BPD - how to help...?

[bowlingbun]

Maybe top of the list of rules should now be ensuring that your home is your castle?!
How dare someone set up shop in your lounge!!! Think about disabling your door opening buzzer somehow? It's difficult without knowing your exact set up, but no one has the right to barge into another's property.

[jenny lucas]

Good Lord, what a carryon! Any idea what triggered this latest 'rodeo ride' (good analogy!)? I don't mean to sound cynical (OK, so maybe I do a bit!), but it does rather sound like the ODs etc are the classic not-so-much 'cries for help' as more likely 'cries-for-attention'???

You say she wasn't admitted to hospital - presumably because they don't think she either (a) did enough physical damage to herself or (b) was sufficiently mentally ill to warrant a psychiatric ward. And that she wasn't best pleased?

Do you think that hospitalisation is what she wants when she ODs, and does she want 'medical' hospital or 'psych' hospital. If the latter, then maybe there is more 'tolerance' for her ODs - if she genuinely wants psychiatric help and feels that 'forcing the issue' is the only way to achieve it. (eg, 'SEE, I AM VERY MENTALLY ILL!) (ie, proved by her ODs??)

But if she just wants 'medical' hospital, and lots of folk rushing around her, and fussing over her, and going 'there there oh you poor thing fancy being so put upon that you feel you have to do this desperately dreadful thing and take too many pills oh dear oh dear poor poor you how cruel your life is to you' (etc), then of course there is no slack to cut her. (er, especially not when the NHS has just been hit with ransomware!).

(By the way, does her family 'rush round' when she ODs? I think you said her dad was 'enabling' in his relationship? )

From my way of thinking (entirely amateur, so DO bear that in mind!) it must be important to distinguish between behaviour that is simply, for want of a better term 'attention seeking' (possibly 'narcissistic' even????????) and behaviour that is a genuine cry for (real) help. (I say 'real' to distinguish it from the fussing and pampering and secondary gain 'help' that she seems to love to get???)

I must say I am shocked that she has children, and that they are now in care. I think my 'sympathy level' has gone down markedly. Unless, maybe, there has been, say, an abusive/controlling husband in the frame?? (If not, does the children's dad get involved, or is he a No Show in their lives??).

OK, practical things - I think your 'getting together' with her care team AND all her friendship group is excellent and essential. This really is a time to hang together, or she will 'divide and conquer' amongst you.

What do the professionals/psychs say about the best way to deal with her that is SUPPORTIVE rather than ENABLING, and do you agree with that from your own daily experience of her?

What will happen next with her, do you think? Will it be different this time because of her poor children taken into care? (Do you think she has any realisation of the hurt and harm her behaviour is doing them? Her attitude towards that may possibly be one of the 'bellweathers' that could distinguish between whether she has narcissitic personality disorder or just ordinary BPD!)

Hoping things are a bit quieter for you now - but it does sound like you are now determined to get a grip on the situation, so that has to be good. Hang on in there! It's going to be a bumpy ride I suspect, changing those boundaries!