Topic Tuesday // Having a loved one with BPD // 21 Feb, 7pm AEDT

Hi, I haven't used this forum before so hope this is right. I think my son has BPD and will not get help. He was diagnosed about 10 years ago with BPD traits after a stint in a psychiatric hospital. He was advised to get long term psychological counselling but will not stick with it. I know attitudes towards BPD have changed (at the time it was horrendous trying to get him help), but is it common for sufferers to refuse help? How important is it to get a definitive diagnosis? He is now married and living interstate but every few weeks will ring in tears or very angry saying it is all over and he doesn't know what to do. Then everything calms down til the next time. Is this how the condition usually manifests? I am not sure if I will be available tonight so am posting this now and will check in as soon as I can. Thanking you in advance for any advice.

Hi @roses1 I thought I would quickly post a link to you, which yourself and other forum memebrs might find helpful.

On SANE Australia's website there is a guide about BPD, which you can find here. I'm sure there will be a lot of information shared tonight too.

Kind Regards,

Nik

Hi everyone and welcome to tonight Topic Tuesday on "Having a loved one with BPD".

Tonight I will try to answer as many questions as I can but I am also interested in getting everyone's experiences with how they support their loved one with BPD and how this impacts on your relationship with them and your wellbeing in general. Please feel welcome to jump in at any time with questions, comments from your experience or to offer some suggestions of strategies that have worked for you.

I am looking forward to spending the next few hours with you all and discussing having a loved one with BPD.

@Waterlily, @roses1, @Witsend, @leitor, @Determined, @chivdan, @misunderstood, @MBK, @purplefeather, @Holly, @KAT3, @SamWho, @SadMum, @LosingMySanity, @David5, @Shane, @Mspotatohead, @Mel7, @Jessy, @Joana, @suzieb8, @BlueBay, @SusanaBA, @Meg47, @olly53, @mrkotter, @OhanaSystem, @Rosie4, @Sane74, @Joan1, @BH1, @clk

To start things off I am going to answer some questions posed by @roses1 which I hear frequently, so hopefully it will be helpful to others as well.

One is "is it common for sufferers to refuse help". The short answer to this is yes. It is common for BPD and other mental illnesses for people with symptoms to refuse help or to even deny that they are experiencing symptoms at all. This can be for a variety of reasons, such as stigma from other and what the possibility of having a mental illness means to them and it is also common for people to place the blame on others at times. A phrase I hear often is "I dont have a problem, you have a problem". I have spoken to many people at the help centre that have experienced this. This response is often a defense mechanism of the individual who may not be ready just yet to accept that they are experiencing symptoms of an illness and receive the recommended treatment.

Has anyone experienced this with their loved one? If so and your loved one is now accepting of their diagnosis and receiving treatment, what advice would you give to those who are going through this currently?

Hi, my family and I have experienced this with my mother. She was admitted to hospital last year under the Mental Health Act and still thinks she doesn't have BPD. She says she has anxiety and experienced just a episode of mania. She is still receiving treatment due to the Mental Health Act but has said another doctor she is seeing (and giving her other medication) thinks that it isn't worth the paper it is written on and should be torn up. Unfortunately this other doctor tells her what she wants to hear. Am I allowed to report this other to a medical association? He is giving her Stilnox and her psychiatrist that looks after her under the Mental Health Act took her off it.

hi I don't know if this is the right place so please correct me if Im wrong. We feel very much alone not knowing where we stand with our daughter who tells us she has been diagnosed with BPD among other things. Although we are being told thing about her (not by her but from others) we don't know what to do or even how to act. We are not suposed to know anything of her problems and she acts as if there is nothing wrong when she speaks to us. We have watched our child from afar since we decided to let her have her space in the family home while we went away at the same time giving her the trust we believed she needed from us. This was some years ago and the situation is pretty much the same today. Just when we think we are making head way with our relationship with her it seems to come undone for no apparat reason. we can only tell by what others are telling us. but when the information dosent come throught we feel totally in the dark and all we have is our faith in God and faith in our daughter. she has never let us down. we love her very much and in our eyes she has done nothing wrong. no doors have been closed but then again no progress has been made either. we are simply just here waiting for her to come around and then we start all over again.