19 yo w bpd - we took hard line

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Subject: 19 yo w bpd - we took hard line

Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 06:14:56 -0500

To: " 'WTOParentsOfBPs Moderator' "

<WTOParentsOfBPs-owner >

Our 19 year old was diagnosed w bpd when she was 17. She had been

ignoring us and living by " you can't make me do it " , disregarding what

her teachers and anyone with authority over her would say, and playing

us parents against each other. We had developed a few strategies to get

around this, but it became increasingly difficult when she met a

boyfriend just down the street and became even more disconnected from us

as she got more connected with him. It appeared that spending any time

at home was a burden to her, and she acted as if picking up any part of

her own mess was incredibly unreasonable. She would sometimes call that

" child abuse " .

We also have a 9 and 10 yo, and the 9 yo girl was sharing a room with

her. It got to a point where the school said they couldn't deal with her

any more, so we hired an educational consultant. At this point Liz was

in therapy, but was reluctant to go. The ed consultant told us to keep

her posted if anything unusual happened. Well, the last day Grandma was

here to visit from the West Coast (we live on the East Coast), she was

told she really needed to spend time with us as a family and set her

boyfriend aside for the day. Well, she had an appt with a new

psychiatrist and left the house with her boyfriend 15 min before we were

supposed to leave to the Dr. office. She came back around 4:30 a basket

case, with some lame excuse for having left in the morning. Our ed

consultant said we needed to send her to a wilderness program right

away, so we sent her to New Horizons. That was good for us, because they

were able to see what was going on and give us some guidance. From there

she went to a treatment center for girls with SIB behavior in the South.

There they were able to make some progress with her and we had some

reasonably productive visits, but when it was time to show initiative in

leading a productive life she balked and attempted suicide. She had to

go to another hospital, and from there went to a place for young adults

with BPD. At this point she turned 18, and one week later had her

boyfriend pick her up and left with him.

All along we told her if she left treatment without graduating she would

not be welcome at home. The day she left the last treatment place with

her boyfriend, we told her if she did this she would not be welcome

here, not to pick up her things, not to visit, not at all. This was a

bit over a year ago, and our relationship has been limited to talking on

the doorstep when she comes. Our young children have really been

starting to blossom as we have kept them protected from her rages, and

we have had a much more peaceful home. Our counselors have recommended

this line of action, and and I have been very united in this.

Still, it has been tough.

She got married to this boy (on my birthday, and we were not even told

about it except by chance a few weeks later), and now she was due to

have a baby almost 3 weeks ago. We met for the first time of real

talking because she wanted to talk somewhere, so we said we would meet

her at church with a moderator, one of our church elders with a lot of

experience with difficult people. It was a cordial meeting, and we told

her if she called from the hospital we would visit her there, and we are

willing to go to a restaurant with her and her husband and develop a new

kind of relationship with them. We told her to contact us from the

hospital she should leave a message at our church and they would pass it

on. We just don't want manipulative calls on the phone at strange times

of day.

Anyway, it has been very challenging to get back to our independence and

find out who we are when she isn't running the show over the last few

years. Overall, I would say we have been healing a lot. Our current line

is that if she says she is an adult and can make her own decisions, she

can do so, and we can't do anything about it, but we can set the

standards of interaction with us and we can refuse to help her

financially or in other ways that would break our boundaries. We have

found that with her when we give an inch she keeps pushing until she

gets the mile she was after and then some, and so because of that

history I have a hard time thinking that budging is reasonable.

Now it is hard to think that I am probably a grandma and don't know

about it, but I really don't think at this stage we can have a

relationship with the baby that is closer than our relationship with

her. We'll see where this goes. At this point, my goal is that we as a

family (the other 4 of us) will heal to the point where though we don't

like the situation we have some idea of how to manage it in a stable way

and don't feel threatened by it. That is a big goal!

Well,that's enough for now. I have been lurking for a while, but finally

felt ready to post something. Thanks for letting me lurk. There is a lot

of comfort in seeing we are not the only ones dealing with this kind of

thing.

Helen

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