Ep. 185-Parenting Adult Children with Borderline Personality Disorder
This episode gives parents of adults with borderline personality disorder insights into the experience of parenting someone with BPD and strategies for supporting their children.
When your child struggles with intense emotions, it's heartbreaking for any parent. But when you're a parent of an adult child with borderline personality disorder (BPD), you're walking on eggshells trying not to make things worse. In this episode, Dr. Kibby shares powerful, research-backed strategies for parents of grown children with intense emotions, revealing how your approach can prevent crises from escalating and rebuild vital connections.
You’ll discover why family dynamics often reinforce emotional storms, and how shifting your perspective can de-escalate fights before they explode. Dr. Kibby breaks down practical, compassionate tools like validation, boundary-setting, and safety planning—skills that empower you to stay calm and present, even when your loved one is in chaos.
Plus, she reveals why involving the whole family system is essential, not just the individual with BPD, and how to handle crisis moments like threats or self-harm without reinforcing harmful behaviors. We’ll also explore the impact of trauma, shame, and guilt that parents carry and how your own mental health is intertwined with theirs.
If you’re exhausted by cycles of overwhelm, blame, or hopelessness, this episode is your guide to navigating the unthinkable with clarity and kindness. Perfect for parents, partners, or anyone supporting someone with borderline or emotional dysregulation.
Resources:
Join KulaMind, Dr. Kibby's support program for parents and partners of people with BPD
-
Dr. Kibby McMahon (00:00)
Hey little helpers, today I'm going to be talking about what to do if you have a child with borderline personality disorder or BPD. Or they might not have the diagnosis, but they are emotionally dysregulated, meaning they have big feelings. It's like they get overwhelmed really easily. They might do or threaten to do something that's dangerous when they're upset. So they basically can't handle their intense emotions. And what do you do as a parent?
I'm going be talking about this from the perspective of people who have an adult child with BPD. This all applies to if you have a younger kid with BPD. But in KulaMind , we've been talking a lot to people in their 50s or 60s or 70s who have an adult child, someone who's like 20 to 30s, who is struggling with their emotions. And these parents don't know what to do.
They're at a loss, they wanna help their child, ⁓ they feel responsible, but they don't know what to do. They don't know how to help the situation without making it worse. And they don't know how to repair the relationship with their child. So, I'm gonna talk a lot about that. I'll talk about what the research says about being a parent of someone with BPD, as well as some strategies that can be really helpful for helping yourself, helping...
your child and also the
if you're listening to this and you have a loved one with borderline personality disorder, maybe it's your child or partner or anyone else in your life, ⁓ and you really need more strategies and more help, like hands-on help from me, then check out KulaMind .
K-U-L-A-M-I-N-D dot com. And I'll also leave a link in the show notes because that is all that we do. KulaMind is my community and program for supporting loved ones of people with severe mental illness like emotion dysregulation and borderline personality disorder. So if you're like, my gosh, I don't know what to do. Someone I love is really struggling with their emotions. Then just reach out to me, book a call with me and we could talk about what.
what support you need. So that's just a little plug because I swear KulaMind has become a support for parents with kids who have big feelings. So.
The reason why I'm bringing this up today is I'm seeing an epidemic. I don't know if this is just a bias of people who tend to reach out to me or this is really going on, but at like a greater level. But a lot of these older parents are really at a loss. They feel so helpless. We know that the Gen Z and younger generations are having a really hard time now. It's like really...
It's really not great. I really feel for people who are younger ⁓ because the world is uncertain and crazy and scary. ⁓ We have social media that gives us like the most intense emotional stimulation all the time. And ⁓ a lot of the younger generations went through COVID. So honestly, I feel like I could do a whole thing on talking about the hidden trauma.
that everyone had to go through, that there was like a deadly disease that swept the world and we all locked in, right? So younger people are having a really hard time. They're having a hard time getting their own place, finding jobs, dealing with the stress of everyday life. And yes, life is harder, right? This rental housing market is the worst. It's like one of the worst. But also we find that
20, 30 year olds like younger adults are having a harder time managing the stress of everyday life. ⁓ And this is especially the case with people who, with your children who have struggled with big emotions. So before I dive in, I'll just briefly talk about the diagnosis. So borderline personality disorder is a...
disorder where somebody has difficulty managing their intense emotions or their expression of them. ⁓ And what that does is, what that looks like is a lot of up and down with emotions, right? Like they react to something like a stressor with like the world is ending or when they're happy, they're like bubbly and happy, right? They like feel a lot.
And it's also in response to things that are going on in their life. And what that tends to do with this intense emotions is that there's also a lot of ups and downs in relationships too. So their sense of self and their relationships to you as their parent or their loved one is like, it's all good or all bad. This is perfect, I love you, we're like.
close and almost like too close or there's distance. Right. So there's even in the sense of self, like they often don't know who they are. They often, you know, adapt to different social situations. They do everything to try to keep people close and they really feel triggered by abandonment or criticism or rejection. Even if people don't mean to criticize or reject, like if you say something that you don't
didn't even mean for it to be like mean, ⁓ for them they would react really strongly to it. So that's what borderline personality disorder looks like. Now I wouldn't go to your kid and say, I think you have BPD, like after Googling or checking out this
often, I'm noticing a trend too that people with borderline personality disorder in the younger generations,
⁓ want more of a trauma disorder diagnosis. Like, I'm seeing this on social media. So, you know, I've yet to talk to a lot of people because I'm in the world where borderline personality disorder is like understood and treated, right? So like, it seems commonplace to me to say, yeah, someone has borderline personality disorder. But there are some people who feel that the diagnosis is really stigmatizing, right? Saying borderline personality disorder makes us sound like
you have a crappy personality. It's just who you are. ⁓ Which it isn't, by the way. But ⁓ what I think the younger generations prefer and identify with is ⁓ PTSD or complex PTSD. Which the symptoms are similar, but they're not actually the same thing. ⁓ So I'm seeing a lot of parents who are like, I think my kid has BPD and
the kid wasn't diagnosed and they say, think of complex ⁓ PTSD. So it doesn't really matter. Whatever diagnosis or label ⁓ is organizing and feels like resonates with the person and leads to the best treatment, that's fine. So just say that you might be thinking, hmm, I think my kid does have borderline personality disorder, but it's common that it's not properly diagnosed. Often,
these kids, and when I say kids, every time I say kids, I mean people who are 18 and up, right? Your kids. ⁓ They might have a lot of substance abuse issues. I'm hearing a lot of vaping, a lot of vaping THC, which can be very dysregulating because there is very high concentrations or unknown concentrations of THC and other drugs in the vape, and they're like ingesting a lot more. So that could be really.
activating for some people, especially if they're on different kinds of medications where that would interact with it. ⁓ Drinking, other kinds of substance use, ⁓ risky sex, self-harm. ⁓ And although I am seeing more of the dysregulation looking like more of a shutdown and withdrawal and avoidance. ⁓ Probably I think informed by COVID, right? Like we've just learned
big coping mechanism that you could go into your own computer and disappear. So I think that when there's ⁓ parents with an adult child with BPD, what I'm hearing is there's a lot of beating yourself up and self-blame and shame. So these poor parents are like, my kid,
who's like graduated from college is super smart. They're super talented, super lovely in many ways. Gifted, often as very gifted kids. They ⁓ are not independent. They are living in my house or financially supported by me. ⁓ Maybe they don't have a job or they don't have a job that leads to a sustainable career. ⁓ And they have trouble dating, like big...
dramatic ⁓ infatuations and big passionate relationships that kind of blow up. ⁓ And a lot of these parents are like, my God, my kid is almost 30 and I'm afraid that they will be dependent on me forever. Or like, what did I do? Did I enable this? Did I cause this? And sometimes even they're blamed for it, right? It's like, you're my parent and you traumatized me in this way and you caused my mental health issues with this way.
These parents, like you might be blaming yourself a lot, right? Or wondering like, where did I go wrong? Why is everyone else's kid, like who's 25 or 30 going off and working or figuring their lives out, but my kid is developmentally like a teenager. So I'm seeing this like failure to launch a dilemma. And there's a couple of reasons for that, but. ⁓
I'm thinking about this on both sides of the equation. So I really feel for both sides. I feel for the kids with trauma or borderline personality disorder and any other kind of ⁓ mental health struggles as well as the parents. It's hard for everybody. And one of the main points is that it is hard for everybody, right? I think that's...
sometimes a harder thing to grasp is that if someone has, if your kid has a diagnosis or a mental health struggle, if someone is more sick and they're an identified patient, it's like, oh, they need the help. We need to focus on how to help them and get them into treatment. the focus is on them and their suffering. But you as a parent are suffering too. And that's just...
I think that one of the takeaways that I'll describe in more detail is that borderline personality disorder and emotion dysregulation in general, it's not a one person problem. It's a system problem. It's a family problem. There's a sickness in the family, in the relationship between you and your child. let's, you know, I'm trying to sidestep the thinking that this is someone is to blame or someone's at fault or one person's a bad person, but this is...
this is a bigger problem than just one person is sick. I've been on both sides because when I grew up, ⁓ things were so difficult at home that I definitely was more dysregulated. I was getting into fights with my boyfriend, really dramatic ones like publicly in the street or at school, we're like yelling at each other. I did a little self-harm. I think I cut myself a little bit, but I definitely was like...
hitting myself because I wasn't sure how to... I felt like these emotions were there and no one was seeing it, including myself, so had to get them away. I felt really alone and I went through a lot of different trauma. So I was... I was explosive. I was dysregulated a lot of the time when I was younger. And so...
That put a strain on my relationship with my parents, of course. But then I also have been in the situation with my mother and other people where I'm the more regulated one, where the other one person is like, you know, more dysregulated and yelling and ⁓ doing really harmful things. And I'm also a parent of a three-year-old who has strong emotions. mean, hopefully, you know.
Hopefully I could validate and help him learn how to regulate his emotions over time. But yeah, I know what it's like now to see my child in pain and feel at a total loss for what to do. It is a horrible feeling. And as a parent, something that I've didn't really appreciate until became a parent myself was that when your child is in pain, it hurts physically. Like when even if...
Even if my son is crying because he wants TV and I know that's silly, he's been watching TV, it's not that, it's not an emergency. When he cries about it, like, I feel my stomach turn. I feel my heart, like my chest, I feel like I'm almost about to cry, right? It feels like an emergency inside and I have urges to do anything I can to make him feel better. Even turn on the TV, which would be reinforcing his tantrums. So.
I get that seeing your kid in pain, especially emotional pain, is unbelievably difficult. ⁓ And I'll also say traumatizing too. When you're a parent with a parent of a child who has hurt themselves or threatened to hurt themselves or done something dangerous to ⁓ put their own life at risk, that's a trauma.
That's a trauma for the parents.
The DSM, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, ⁓ defines a trauma as one being like having your own safety and life at risk.
You've been in an accident, you've been assaulted or something like that. Or you've seen someone you love go through that. So if your child has ever threatened to hurt themselves or have done so, that is trauma for you. And a lot of your responses towards your child might be trauma responses. So the main point is being a parent of someone with borderline personality disorder or similar emotions to regulation.
can be super stressful. And this is why I built KulaMind anyway, because the loved ones around someone who's sick also need help for their own sake. But also, if BPD and mental illness is a family or systems problem, then we gotta work on all of the parts of that system. So if you're a parent, a child with BPD, ⁓ getting support and learning skills is important for you too.
The research shows that, ⁓ I don't think this is surprising to anyone listening, but parents of people with BPD report more anxiety, depression, expressed emotion, and poor quality of life than other parents with kids who don't have mental health issues. ⁓ It's this feeling, the research shows that it's this feeling of hopelessness, of like,
I'm constantly going to have to protect them. I'm constantly walking on eggshells. And every part of our life is organized around how do we keep that particular child safe, right? It's like that, it almost is like that kid and their emotions and their needs are dominating the whole family system, right? Where everyone's on alert. Don't upset your sister. Don't, you know, like.
make her happy, just move on, right? Like you be the strong one, right? So everyone is focused on like, how do we make sure that we contain the damage of ⁓ maybe impulsive decisions or something or emotional decisions of this child. ⁓
Expressed emotion is a feature of families who struggle with with mental health and if Parents and children like family systems with BPD tend to have higher expressed emotion and that's just a term to describe like There's just more intense emotional expression, right? They're screaming there's
big threats, there's ultimatums, there's ⁓ character attacks, right? There's just like way more ⁓ intense talking and communicating about emotions, ⁓ but not in ways that are effective, right? Not in ways that actually like make people feel heard.
Parents of people with BPD also struggle with, one, feeling that they have low social support. So they tend to feel like they don't have a lot of people who can help them in this problem. They tend to blame themselves or disengage a lot, behavioral disengagement, meaning they kind of drop the ball, drop and walk away. And there's a lot of stigma.
a lot of criticism and emotional over involvement in families with BPD and parents of people with BPD. So what that means is that the parents feel very alone. They feel ashamed. Like I don't wanna tell too many people about this because maybe it looks bad on me or it puts me in a bad light. Like maybe people would think that I'm a failure as a parent or I abused them or I did something wrong.
⁓ And also they tend to feel a lot of guilt and shame for having a child with BPD. And the emotional over-involvement is interesting. So there tends to be a pattern with parents of people with BPD where there's a flip between emotional over-involvement and rejection.
So they're swinging between being super involved, almost like overprotective, ⁓ being really involved in kids' life, helping them feel better, calming them down. And then when things go badly, they're like, fine, I'll never speak to you again, or I'll go away, or they'll kind of give up and leave, which makes sense, right? There's a lot of emotionality in that relationship, so it's either like...
all emotion and all closeness or disengagement.
And as you can imagine, a lot more stress in those kinds of families. Another interesting finding from the research is, and this is one study I found that looked at a group of, that basically did clinical assessments with a group of parents of people with BPD and a comparison group ⁓ with kids who don't have a disorder. And in the BPD parent group,
they were more likely to have, they often had a lot of mental health issues, as you can imagine. The most common personality disorders they had were obsessive compulsive personality disorder and BPD themselves. So parents of kids with BPD ⁓ often will have obsessive compulsive traits as well as BPD and dysregulation themselves. So.
All of this that I'm talking about is not, I'm not saying that these are findings that explain a cause and effect. So it's not like the BPD, the kids with BPD make their parents ⁓ have mental health issues or, you know, different, you know, stress or high emotional expression. It might be the case that parents have that, like they are struggling with their own anxiety, depression, and that affects the child. But.
This is to say that there is no one causes the other. It's just like, this is the general picture that kids who have BPD ⁓ tend to have parents who are very stressed. They have low social support. They tend to blame themselves and flip back and forth between being over-involved and disengaged. And also very on high alert about like how to manage these crises. ⁓ The Obsessive-Commulsive Personality Disorder
is interesting because I don't, I really don't know what would be the cause and effect there, like the chicken or the egg. On the one hand, having, if you are a parent and you, obsessive compulsive personality disorder means that it's different traits ⁓ where someone needs things to go a certain way or needs to be perfect, otherwise they're really upset. So it's a little bit more like rigid following of rules.
of standards, could be very critical and could be very resistant to change. So parents who have those qualities, if they have a kid with big emotions and that feel out of control, those parents might really have a hard time with kids who are like more explosive and expressive and externalizing, right? Because it's, know, the parent wants control, right?
But I could see the other way going other way, you know when you if you have a kid who was so out of control and so Does regulate and does like risky things I've seen family members around that person get really highly anxious and Really grip to control. I see that also in siblings to siblings of people with BPD tend to be really They
value predictability and control, which makes sense, right? You have someone in your family system that is unpredictable and could do things that are dangerous or they have, when they're upset, it kind of dominates the whole family system. the other family members, parents and siblings alike are like, okay, we have to keep things together. We have to control things so it doesn't get dangerous, right? So they...
They might even struggle with that even outside of the family, wanting control and certainty.
So there's a couple of main takeaways from that research. The first one is that this is again a systemic problem. It's not one person's fault. Even in Marsha Linehan's ⁓ biosocial model of emotion dysregulation, they talk about a transactional model, meaning a transaction, it's a back and forth. It's not like one kid was just born broken or whatever and
then it's like they're the problem. Or it's also not about that it's all the parents' fault. It's a back and forth. It's a poor fit or a bad system. So what often happens is that a kid is ⁓ naturally more emotionally sensitive, right? They feel deeper. They react more strongly to stress. Their emotions are big and loud and... ⁓
hard to regulate, hard to manage. And then the parent is overwhelmed by that, right? And so either they, the parent is unintentionally invalidating, like, or maybe on purpose invalidating, like, oh, calm down, it's fine, it's no big deal. Your sister can calm down, what I didn't do, but like your sister. Or they could be outright abusive, right? They could yell at them or hit them or neglect them when they're, when they're dysregulated.
where they get dysregulated themselves, right? They like, the kid gets upset and they get upset, right? So it's really a back and forth ⁓ evolving relationship and evolving disorder. So someone usually has BPD when they're, they have like intense emotions and the family system doesn't help them regulate it. ⁓ I used to be,
just like all about, ⁓ I think before I became a mom, I was way more critical of the parents role. Like they have to, they should validate their kids. They should listen. They should, you know, and I still think that's true. ⁓ But it's also, I could also see from a parent's side that when your kid has really intense emotions, they're just getting upset and it's disruptive. Like they get exhausted and they don't,
maybe know all the skills to basically to handle that. And especially if they're parenting alone or they don't have more support in parenting, you know, they're like, fine, just stop, stop, stop yelling, right? And that could make that kid's emotions even worse. it's, sometimes there is trauma and abuse that leads to BPD. Yes, definitely. But sometimes it's not always that clear. Sometimes,
If a kid, you know, just basically has these big emotions, often they might have a traumatic experience or been assaulted or something terrible, some big stressor in their life, and then their parents might not have known what to do to help them, right? So this is just a bigger puzzle piece. This is a bigger picture than just like, it's the parents' fault. It's your fault. You traumatized them by invalidating them and...
Now you have to pay for it. I also say that to people who have BPD. I understand the feeling, because I feel it myself, of a part of you, like an inner child, who's upset at the traumatic experience that they've had with their parents. Even if it's like they made me feel abandoned.
They neglected me. They didn't listen to my emotions. Like I didn't feel seen by them Or even all the way to you know, I was abused by them in some way It is so painful because for that person they have to carry that Forever like they will always be a part of them That will be hurt by that right? Like you don't actually get over traumas. You might relate to them differently or hold them differently but
there will always be that little nugget of pain. sometimes if you don't know what to do with that pain, it can feel cathartic or could feel like the right thing to do to be angry and explode and blame the parent, which is valid. Maybe they did do something to hurt you. But ⁓ what is really tricky is that I'm seeing adults like.
just scream and yell and maybe be abusive back to their parent or demand like money and other kind of like accommodations.
trying to heal that wound. Right? And that's never really gonna work. I think everyone knows that because...
it's that's maybe not the way to heal a past wound like that. so I'm just seeing all this back and forth pain that kind of exists in these, in these systems and parents of kids with BPD often they're like, I, all I need to do is get my kid into therapy. I need to get them into DBT. Can I
force them to go? Can I court order them to go? ⁓ I need to fix them. I need to figure out what the right diagnosis is and I need to get them to the right doctor, but they don't want my suggestions. They won't let me help them navigate their treatment. ⁓ So help me do that. And that's tricky. That's really tricky because you can't force someone into therapy. It doesn't really work. ⁓ You can
really point out the problems. You can point out how helpful getting help could be. You could talk honestly about it. You could offer solutions. You could help them find treatment. You could even help them get there. But you can't make someone get therapy if they don't want it, right? Like there's very, very specific circumstances where you can court order someone to therapy or, you know, inpatient or anything like that. But
it's really tough to do and forcing someone else to get therapy is, you know, even if they did end up in therapy, they might not engage with it in the way that you're hoping. ⁓ So if we're talking about BPD in your child as like a family systems problem, a family problem, a relationship problem, then what you can do is control what you can control, which is yourself and
try to let go of control of your loved one. I know that's easier said than done because it's scary, right? They might be really hurtful sometimes. They can be very dangerous, right? The idea of just like, ooh, like letting them do whatever is terrifying. But you will get much more leverage by working on yourself and using skills than you can trying to force someone else to learn skills.
So what are the skills? would be helpful if you are a parent of a child with BPD, an adult child?
So the number one skill I suggest for parents of people with BPD or any kind of loved ones of people with BPD, especially parents, is to validate their feelings. Let me be more clear about that. Validate their feelings. Not necessarily what they're accusing you of or what they say, but actually treat.
their emotions as real and valid.
Communicate to them that you are committing to understanding their feelings and their perspective. Try to understand their world better.
That means asking questions. means saying, like, tell me more about that. Help me understand the pain. Help me understand why you're upset with me. ⁓ Walk me through it. I really want to understand what you're feeling and how you see this. ⁓ The reason why this is so important is that what I'm seeing with these older parents with kids who are dysregulated is
They are, they've gotten to a place where they're so frustrated, understandably, so frustrated, so traumatized, so hopeless, that they are just like, I just want something specific for my kid and I want them to know how, what I think is best for them and want them to know how I feel about them. ⁓ Often this looks like,
when parents are estranged from their kids with BPD, which is really common, right? They're they're like either, ⁓ so close texting every day, talking about everything, talking about emotions or no, like I'm not speaking to you mom or dad. And so then the parents get so, you know, they're in their heads all the time thinking about their kid. They're so upset by this. Like the idea of not talking to a child.
⁓ It feels devastating. Like I can't even imagine if my son decided to not speak to me how painful that would be. ⁓ God. ⁓ And now being a parent and seeing how much work it actually is, it's like, it's pretty painful. However, think it looks like kids are doing that a lot. And I've done this too with my parents. When there doesn't feel like there's space for them, where they don't feel heard or listened to or treated with
equal respect and agency. It's like when the parents don't treat them as their own individuals, ⁓ that's when kids start to retreat and start to block off contact because they're like, I don't feel like a person in this and it just brings up terrible feelings in me and it doesn't bring out the best side in me. And so I think that the mistake that older parents might make is they double down. They'll be like,
Well, how do I get my kid to talk to me so I could tell them how much I love them and how I think they need treatment? Or they think that I abused them or caused them the trauma growing up and I gotta tell them like how much I did for them instead. I gotta convince them that I actually was loving them and did the best that I can. Totally makes sense, right? It's like...
It totally makes sense to want to reconnect with a kid and tell them how much you love them and the good intentions you have for them. However, if you're thinking, I want to talk to my kid because I want them to hear me, then that's exactly the problem. That might be the thing that you're doing so much that that kid might not.
might not feel heard or seen. And you're like, wait a minute, but they're like, all I do is think about them and they're so upset all the time and I pay attention to their feelings. yeah, that's true. But they're communicating when they're dysregulated, when they're screaming, you know, and that's a different state than like, and what you wanna, ⁓ and not necessarily what you wanna listen to and reinforce, than if they are telling you how they feel or if they... ⁓
share their perspective. And the way to do that on your end is to validate their feelings. Start with questions. Start with saying like, you know, if your kid is like screaming at you or, you know, it's like, know, listen, I'm feeling this. It's like, please, I understand. I see that you're really upset and I hear you. Please tell me more about that so I can really understand what's going on. Or what does that make you feel?
or tell me more about how, what this is like for you. I like that phrase. Tell me more about what this is like for you. Because it just says, hey, you know what? I'm just gonna sit next to you and look at the view from your perspective. That in itself does so much. And I think parents, especially boomer parents skip over that. What I think is my theory is that boomer.
I say boomer parents, guess like people in their 50s or 60s or 70s, right? They have adult children and they were raised by people who were in World War II, like in wars, right? So there was like a lot of like generational trauma where people in their 50s and 60s are like, I know what I was taught leads to happiness is get a good job, get a house and marry and have two kids, right? So it's like.
let's survive, let's just build a good, ⁓ sustainable life. ⁓ And now, first of all, all those things are way harder to do, like getting a house and a stable career. mean, like the economy and the world has changed. And now kids are like, no, I want you to see my emotions. I want you to look and recognize and contain and hold my feelings. ⁓ So.
I think parents who are not used to doing that without jumping into solutions and being like, well, all you need is just to like, you know, get a job, you know, get out of my house, whatever, calm down, ⁓ is missing the point. So you, if you're a parent and you're like, I don't know how to connect to my kid, like start from the basics, pretend you know nothing, drop all your preconceived notions and agenda and just open a conversation where the only goal is to understand their feelings and their world and.
perspective. Okay, so just enter their world. Let's see it. Tell me about it. And then the other part of that is to do that with acceptance and confidence. So this is harder to do. if the message that you want to give while you're listening to them and validating their feelings is I'm not afraid of your feelings. I can contain this. I can handle this.
Even if you can't, even if you feel like you can't. I could see the difference when I first gave birth and I was like a ball of postpartum anxiety and hormones and all, you know, like new parent. And my poor little baby would be crying and I'd feed him, I'd do all the things I thought were right and he was still upset. And I would just, I would start to like internally panic and kind of probably project this.
feeling of like, don't, my God, you're crying and I don't know what to do about it. It's just too overwhelming for me. ⁓ So I'd be like, it's okay, it's okay, but it was not inspiring confidence as a mom. And then, ⁓ you know, someone else, right? Like a babysitter or even a husband or someone else that wasn't as like jazzed up as I was, it wasn't as panicky would take him and be like, all right, all right, it's all right.
We're here. I love you, you know? And even that just confidence of like, your cries don't scare me, can be regulating for you and for them, right? And so I try to, I try to fake it until I make it, even when my kid is like, like lashing out, I don't go, oh, why? I don't know. I don't know. I can't handle you. I just be like, either there, like I'm here at 40 or baby, if you're gonna...
throw things at me, I'm gonna walk away, right? But this like calm confidence of I'm not afraid of your feelings. Now, ⁓ another piece of the validation and leaning into those emotions is deal with the process of the emotions, not the content. So what I mean by that is I've had a really hard time with people
who have had mental health struggles, like traits of personality disorders, who have just accused me of things that I didn't like, that isn't part of my reality, right? Like "you tried to hurt me and you tried to sabotage me and you tried to punish me" and ⁓ you know, blah, blah, blah. Or you're trying to, you're doing this on purpose to hurt me. And I go, wait, no way.
No, I'm not. Why are you accusing me of something that is in my head? You're upset because of an intention you think I have, and I'm telling you I don't have it. So naturally I lean into defending myself, being defensive. No, I'm not. No, I didn't. You're remembering it wrong. I said this and I meant that, right?
Especially when you have someone who's dysregulated and accusing you of things or remembering things differently than you do It makes sense that you're like wait a minute No, this is my reality and then that could be tough because different people have different perceptions of what's going on now
If you're getting into that, drop the details. Don't engage with the content. If someone's like, I'm pissed at you because you traumatized me or you abused me and you're like, wait a minute, let me explain to you why I actually didn't. ⁓ Don't do that. Don't do that. That could come across as invalidating. And it's like kind of missing the point, right? It's like people of course see...
a situation differently. When you have two people who got into an argument or are thinking about something that happened 10 years ago, two people are naturally gonna disagree, are gonna have a different ⁓ memory of that moment. ⁓ It's not like one person's memory is better or like more valid than the other. So it's kind of useless to go back and forth, this happened, no this happened, this happened. What you...
can do is just imagine those details are just kind of skirt over that and go into the depth of the emotion that situation brought up. If someone's like, you did this thing and you tried to sabotage me and that was really traumatizing, instead of saying, no, I didn't, you're wrong. You're remembering wrong. But like, my gosh, I did not mean to.
to make you feel that way. ⁓ I remember it differently, but I am so sorry that I hurt you. What was that like for you? Please help me understand that. Help me understand what you were feeling and what that was like for you. And then can explain it, hopefully. And if they do, validate those feelings. okay, it makes so much sense that you felt neglected in that moment.
make so much sense that that was really hurtful for you. ⁓ You're going to have to do this in a really expert way because the world and emotions and relationships to someone with BPD might not look like how you understand it. This is what I mean. So if a kid
who with big emotions and is so interpersonally sensitive and so empathetic and so emotional, ⁓ screams, right? I'm so upset. Like life is, my world's falling apart. Right? They're like so upset. And their parents go, no, it's not. Just calm down. Stop it. Just stop crying. For you as a parent, you might be like, I did that because I...
wanted to help them and I loved them and I was there with them. Like I was, you know, I was trying to be a good parent, but for that kid that could feel so invalidating and painful. So yes, you might have a different perception of that experience and things that might have seemed small or trivial or even done with best intentions for someone with BPD can feel like.
wrenching. So it doesn't matter if you see the situation differently or whatever, you're just trying to understand their feelings. ⁓ And even just validating it like that, giving them the message, I want to listen to you. I want to understand what you're feeling and what that was like for you. ⁓ And I'm not afraid to hear it. I'm not afraid to really
Like go there and hear it. All of that.
It shows a level of connection and it's creating a safe space for them in you, right? Because that is so different than if you approach it like, ⁓ okay, what do you have to say? I'm the worst mom ever. ⁓ Well, gosh, I don't know what to do about that, right? Or I don't wanna hear that, right? That kind of showing them that you're shutting out or can't tolerate their feelings.
makes them feel really ashamed and invalidated, right? Like it makes them feel bad about themselves. And that shame is gonna make their emotions way worse. So even though you might not understand everything and you might be kind of overwhelmed by their emotions, do what you can to kind of be that rock, be that like, I don't get it, but I'm here to understand, right? The other thing that I recommend ⁓ for parents of people with BPD is,
Validate, right? Enter their world, understand their feelings, show them that you care about them and their perspective, but set boundaries around unsafe behavior. ⁓
I'm in my head, getting lost because there's so much that we teach about boundaries and KulaMind . So if you're interested in learning more, definitely reach out to me.
behaviors that they do that risk your life or safety or puts you in fight or flight, ⁓ especially by risking your physical safety and sometimes emotional safety, is a no-go, right? You can't be effective. your kid is saying, I'm gonna hurt myself unless you do this, you're not making decisions in your right mind. You're making decisions based on survival, making sure that your kid or you are safe. ⁓ So when that happens,
and this is the tricky part, is ⁓ watch out for unintentionally reinforcing those behaviors. What I mean by that is people with BPD, your kids with BPD, might have intense emotions. They might have pain, they might have emotional needs, they want to connect but feel rejected, and they don't really know how to act on those feelings in healthy ways. So what they have to do is escalate.
They have to get bigger, they have to scream louder, they have to threaten, they have to hurt themselves, they have to make it visible that they're in pain. that, and what happens is that, when you imagine the world, like, listens, right? If you amp up the danger, other people will listen, other people will be like, you know, I certainly would. If anyone texted me and said I'm gonna hurt myself, I would drop everything and...
focus on trying to keep them safe. Now, that person, if I do that over and over again, that person has learned that if they threaten, they gotta get what they want out of me. ⁓ This is not intentional. They're like, ha ha, now I'm gonna tell my mom that I'm gonna hurt myself, just get what I want. They just learned that that's like the fastest way to get what they need, right? So, don't let that work, right?
when my kid is tantruming for TV, I have to do my best not to give him TV that moment. If he asks me nicely, okay, I'll consider it, right? So when you set boundaries, when they act in ways that are dangerous, have a plan. Even as you're listening to this now, think about like, okay, the different signs and situations that might come up that might be dangerous.
One, they threaten to hurt themselves. Two, they threaten to do more drugs or they'll leave or maybe they'll threaten you, right? So whatever behaviors that they like, that would be really risky and scary, have a plan. They're like, okay, if you are going to threaten hurting yourself, I'm gonna have to call 988 or call your therapist or call for this kind of help, right? Because if someone is
doing things that are harmful to you or themselves, the answer is not to just do whatever they want. The answer is to get them help. If they really are at risk, it's not a time to fine give them the money or let them stay at your house or leave work to support them. The answer is they need to stay safe. We need to get them help. Right. So
whatever that means for you. can't speak to everyone's situations, but I am seeing this really toxic cycle of kids with BPD feeling so distressed, they threaten, self-harm, or they actually try to kill themselves or hurt themselves. That is so traumatizing and scary to parents that whenever their kids even get close to that, like they get upset or, you know, there's stress, the parents are like, my God, like my baby.
life at risk. Okay, fine. I'll do whatever it takes to make you feel better. So they give money, they give support, they drop their whole life. They're like, you have unrestricted access to me and what you want. And then the parents are like, what do I do now? I feel like I enabled it. And I'm always saying that, these parents, everyone is trying to do their best here. Okay, so no one's being evil to each other.
It's the kids are trying to get their needs met and they don't know how and the parents are trying to meet their needs and they don't know how. And the parents are trying to keep everyone safe and they're probably traumatized, right? From the idea of losing their child or having something bad happen to their child. Literally the worst thing I could ever imagine. That's my worst fear. And if my kid was ever at risk, even towards himself, I would lose my mind and I would do something just to make him feel better.
But the right thing to do is be like, okay, wait, I'm not just gonna react out of survival mode, react out of like, just trying to make him feel better in this moment. I'm gonna react in ways that according to a plan of how to keep him safe, right? And that might not be, I was just thinking about how my kid is really like, he's three. And so when he's really dysregulated, he's like, could see, it's usually when he's tired and he's just like.
kind of like a different person. He's like, huh, no, no. And he's like kicking and screaming. I'm like, oh God, he's he's dysregulated. And he'll just tell me to do all sorts of things. Go over there. No, don't go over there. Lie down. Read me this book. Right, so he feels so out of control that he's trying to control me to make himself feel better. And you know, I'm just in that moment, I'm just like, okay, fine. I'll do whatever you say. I'm gonna sit over there.
No, all right, so over there. What do you want, baby? So get what that feels like where you just are kind of at a loss and do what you think is gonna make the kid happy, but it might actually reinforce some things you might want. Like if he's kicking me or throwing things at me or hitting me, I go, I don't even know this is right or wrong, but I try to embody what I'm telling you now and I say, I get it, you're really upset.
But this kicking is not acceptable. I'm gonna walk away because I don't want to get hurt. Right? You could do the same thing with your adult child where it's like I validate the feelings, but maybe not the behaviors. I get that you like help me understand your feelings. I want to understand your perspective and I want to get what you know, what's going on. I totally, your feelings are valid. I want to hear them. And if you're gonna threaten.
to hurt me or someone else, I'm gonna have to make sure that we're safe. And I'm gonna instead focus on, I'm gonna call your therapist or call the police or do whatever it takes or I'm gonna leave the room until we calm down. gonna do whatever it takes to deescalate and keep people safe.
As I say that, know that's scary because what people are really afraid of, loved ones are really afraid of, is making the person with BBD feel rejected. Right? That's terrifying. Making a person with BBD feel abandoned, rejected, or criticized is a huge trigger. And that's associated with a lot of you know, like a lot of danger, a lot of explosions.
So loved ones are really scared to do that. They're really scared to set boundaries because they're like, I don't want to make them feel like I'm not there for them. I don't wanna walk away. I don't wanna do anything that makes them feel like I reject them or abandon them. And this is really tricky nuance, but the difference is...
Are you reacting out of emotion in that moment? In that moment, if your kid is screaming at you or threatening and you're like, I'm leaving because I can't take this and you're crazy, right? And then walk away or cut off contact. That feels a bad thing, right? Because it's almost like lashing out in anger towards them. But if it's based on a plan or with the intention of
we need to keep everyone safe so I can really understand their feelings better, then it's gonna come across differently. You're gonna get that confidence and I'm not afraid of your feelings attitude, right? Instead of like, I'm outta here, you're a jerk, you don't appreciate anything I do. You could be like, you know, I love you so much and I really wanna be here and understand what I can do to help. And if you threaten like this, I can't even think clearly, I'm so scared. So.
let's either I'm gonna walk away until we can calm down and talk more calmly or what do we need to do to make this safer or make you, can I call your therapist? Can I call 9-8-8? But if you come across with a plan of like,
The goal here is to make everyone safe, and so I can understand your feelings better. That's going to go a lot. It's going to be a lot more effective, right? The last piece I'll say about all this is then ⁓ parents are wondering what to do in those crisis moments. Do I call the police? Do I call a hotline?
do I ⁓ call their therapist, as I mentioned? And I'll say this as a loved one. I think it's a real shame that therapy and even like really good DBT or other kind of treatments for personality disorders don't automatically involve family and loved ones. This is my whole mission is like, the family is important here. Loved ones are important. They're important.
part of the world they live in, they're an important part of the recovery and treatment. It's just like, it's so weird to only support one person in this whole system. So it is strange that if you have a kid who's in therapy or in treatment, hopefully, if you're lucky, that there isn't a really good system of communicating with the treatment team.
HIPAA laws, I'm gonna make this point. ⁓ HIPAA laws will kind of dictate that the providers cannot disclose personal and health information of their patients to anyone else unless they get written approval, like they get a release. A release of information, which is a document.
So what that means is if you call or write to your child's therapist or psychiatrist, one is that they might not be able to reply or confirm that they are seeing your kid, right? So if they can't write back and be like, thank you, you know.
I am your daughter's therapist and I will take this into consideration. Even that's a violation of HIPAA. So they might not be able to reply and they might not be able to confirm that they are working with your kid. ⁓ And they will tell your child. They have an obligation. think maybe providers might have different rules around this, but generally the provider will tell their patient if their family member has reached out.
So don't be surprised if your kid is like, I heard that you emailed my therapist or called my therapist. They're gonna do that. And it's not really a betrayal of trust. Like they are your kid's provider. So their ⁓ responsibilities are to their patient. But what this does mean is that you can talk to your kid about, is there...
Would it be helpful for me to join a session or to communicate to your provider? ⁓ You can see, you know, like you could hear exactly what we said, but you know, I just want to know if I can be helpful in any way. And if you are ⁓ having a really hard time or we're scared about your mental health, like how can I reach out to your therapist?
Or how can I, you know, is there a plan? Is there a safety plan? How can we coordinate so that we keep you safe? When is it okay for me to reach out to them? ⁓ I imagine that most kids, most people don't want you to talk to their therapist, of course. And I still think it's important. This is my personal, this is me speaking from my clinical lens, but.
Sometimes that information that you have is really important for their therapy, right? Like if they're going into therapy and they're not disclosing that I had an episode, I try to hurt myself or I was violent towards my parents, that might not come up in their therapy. They might choose to talk about something else, but it might be important for that therapist to know, right? Especially, you know, if there's a safety risk or if there's possible side effects of a...
medication they're on like, you know, it's it is helpful to know if there are serious risks involved so what you could do and I know this is risky because you know, it might get back to your kid, but you can email or leave a message for their therapist or provider or doctor or whatever and just say I am someone's parent. I just want to I know that you can't share any information with me. I just want to let you know that this happened. I'm aware that you
had to communicate this to my kid, but I just thought it would be helpful for you to know. And I am open to anything that could be helpful. ⁓ So that might be a way of doing this one-sided like team coordination where you're like, I'm gonna just share with you this information that I think is important. Don't start putting in all your feelings and opinions there. Be really factual. like, you know, they got up yesterday, they were...
you know, acting this way and they didn't eat and they, you know, they threw this, they got upset and they threw this thing at the wall, right? None of this like, he went crazy and you know, like, I don't even know what to do with him. He's nuts and you gotta fix him, right? Don't put in your opinions about it ⁓ because they're definitely gonna get back to your kid, but just be very factual and.
and explain to them any information that could be helpful, especially if there's drugs or medications or other kind of safety risks involved. So, and then in the worst case scenarios, 9-8-8 is the ⁓ mental health hotline that is available ⁓ in the US. ⁓ And that's mostly to help people deescalate. So they'll kind of walk your kid through skills about how to actually calm down. They also have mobile crisis so they could send out
someone to actually like, you know, take your kid to an emergency room. You can take your kid to an emergency room, ⁓ or they could take themselves if there's a risk of harm, or there's also the police. You can call the police if they threaten to hurt you or themselves. ⁓ Be forewarned though, that experience can be really scary, right? If...
the police are, you know, come and use some force or it's just like kind of a scary experience. And I say this to any loved one of someone with mental illness that ⁓ the police can be very scary and traumatizing on its own. It does help if you call 911 and say, hi, I have a mental health crisis. ⁓ I have an officer or a paramedic with a mental health training or trauma-informed? That could give a little bit of
you know, a little bit of a different approach, but the police are going to come and they're probably going to take them to the emergency room where they'll get evaluated and make sure they're safe and recommended to whatever treatment is appropriate. you ⁓ know, use the police and these emergency services at your discretion, ⁓ but if you're afraid that someone is going to get hurt, that's the appropriate thing to do. ⁓ So...
It's really, the bottom line is this really, really hard for a person with BPD as well as their whole family. It is devastating and consuming for everyone.
And my heart goes out to you and if you are in this situation and need help, again, kulamind.com, K-U-L-A-M-I-N-D.com. There are places where you can book a free discovery call with me and talk through what you're going through. And I'm always putting in like, I'm going to have like more resources and stuff like that for family members with BPD. So my heart goes out to you. It's a hard situation, but with skills and everyone working on their own
emotion regulation and their own mental health, that's going to help the system. You do your part and work on you, and that's the best that you can do. ⁓ Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this, us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or if you have questions, I love hearing your questions in the comments, either on YouTube or Spotify or wherever you can write questions.
I'll see you next week.