Treatment

[Italian]

My 37-year-old adult child is considering long term inpatient rehab for her BPD.  Does anyone have experience with this? Is it helpful at her age? She has completed a lot of outpatient treatment with some success but is still struggling a lot. What should we look for when trying to find a treatment facility? Any info would be helpful.

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[kells76]

Hello Italian and welcome to the group  

It's good to hear that your D37 is open to meaningful treatment. My suspicion is that effectiveness is less about the age of the pwBPD (person with BPD), and more about the person's willingness to do the hard work to change.

Are you in the USA? One place to start would be contacting McLean Hospital in Massachusetts; they have a BPD-specific program and it's considered to be a reputable, cutting-edge treatment center. Even if for some reason it ends up not being a good fit, you could ask if they have info about or refer to other trustworthy programs.

If your D37 is currently in outpatient treatment, you can ask her current providers for referrals, too. I'm assuming you are able to be involved with her care (i.e. has she signed disclosure/HIPAA forms)?

[CC43]

Italian, my stepdaughter (diagnosed with BPD a few years back) completed a residential program at McLean referred to above, and other programs affiliated with the hospital.  The residential program did help stabilize her initially, but she relapsed, and I felt McLean dropped the ball with follow-up treatment, as there are no quick fixes for this illness.  However, a critical factor is the willingness of the patient to change.  My stepdaughter wasn't fully committed during initial therapies; she felt she was forced into them following suicide attempts.  Also, the BPD diagnosis was probably very unsettling to her; she was probably expecting something like PTSD, as she claimed she suffered from trauma and abuse from roommates and family members, which triggered her raging outbursts and made her suicidal.  Only after hitting "rock bottom," twice, did she recognize the need for change and started to collaborate with the therapeutic programs.  She has made some progress.  Finding the right team is important.  Another critical factor was her willingness to share treatment information with her dad, at which point he was allowed to interact with therapist(s).  Before that, he was in the dark.  Now he's going to half of the therapy sessions with his daughter.  By working together and recognizing a need for change, I think she's starting to head in the right direction.  But it's slow, and she's still not a functional adult.  But she's managing things she hasn't been able to do for around five years now.  All the best to you.