Birthday Wishes for Whom?

As a parent you imagine all the wonderful ways you will bond with your child and all the beautiful memories you will create. But, in truth, the memories are mainly for the parent to keep (or preserve in photo or video) because most will not be retained by your child. Still, you struggle to make immeasurable and numerous memories for your child to one day relive.

To that end there are first birthday parties, vacations meant to instill lasting recollections, and often times, just wonderful moments we hope they will treasure as we do. Parents believe we are doing this for our child and in many ways, we are. But, we are also creating those moments for ourselves because we are in this together with our children. All the precious moments will be ours too.

So, what happens when you have a child with Borderline Personality Disorder? The plan is still the same but so often, those carefully crafted moments are overshadowed by darkness. Or, as in some cases, completely forsaken. One day, that child may look back and wish there had been a wonderful memory rooted there but it is the parent who seems to suffer the most because most BPD kids are lost in their immediate moment or crisis.

Let me explain. I have a daughter who suffers from BPD. On her 16th birthday, I had such plans. Notice I said 'I." She had no such plans, she was lost in the latest drama that had taken over her life and blocked out all else. I felt let down that I could not make her 16th birthday a memory she would hold close the rest of her life. She had no such illusion because she was caught up in the delusions that had become her everyday.

Her 17th birthday rolled around and I was prepared because the crisis had escalated and I did not even know if she would be home. We did celebrate with a cream pie and one of her friends, late in the evening. I tried not to be disappointed, but deep inside, I was. She was not.

Now, today is her 18th birthday and another crisis is upon us. There is no early morning waking with Happy Birthday, no special moment when we look back at the last 18 years, no words of encouragement or even civility. I knew it would be this way, the drama started yesterday and I knew it could not be abandoned that quickly. And she has the right to feel disappointed for the boyfriend relationship in shambles (or ended) and the disturbed ranting from the past that reared its ugly head just days before her birthday.

But, when you have a child with BPD, it becomes everything, these disturbances. And they get magnified with little or no effort on anyone else's part. And so, the moment that should be special, gets lost. My plan of having a small gathering, pizza, a poster board full of the last 18 years on film and just rejoicing at this milestone---are just gone.
My daughter is too caught up in a frenzy to notice that this moment is slipping away. But, as her mother, I perceive all too well. It is my heart that is breaking for what might have been. It is my head that cannot understand why it is not as important to her as it is to me. And it brings me up short because this day is not about me.

Now wounded pride, wishful thinking, hope--, whatever you call them, must be set aside. It is not my 18th birthday, it is hers. And I must honor that it is not what I would have expected or hoped for; " it is what it is." Those words are the credo for parents of family members who are diagnosed with BPD; that and "nothing is written in stone."

So we mourn what could have been or what we thought such a celebration would be like. And we mourn for the child who does not even recognize what they missed because in their world, they missed nothing. They have moved on and away-to a place we cannot travel with them. The most we can do is be here when they come back. Happy 18th Birthday my Poodi girl.

View the original article here ezine.com