesn't result in an underdeveloped brain.  My theory is a little different:  I believe that excessive time with screens is just a distraction, fostering an avoidance lifestyle.  It's addictive entertainment that makes holing up in one's room and avoiding real life tolerable.  While it's considered fun in the short term, in the long run, playing on Xbox and consuming social media isn't really fulfilling.  While they might believe they have "friends" on these platforms, I don't think that they are truly fulfilling friendships.  Meanwhile, their adult peers are living "real" life, achieving typical adult milestones like graduating, developing careers, exploring romantic relationships, and maybe even marrying, buying houses or having children.  In contrast, the pwBPD feels "stuck," probably living like a teenager, and still highly dependent on parents.  The RESENT such dependence, and yet they'll blame you for it, while simultaneously holding out their hands for more money and more help.

True "adulting" is harder than they expected, and harder than they're emotionally equipped to handle.  They might make tentative attempts at "adulting," but they are emotionally handicapped by BPD, and they might crumble under stress or minor setbacks.  So they easily retreat to their ersatz, semi-entertaining world of screens, while they might gradually fall into a pit of shame and despair.  They have a hard time coping, and their internal dialogue is very negative.  They might feel angry at themselves, but rather than face reality, they often turn this anger around and blame parents, siblings or others who are close to them.  Does your adult child seem stuck in the past, blaming their current problems on a horrible childhood?  That's a coping mechanism.  It's a pernicious, victim attitude.  You see, if they blame others--mostly you--for their problems, they are in full avoidance mode.  But the reality is, they are their own problem.  And they are their own solution!  Xbox and social media merely serve to soothe them in the short-term, and in the long-term, delay or distract them from facing reality.  At the very least, screens probably interfere with getting a proper night's rest and following a "normal" daily routine.  I think about screens a bit like other addictive substances.  There's nothing wrong with consuming social media or playing with Xbox on occasion.  But it becomes an issue if it's crowing out necessary activities and disrupts a person's life.

Do you know how one feels when doing nothing?  They feel like nothing.  How does one feel after not getting proper sleep?  Probably very sluggish, and not motivated to tackle daily tasks, let alone harder things like finding or working a job.  Many times I wanted to confiscate phones at night, if only to encourage my stepdaughter to get some shut-eye.  If it were up to me, I'd make her pay for her own phone and phone service, so at least she'd have to work a little bit to earn money for luxuries.  The choice would be entirely up to her.  If she didn't want to earn money for luxuries, she could have used the home phone.  That's how destructive I felt that excessive phone use was to her.  Unfortunately, I couldn't make this rule in my household because she isn't my child.

[js friend]

One thing as parent is you can be sure of is that you dont know how you child will turn out to be. My udd was literally my "shadow" up until she was 11yo and was always following me everywhere I went. She would follow me from room to room and even when we sat together on the sofa  watching TV she wanted to hold my hand!
So when she began to turn on me it was a really big shock.

I would agree with CC43 about my udd living in the virtual world when she was a teen. I think it is escapism.  My udd could literally spend hours on a particular video game where she could create famillies and worlds.  She could make them go to work, lay in bed all day,  sleep, argue, get dressed etc.... Around this time she was being bullied at school and I think she just felt safer in this world so I wasnt too hard on her and just hoped that she would grow out of it which she eventually did. Another thing was here phone. Now that became a problem and something she just couldnt live without and she could be a totally different person on social media. She was bubbly, happy, and a real go getter on there but in reality the total opposite.
Another thing is there is actually research out there looking into the link  of time spent  on video games and violent crimes and they havent found any correlation between the two, although IMO groups spending lots of time playing the board game d&G did seem to come up a lot when I was watching crime shows.