Looking for support

[kady]

I'm the mother of an adult male with emotional dysregulation. He's never been formally diagnosed with BPD but meets 7 of the criteria. I just completed an online BPD program that was helpful in many ways. But I came out of it feeling that I can't really communicate with my son like an adult. I have to measure everything I say and can't be honest about how I'm feeling much of the time, even when I try to put things in non invalidating terms. It takes very little honesty for him to resort to calling me "invalidating", "guilting him" or being "manipulative". Anybody else feel like they're living in a make believe world around their loved one?

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

[Almostout]

Walking on eggshells I would call it , I just tend to stop talking at that point where I know there's just no point.I think one major reason I have a fairly good relationship with my daughter is because she doesn't live with me,if she did I dread to think.My daughter is diagnosed with BPD, her biological father had it also diagnosed and she presents more and more like him the older she gets, which is weird when I think I got him out of our lives for good when she was only 4. You're not alone

[Sammy Jo]

I completely understand. My DD is 22 and has finished two years of college. My husband and I had grand plans, enjoying the freedom that she was in school 7 hours away and we could "breathe." Fast forward, she got into a bad relationship, broke the rules of a Christian private college, had the police called on her, was suicidal, and we had to bring her back home. After three months of living with us, she just broke us. After much heartache, we simply decided that to save ourselves, she could not live with us anymore - no matter what. At first, we paid to have her stay in hotels, then we helped her out financially with an apartment, and eventually, we weaned her off and told her she had to find a place and make it on her own. It has been difficult, but once we got her out of the house, our one rule remained firm - she would never move back home.

I said all this to hopefully help you understand that you are not a bad parent if you sometimes carve out time for yourself. You cannot help your son if he has beaten you down. If you need to block him on your phone or from your house for a while, that's just what you need to do. BPD children are incredible master manipulators at controlling our emotions and making us "feel" bad for them, and making themselves the victims at all times.

Never doubt your love for him, but always give yourself some grace. Good luck, and know your safe place is here.

[kady]

Thank you for sharing your experience. I know that I could not be healthy and let my son live with us again. I've never felt like I was a bad parent -- but of course, he does. Mom is usually the first one to be blamed if a child goes astray somehow. I have felt beaten down by all this. I fantasize about running away and not telling him where I am. I'm reading a new book that is suggesting that the family members of a mentally ill person need to start putting their own needs first for a change. One of the points this book makes is that all my efforts at being the "fixer" have not yielded good results. So there is no reason to keep doing it. Good luck to you and all of us who have been through this living hell.

[yougenie]

Kady, your words so resonate with me and my issues with my son. I have made many changes in my life and gone out my way to help him over and over and still I get blamed and attacked verbally and emotionally. I am concluding that I have to change and not help him. I too fantasise about moving abroad. I live in England but my dream is to sell up and live on a Greek island. Even as I write, I am apprehensive about him phoning me and acting as if things are normal. So when he upsets me, we go through a few weeks of no contact. (He lives with his girlfriend). Then out the blue he’ll call and I try to put aside any hurt. I am now thinking I have to step back more and I’m not sure how to respond to him if he calls me. He usually wants a listening ear and it becomes a monologue rather than a dialogue. But he talks a lot of rubbish and its so difficult to suspend all my thoughts and feelings but I know that anything I say will be trigger and I’ll end up being attacked again. So I’m back into the loop of wanting to escape.

[CC43]

Kady,

I feel for you.  You love your son dearly and want to help him, and you've probably tried everything, but rather than recognize your efforts, he blames you for his situation.  It's not only disheartening, but you might also feel some resentment and hopelessness.  Nothing seems to work.

On the one hand, sometimes I think they just aren't "ready" to take your suggestions, no matter how helpful and logical they seem.  From your son's perspective, he's resolute in his belief that everyone else is to blame, especially you, and not him.  He's convinced himself that the people who need to change are others.  He might also be exceedingly demanding and entitled, considering his age.  He might think, you OWE him for making his life so miserable.

But sometimes I also wonder, do our loving suggestions and attempts at intervention actually make things worse?  In a way, we might in essence be saying, you can't handle this, and you need help, because something isn't right with you at the moment.  That could feed into his defensiveness and negativity.  He might be insulted or indignant.  But what if we give him more time and space to try to sort things out for himself?   I think we tend to "jump in" because we fear the consequences of inaction, or a bad decision.  Maybe we are the ones who are too impatient.  Maybe he needs to learn for himself, even if it takes him several attempts.  If he never has a chance to solve problems and face the consequences, how is he expected to learn?  Even if he is a slow learner, so what?

There was a time with my BPD stepdaughter when we were constantly on suicide watch.  It was a scary and miserable time for all of us.  But when she started getting treatment, she stabilized enough (barely) for us to back off a little.  We often wondered, can we leave her alone?  Can we go away for a weekend?  Historically, we were typically "on call" and dropped whatever we were doing to attend to her outbursts.  But at one point I asked my husband, "What message are we sending if we can't even spend one night away from home without rushing back home to deal with every little crisis?  Is she a little baby?"  Maybe if we didn't react to every outburst, she'd have time and space to learn to problem-solve on her own.  We are all adults, we deserve a little vacation time away from home, and your daughter deserves the benefit of the doubt.  Let her try to self-soothe and problem-solve.  If she's not actively threatening suicide, let her be.  And remind her, you can try to work it out on Monday when you return, if she still needs your help.  Not everything qualifies as an emergency.  And let's model to her what "adulting" looks like.  Sometimes we have a weekend off, and then we're rested and rejuvenated, and we get back to work on Monday.

That attitude--having a little confidence in the pwBPD, and not reacting like every situation was an emergency or a huge problem--started to make the dynamic more healthy.  I'd say the parent-BPD child relationship gradually shifted from one of over-functioning, to one of a benevolent adviser.  While it's true that my stepdaughter is still highly dependent on her dad, she has made some real progress and is starting to be more independent.