Re: Re: BPD and sexual abuse

July 20, 2004

,

In my daughters case, the trauma began at 13, when her father decided that

she was to know the intimate details of our relationship, all bad, mostly

lies. Then her grandmother died, along with the emotional abandoment all her

life from her father, she looked elsewhere for " love " , wound up getting pregnant

at 15, and then terminated the pregnancy. Our divorce was quite bitter, as

her father would not leave the home for the entire year and a half thru the

proceedings, continuing to ignore her, and pit her against me. In the end, she

realized what he was doing, but not before the damage was done. He left, and I

was left to deal with her in and out of six different facilities for the next

two years, starting with depression, then the BPD traits, then onto an eating

disorder. What a mess. Good luck to you and all of us.

Debbie

July 20, 2004

I am wondering if it is common for those with BPD to have been triggered by

something - which often can tend to be sexual abuse but can also be other

traumas. I am thinking my daughter was triggered by a different kind of trauma -

she has been incontinent and most of her problems heightened in junior high. I

am thinking the trauma of having wetting accidents around your junior high peers

was her real downward spiraling point. But hard to know!

Re: BPD and sexual abuse

Rivka, Do you think this is how BPD got the reputation for being a

result of sexual abuse? I ask because our daughter, 21, completed

DBT and doing very well at this stage, has always denied any kind of

abuse.

For instance...

When our daughter was first diagnosed her psych told us that most

sufferers had been sexually abused but our daughter had denied any

abuse. Later when I talked about BPD with a coworker she informed

me that ALL sufferers had been sexually abused (we were

consultanting for a behavioural change program and she was a nurse

in local gaol). As you can imagine, I was beside myself thinking

about all the times my daughter had been babysat, all of the times

there may have been a window of opportunity for abuse to occur. I

ended up a counselling session ready to condemn myself for being an

unfit mother but eventually - with help of counsellor - rational

thinking stepped in and I decided to believe my daughter and to stop

creating what ifs.

Some time later, after a major incident involving all three

daughters - initiated by daughter with BP - police and the local

hospital, a nurse basically tried to coerce our daughter into

admitting that she had been sexually abused after I explained that

she had BP. As you can imagine this did little to settle our

daughter's anger and a great deal to elevate my frustration at the

lack of knowledge about BP within our health industry.

I complained, of course, to the local mental health unit and was

invited to give some input, from a carer's point of view, into the

setting up of a pilot program to introduce DBT principles into our

local mental health unit for in patients and out patients.

I am pleased also to say that since our incident, and I don't think

it's a direct result from our incident, that many of the staff in

our local mental health unit have undergone some training to

understand BP so that they can be better equipped when people

present to the hospital emergency with BP issues. I believe this is

because of the increase in recognition of BP being a " real " illness.

My daughter has just read this post and wanted me to tell you what

she really said to the nurse but sorry can't repeat. She's happy for

me to share our experiences and I always make sure that she's aware

of what's going on.

Interested to hear you thoughts,

Deb

> i think it is so sad-they ALL feel so terrible about themselves-no

> matter how much they seem to deny any problems...they REALLY feel

so

> terrible about themselves. one of the many ways they try to avoid

> these awful feelings is to grasp upon any excuse for their

sickness-

> and being sexually abused is terrible enough-and with the (mostly

> good natured, but ill-informed) therapists that " suggest " this to

> them...(and how miserable of course when it is true-they are so

naive

> and vulnerable-but how to know what really happens?)- rivka

Send questions & concerns to WTOParentsOfBPs-owner . " Stop

Walking on Eggshells, " a primer for non-BPs can be ordered via 1-888-35-SHELL

(). For the table of contents, see http://www.BPDCentral.com

July 20, 2004

we don't know of any traumatic experience that triggered our daughter's BPD.

we've been asked by all of the professionals if there was a traumatic event.

she doesn't know of any either. i noticed that she was difficult to please and

unhappy around age 4, but she was neer Dx w/ depression until age 14. she was

treated for ADHD since age 6.

Knutson wrote:I am wondering if it is common

for those with BPD to have been triggered by something - which often can tend to

be sexual abuse but can also be other traumas. I am thinking my daughter was

triggered by a different kind of trauma - she has been incontinent and most of

her problems heightened in junior high. I am thinking the trauma of having

wetting accidents around your junior high peers was her real downward spiraling

point. But hard to know!