Sad to say I have given up

Parent Cafe
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<p>Momma- you are right about this being a very lonely experience. My brother was married to a woman who was bipolar and for years he tried to make a ‘normal’ life for his children, and to shield them from the outbursts and episodes. While we all suspected she was ill, my brother would blame it on things like ‘that time of the month’, and make excuses for the behavior.</p>

<p>After 18 years they finally separated, but he withdrew from his own family during that time (me, my brother and parents) probably because he buried so much ‘stuff’ he just could not deal. I have to admit, because we weren’t all made aware of her diagnosis, we started to resent his ex and tended to blame her for the family dysfunction.</p>

<p>Now I believe if he had shared more details of what was going on we would all have been understanding and supportive toward his ex. I’m sure at the time he was just overwhelmed, but I think the open communication might have helped both him and the family dynamic. To bury the truth about mental illness only makes matters worse for everyone touched by it, especially those closest…it has surely taken it’s toll on my brother.</p>

<p>Of course you have to deal with this in your own way, but I would encourage you to be a proponent for your daughter whenever the opportunity arises. She didn’t ask for this illness but she has to deal with it, and her pain is real. Educate your family and neighbors instead of apologizing for the behavior. You are a bright, insightful and caring mother and needn’t feel ashamed about anything.</p>

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<p>I would guess that the neighbors just don’t know how to react-- when people don’t automatically know how to behave in a given situation, they avoid, avoid, avoid.</p>

<p>In our situation, my sister (bipolar and god knows what else) went to one of the neighbors and made up stories about my dad hitting her, and they took her to the police. Which then started a three year legal battle which inevitably most of the neighborhood heard about (charges eventually dropped because there was zero reason to believe whatsoever that any of my sister’s claims were true, and there was direct evidence to the contrary in many cases). My parents hid from the neighborhood from shame and now I don’t think anyone from our house has spoken to a single other person on this street in ten years. I’m afraid my parents shame may have led the neighbors to believe my sister wasn’t lying. I was too young at the time to know what my parents were capable of at the time, they tried to hide most of the effects on the family of what was going on from me and my younger sister, but I do wish it would have been possible for them to keep their heads up and keep socializing as much as they could with the neighbors. When there’s a giant “elephant in the room” with the neighbors I think you have to set the precedent for how behavior towards each other will be afterwards, or they may just keep avoiding forever. Acting ashamed led the neighbors to believe there was something to be ashamed of.</p>

<p>The family dynamic afterwards has been interesting. My mom’s side of the family has accepted her back-- they are my sister’s blood relatives. My dad’s side of the family, which is not related by blood though that is not how the three of us were raised to feel about it, rejects her outright and will be quite verbal about it in front of my mother. My dad has to stand up for his wife and tell his mother she’s being inappropriate when she does that, but he does, the subject is changed, and life goes on.</p>

<p>Mental illness is extremely complicated. We’re generally very happy and functional these days, but I suppose eventually you just fall into a routine with dealing with these kinds of things and they don’t feel as barbaric as they sound anymore. My sister has been extremely and violently ill since she was a baby, and my family has been dealing with the repercussions of her particularly bad episode for fourteen years. It just feels natural now and though it does get to us from time to time it’s not something we feel upset about, or even think about, every day anymore.</p>

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<p>M3, I have to agree with other posters that people probably don’t know what is wrong with your daughter and thus don’t know the appropriate way to react. Whe I was growing up my cousin (5 yrs older) had a lot of problems. We later found out he was diagnosed with a mental disorder. The family didn’t really give a lot of detail on his exact condition so everyone sort of felt like they were walking on eggshells; sort of afraid we might say the wrong thing. Have you tried to “start” the conversations that you would like to have with family members? I know they should be there for you and your family but you might have to show them how.</p>

<p>As far as the neighbors go, I think you should fill them in on what has been going on. I am sure that they too have no idea what has happened and are afraid of being rude if they say something to you. If you don’t tell them all they can do is speculate and I don’t think that would lead to good things. I’ll bet they would be more understanding than you think if they are given the proper information. You will also be helping to educate more people about mental illness. Who knows, they may need that information for their own family some day.</p>

<p>There is no reason for you to feel ashamed of your families situation and your openness about it can only further more understanding and compassion. My mom once told me how when she was little, people were afraid they could “catch” cancer from someone else and stayed away. This seems so silly to me now, but we have been educated as to the truth of the disease. </p>

<p>I hope you are feeling stronger everyday.</p>

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<p>M-3 I am sorry for what you are going through. I would urge you to forgive(?) your H. I do not know how he could have prevented the mental illness that is afflicting your daughter. Could he have prevented the illness that happened to your son? The blame will only make things worse. Good luck.</p>

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<p>Skeets-- My husband could not have prevented anything except he could have accepted it earlier when it was in our face, and much of what has happened recently could have been avoided or at least I would not have been the center of my daughters outburst. I feel like he just allowed me to deal with it so he could remain out of it. He saw everything I did but was hands off in terms of addressing it or doing anything. I am upset with him because he has always had that temperment which I have accepted but I really would have liked a stronger more involved husband. I am tired of being the rock and would like more support and a shoulder to lean on. He just doesn’t have the ability to involve himself too much in regard to problems or difficulties. He retreats yet I feel like he does so because he feels if he does than I will handle it. It is kind of hard to explain but it really his temperment that has me annoyed. I was always OK with it but it is getting harder to accept. He has always been like this in regard to work like when he lost his job and was out of work for a long time, and did’nt seem to be bothered at all. I started a business and it took him a few years to realize that he needed to do something so he joined me but before that he did nothing. It drove me crazy. When our kids were young he was a back seat kind of dad. He loved our kids and that was obvious, but he was not a disciplinarian in any way…that was clear, and the kids knew it. With this, I feel like he should not have allowed my daughter to treat me the way she has, and had he stood firm from onset she would not have been permitted to do what she has. He just needs to be more of a man in regard to taking control of things. This is such a sore spot with me right now because he has not done what most fathers of husbands should have done. He did not protect me and he allowed this to get uglier by just accepting this stuff.</p>

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<p>Momma-three, maybe you can find some support through nami.org. There might be a support group in your area or someone to talk to. It might be helpful to talk to people who have been there and who understand the tremendous strain a situation like this puts on a marriage.</p>

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<p>Momma-three, it sounds like this is a long time dynamic in your relationship with your H, and while it is something you’ve accepted (but maybe not liked) through the years, in this case his passivity made the situation worse. You have a right to be angry and hurt, but he is just continuing behavior that he’s engaged in for years. </p>

<p>It sounds like before this situation went so horribly wrong, that you were not dissatisfied with your marriage. This sounds like something that couples therapy could address. He may be passive, but you’ve allowed him to be passive too. It will take time and help to change that.</p>

<p>I empathize with you, my H is also a very passive person. My first H was very controlling, so I guess I went in the total opposite direction for my next marriage. Overall, I am very satisfied with things. He is better with the kids in ways I am not. I have learned not to get worked up about things that need to be taken care of that he can’t be bothered with. But we have never had a situation such as you’ve had, where he’d need to be strong and unyielding in the face of an overwhelming emotional assault and outrageous behavior from an child (adult child).</p>

<p>My first H had borderline personality disorder as well, and it took me a couple of years to get my head on straight after that. His lies and manipulation, the distortion of reality was boggling.</p>

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<p>Mom of 3</p>

<p>Your daughter is sick. She isn’t manipulative, or evil, or incapable of feeling. She’s in pain. Every second of every minute of every day. And she desperately needs you. She needs her family. </p>

<p>No you most likely don’t have the tools yet to help her, that’s why you feel your only option is to run, save yourself, give up. But these won’t help your daughter. She’s not going to “shape up” or “grow up” or “see how she likes it without you”. She won’t learn any of these things. The only thing she will learn is that Yes, she is indeed so horrible, so bad and unworthy as a person that even her own mother can’t love her.</p>

<p>You don’t have the tools know to help her, but you can learn them. You can learn about the biology of your daughter’s brain, how she sees the world. It’s going to take you learning a new language, a language your daughter can understand. And time, and patience. Forever. </p>

<p>PM me please.</p>

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<p>I’m sorry to disagree with you caymandriver07, but I must. It is a huge disservice to families that struggle in this way to suggest that all that is needed are the right tools and a child will be helped. That is just not always the case. Not everyone can be helped by family and sometimes the family needs to separate in order to survive or in order to leave the door open for a future reconciliation. We simply don’t have enough information to know if there is anything that could be done here and we don’t know what issues exist that relate to safety. And saying to a kid, “I’m sorry, we love you, but we can no longer allow you to behave this way” is not the same thing as saying “you are horrible, bad or unworthy”. Love does not mean there are no limits.</p>

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<p>Caymandriver, I mean this as respectfully as possible, but your post really sounds like you are unsupportive of the OP and you speak to her in a very demeaning way which I find offensive. Momma-three has a daughter with borderline personality disorder. Her daughter is mentally ill, and surely that needs to be understood and both mother and daughter and the rest of the family need help dealing with that. But yes, she probably IS manipulative and no she probably DOESN’T have very deep feelings (and I don’t believe M3 ever said her daughter was evil). Those are hallmark symptoms of BPD. She may be afraid, of herself and of her illness and inability to cope, but believe me, that won’t keep her from manipulating, lieing, splitting, hurting others whether on purpose or not, and a myriad of self destructive behaviors such as drug use, promiscuity, eating disorders, cutting, stealing, etc. And sadly I know these all too well as I have been dealing with a daughter, relatively the same age as M3’s, who has BPD, is bi-polar and has an anxiety/panic disorder coexisting with the BPD. The last three years have been Hell and there is no end in sight and we know this will be a lifelong struggle for our daughter. Like M3’s daughter, mine was a beautiful, bright, talented, high achiever who no one would EVER have thought would be where she is today. But she started on a downward spiral that at first we could not even begin to understand and it only went from that to far worse. The sadness that my husband and I, as well as our daughter’s siblings, have had to deal with seems overwhelming at times. But with therapy (for me, not my daughter at this point as she has been refusing treatment for the last several months and since she’s an adult we can not force it) I am learning to let go as this is the only solution. I totally understand where M3 is coming from in recognizing that she HAS to let go at this point. The only way our daughters will ever decide to seek the treatment they so desperately need, is if they reach a low enough point in their lives to actually take the steps. My daughter knows she is loved, by me, her Dad, her siblings, yet that doesn’t have substantial meaning for her. I’m sure M3’s daughter knows she is loved too. That doesn’t mean she will even try to get better right now. Not all mental illnesses are the same. BPD is a very sad situation, with a bleak outlook at best, even with newer therapies such as DBT and newer meds. Try to show compassion for M3. This is a very difficult road she’s on.
Momma-three, I feel your pain. Please get yourself a good therapist. It has helped me inmmensely. Also, I totally understand where you’re at with your husband, as the hugest arguements my husband and I have ever had have been in the last few years, always when my daughter has been in the center of it. This year has been better, partly thanks to my work with my therapist and partly because my husband (who sounds a lot like yours—always the “good guy” with our kids) DOES finally get it, that our daughter is ill. That I’m not exaggerating her behaviors. That she isn’t “just doing what kids do at that age”, etc. Hang in there M3.</p>

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<p>well I actually think Cayman has a daughter with the same issue, if I recall correctly.</p>

<p>Anyway, it’s immaterial. </p>

<p>Even within the same mental illnesses each individual is still different and some are more relatable than others. </p>

<p>Most importantly, however, is that you absolutly need to allow yourself to feel the anger you are feeling right now. It is a part of the process of accepting the situation and circumstances of your life, as they are now. You need to grieve your dreams for your daughter and your family and also, you need to grieve the daughter you have imagined she would become as she “grew out of this.”</p>

<p>acceptance will come with time, as well as communication strategies, and a form of peace, but not yet. And you can’t rush it. you can’t get ahead of yourself or start to think you ought to be feeling other than you are. As a person, as a mother, as someone who has been grappling with an unsolvable situation for a long time, you need to allow yourself to just let go and feel whatever you feel. </p>

<p>this, too, shall pass. I’m sure of it. But not yet, and that’s okay, too.</p>

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<p>To those who view me as insensitive:</p>

<p>I could join the band wagon and say how sorry I am that your daughter has BPD and how tough things have been, and that your feelings are valid. And yet how is that going to help. Does having 100 people on the internet agree with you really help the situation? </p>

<p>Your feelings are valid. It is tough. Mistakes have been made. I don’t doubt you’ve done everything you thing you could do to help your daughter. You’ve simply being doing the wrong things for the right reason. There are plenty of people here who will tell you your are right, that you need to cut your daughter out of your life. I know, I’ve thought that too in the past. And then I realized the pain that would cause at the prospect of not having a relationship with my daughter. And that was unbearable. And so I chose another route. I tried to find out everything I could about BPD, an illness I didn’t even know existed until faced with it with my daughter. What I found was there is plenty of information, lots of it containing unhelpful or worse, blatantly inaccurate information. The eggshells book is particularly scary in its content. Anyone who’s lived with someone with BPD will realize rules, behavior contracts, limits, etc they don’t work all that well and in fact cause more problems. I kept digging, and talking, learning, asking. And I am committed to helping other learn and try to support their loved ones more effectively. So I put myself out on CC where I know there will be many people who call me insensitive or disagree or scream. I don’t care. Keep screaming, keep telling me I’m mean. You aren’t the ones with BPD. If my comments help just one loved one choose to seek a different path to try to be effective in their relationships with their loved ones who suffer from BPD, well I’ll take that. If I prompt one person to find out more about BPD, about its biology as an illness of a brain, If one person realizes the suffering and pain those with BPD have and hold them as ill and not manipulative or evil, well bring on the screamers. I’m ready. </p>

<p>Momma3:</p>

<p>To use an example, what if your son had a physical condition that caused him to not be able to regulate his body movements. He might jerk his limbs wildly in a restaurant, screach in a high pitch at inappropriate times, stumble when walking, drool, maybe even break things with his body movements. He might curse at the neighbors. How would you feel about him? Compassionately? Would you realise he’s doing the best he can? Would you decide to just tell him “we can no longer allow you to behave this way”? I would hope not. Sure you’d wish you had a healthy son, one without these difficulties. But I doubt you’d just give up, let go. Its the same with BPD except instead of body movements, its an inability to regulate feelings. It’s biological. </p>

<p>Some here on the thread some seem to suggest that I’m saying you aren’t entitled to feel the saddness and frustrations you are feeling. I’m not saying that at all. Your feelings are your feelings. What I am saying is that she is your daughter, and she has a illness, and you can learn about BPD, and how you can help your daughter. Not Fix, Not Cure, Not Control. She will probably still live her life in a way that worries you, scares you, upsets you, makes you angry…but none of this is about YOU. It’s about her. I’m not saying the tools you can learn will “fix” your daughter. They won’t. They’ll teach you how to radically accept your daughter, communicate with her in a language she might understand better, recognise that you are not responsible and yet so very vital in her life. After all, given a choice to have a relationship with your daughter that accepts you are both doing the best you can and you can both do better or cutting her loose-which would you choose? I made plenty of wrong choices for the right reasons for 18 years….I’m determined not to add to make it 19.</p>

<p>Anyone who would like to please feel free to PM too.</p>

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<p>Cayman: your daughter is fortunate to have such an understanding, patient and determined parent. Your words are sure to resonate with others dealing with this complex illness. We all have to deal with things in our own way and time, but messages from friends, family, and even strangers can help point people in a positive direction if they are ready to hear it. I feel like M3 will get to that place but first needs to mourn what she will never have with her daughter before she can learn to re-define the relationship.</p>

<p>My SIL was terribly, horribly ill all her life with BPD, among other things. Unfortunately, her parents were not equipped or willing to delve into educating themselves about the illness and this caused much strife and drama between them for many many years. In their mind they were helping by buying her cars, paying some bills, even buying her a house, but of course this was not what she needed. I think she was screaming for them to admit she had this disorder and to understand it intellectually as well as emotionally. Sadly, my SIL’s story did not end well, but I think if parents can find the strength to educate and accept what is going on, there can be hope for better outcomes.</p>

<p>Thank you for your post cayman and best wishes to you and your daughter.</p>

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<p>I don’t know anything about BPD except what I have read here but I think it’s possible that everyone here is right. I don’t think, having read many of her posts, that M3 is willing to just cut her daughter off completely and stop loving her. Rather, I think that she has gotten to a place that she realizes that she has to take care of and protect herself from the damage her has and can inflict on her. Setting boundaries, even with someone who is mentally ill, is a GOOD thing…for everyone concerned.</p>

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<p>I am in the same boat as cayman, momma-three and another poster to this thread in that I have a BPD daughter. And I can see both sides probably because I’m still stuck in the middle. I completely understand momma-three’s pain and frustration at not being able to “fix” her daughter and at the realization that she may never have a “normal” relationship with her. I also know that cayman has been working really hard at understanding the world that is bpd and that those who are close to someone like this must come to the understanding that they simply cannot continue to react or behave in the same way they have historically. It simply does not work. I believe that time, education and support are the answers along with trying to find a path to acceptance. I hope you are trying to take care of you momma-three as I also hope in regard to anyone who has to deal with a loved one with mental health or other issues. Take it one minute at a time if you have to and try to do some reading about DBT and other therapies and mindfulness.</p>

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<p>Has Momma-Three’s daughter actually been diagnosed with BPD?</p>

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<p>Momma-Three- I am praying for you, your husband, your relationship, and your family. So very painful. Your heart has really gone the distance. My heart hurts for you. I hope your husband will join you in therapy. Your statement about your husband protecting you really resonated with me. Bless you.</p>

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<p>

Is there something new in the research/literature suggesting a biological etiology? Borderline PD is a personality disorder, not a primary mood disorder which often has a biological etiology.</p>

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<p>Mim…My daughter has been diagnosed with boarder line personality disorder.</p>

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<p>m-3,
Just to clarify- you do mean Borderline Personality Disorder, yes?</p>