About to undergo a $#%^ storm with BPD son

Hope I'm in the right place on this forum. We have a son who is 37 and I'm positive has BPD. It has gotten so much worse lately. We moved to a small town in 2018, 2 of our kids bought affordable homes here in 2016, our now 31 yr old son and our now 34 yr old daughter with her partner. My BPD son Andy, moved in with his brother who was pretty much his only 'friend' as he had driven away everyone else in his life. In 2019, he had a meltdown as his brother, (I'll put it this way) wasn't 'performing to Andy's standard's. My husband happened to drop in and Andy had been screaming at his brother for 3 hours and wouldn't let him have his phone or leave. My husband broght our other son home - and he is still here. He cannot even live in his own home! Andy would not cooperate with us at all with finding a home for himself as was the plan and now delusionally believes he owns half of his brothers house. Just one of many grandiose ideas he has, and there are many. We have turned the large garage on my son's property into a 1 bedroom apartment for him and are just finishing it now. Of course Andy does not want to move in but knows he has to. While he was there since his brother had to leave, he would not pay his brother board anymore and thinks he's justified in doing that. Well, his social worked who I had to inform recently (long story as to why just now) has just sent me an email saying she will send my other son the portion of Andy's disability cheque that is for board. Now when Andy finds out about this, he is going to lose his mind.. I'm so aprehensive! Andy hasn't been physically abusive to family before but he is absolutely volatile and the emotional abuse has been insane. He has not spoken to me directly for going on 5 years but has to text my cell to get to his dad who is much more able to handle his antics than I am. He can still bring me to tears over text. So by the beginning of next month we should be in the middle of a meltdown that I'm not sure won't cause Andy to 'snap' as the money thing is so important to him.. he has already made threats (he has before re violence but never followed through but he's so much worse now) and I'm not sure how to deal with whatever the fallout might be.
I'll keep you posted. Lord have mercy!

I would really like to hear from others with some support. It's a lonely place when you are suffering as a bit of an outcast family as people just don't understand what you've lived through...

Hello there,

I'm sorry this is happening to you and your family. I will try and give some insight and advice.

You say Andy has been diagnosed with Borderline or is this what you think he might have? Not to be blunt but are you basing this solely on his anger outbursts? If he was indeed diagnosed, I think he may have been misdiagnosed.
I currently believe I've been misdiagnosed with Borderline myself. It's a very easy disorder to misdiagnose. People see anger outbursts and assume it is bpd but it often is not. Bpd is much more than that.
With that in mind, my first piece of advice is to get him into therapy.

Now to look at the situation. You say Andy lays a claim to things and people, has standards of how they ought to act, essentially expects others to take care of him, and has grandiose ideas. With my limited knowledge, I'd be looking at Narcissism right now, but I'll leave that to a licensed professional. What you can do is look into npd and see if there are tips on how to deal with that. You can also look on the subforum for npd here on psych forums and see how these people think and struggle to gain some insight.

My best advice is to not cater to Andy. He's a grown boy. He needs to take care of himself. Make clear boundaries and enforce these. Don't respond to rude comments with emotion. If he threatens with violence, you warn the cops. If it comes to it, he might get arrested and he might get be forced into therapy from there. This is of course not ideal, but he needs to learn the consequences of his actions.

Regardless of what disorder he has or doesn't have, all of this holds true. If he gets dangerous, you remove him from the situation for everyone's safety.
Unless we're dealing with psychopaths (and sociopaths), behavioural problems can be managed. He just needs to learn how. So I will keep stressing it: therapy. Get him and yourself the help you both need.

Hope this helps and all best to you,

~ Grey

Thanks Grey. Andy has had issues his whole life. Took counseling for years off and on and nothing helped. He has what seems to be parts of all the different mood disorders and after years of trying to figure it out, Borderline appears to be almost exactly what he has. He will not see doctors, take medications or even try to get along with others. Money is his god. He has a diagnosis but will not allow anyone access to it as he thinks we will have him "locked up". He has been diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and is a hermit, hardly ever goes out, only for fast food and a few groceries. He has extreme food, taste, smell and touch sensitivities. His dad is the only person he will talk to. I truly don't know what to expect when he finds out some of his disability money will go directly to his brother. He may snap.. I don't know what to expect. Wondering if I should have someone like police or social worker on standby. His dad will likely say wait and see what happens.

Hmm, sounds like a complicated situation indeed. If you worry for your safety, you should most certainly prepare for it. Keep possible weapons out of reach especially. If he indeed has borderline, he'll be impulsive when in a fit of rage. He can't control himself in that moment of anger.

The reason I question the diagnosis is because borderline is at the core a fear of abandonment and weak self-image. They cling to people and test their loyalty by pushing them away. They feel intensely.

The way you mentioned he treats people like he owns them, like he owns places, and that he cares only for money, gives me the idea that he lacks empathy. That's possible with borderline but quite unlikely. A lot of disorders show the mood swings that borderline does including narcissism, adhd, schizophrenia, bipolar... and then there's of course drugs and alcohol that achieve the same thing. I often feel like borderline is just the go-to answer for when it gets too complicated.

So my advice:
- Keep dangerous items out of reach.
- Make sure you outnumber him and have an open space with escapes.
- Keep a phone nearby.
- When you tell him, try telling him that it doesn't mean he will be alone and abandoned. He might think he needs the money so he can survive because he will be alone, but he has support. Even if he ends up in jail, he needs to know people love him because if it's borderline, that's all he truly wants; to feel loved and understood. Like he's not alone in it all.

Try not to stall it. It's infinitely better if he hears bad news from you before he finds out himself later.

Good luck!

~ Grey

Thanks Grey. The issue is that he will not allow anyone else to be with his Dad when he visits. He goes to his room if anyone else comes. And he does own things like knives, considered to be weapons. He has them in his room. We were going to just let things play out when he gets less money deposited to his account and texts me in a panic wanting to know why - but you think we should tell him before that happens? He definitely has trust issues and I hate doing that.. and he does lack empathy, seriously! You say borderlines don't usually have that trait? I thought that was part of it. He does have narcisistic tendencies but with the social anxiety, maybe the other traits seem different(?) I'll never know as he won't cooperate with seeing doctors. I'll speak with family and see if we can come up with a plan. Thanks for your input!

So Borderline, as stated before is a really tricky disorder. I don't know if you read or watched Harry Potter, but Borderline is a little bit like Hufflepuff house amongst the disorders known to us. That is to say, everything that doesn't fit the other disorders precisely or is too complex tends to be called borderline. The name borderline even stems from the fact that specialists used to believe it bordered on other disorders. It'd show a lot of traits of those disorders but not enough so it touched upon the "border" of for example schizophrenia.

Borderline had a name change proposal to Emotion Dysregulation Disorder because with this disorder people feel very intensely. This is why these people show explosive anger and deep depression. Usually feeling intensely causes individuals to almost feel what another is feeling as their own emotions. Hence why most people with borderline are considered empathic. There have been cases described in research articles were people diagnosed with borderline weren't quite as considerate to their fellow humans, but researchers believed that had to do with their lack of social skills taught throughout life. Usually lack of empathy is associated with anti-social personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, sociopaths, and psychopaths.
But every person is unique. As I said before, I won't try and diagnose Andy because I don't have enough knowledge about him or all the disorders in existence to effectively do so.

Going on the assumption that he is in fact borderline since you said he was diagnosed, I'd make sure to tell him before it happens. Then he won't feel betrayed. If you can't be there with multiple people, at least make sure he isn't in a room with weapons when he is talking to his dad alone (and be sure to stay close and keep an ear out from another room).

I must stress that people with borderline will see anything like this as an act of abandonment. You need to approach him in a manner that shows you aren't doing that. He needs to be reassured. It could be that he hates you and doesn't trust you because he feels abandoned by you and therefore he is less empathic towards you. You don't want that to happen with his dad too, so definitely tell him beforehand and make sure it's clear he won't be alone and without help.

I hope it goes smoothly so you can all feel a bit more comfortable again.

~ Grey

Well, it went anything but smoothly but not as bad as I thought. His Dad wanted to tell Andy multiple times about the money issue but couldn't bring himself to do it. So when Andy found out, he texted my cell and said to get his Dad to come over, that it was an emergency. We knew he knew. His dad went over and Andy was in a blind screaming rage, demanding his money and that he would kill someone or burn the house down and if we sent help that he'd cut his own throat if they tried to come in. He showed his dad that he had a pocket knife almost threateningly. He had a couple of days to stew and during that time he got violently ill, threw up if he ate anything and had bowel issues as well. He said to his dad that he just laid there for 2 days and hardly moved. He's still demanding some money back (not all anymore!) cause he says he can't live on the amount. (We know he puts money away monthly in a safe and won't use it) His dad is wondering if we should back off a bit on the amount. We might, but this must be discussed with his younger brother who is now, after almost 4 years, just getting his board money. Moving into the apartment has been put on the back burner till we deal with this crisis. Whew!

Well, this is about what you could expect from letting him find out by himself, as I warned about.
The initial response was definitely not great from what I'm reading here, so I'm a little concerned as to what you expected at this point. I'm glad he seems to have settled down a little.

Good luck from here on out.

~ Grey