BPDFamily.com

Hello all.  I'm new here.  My mother is BPD.  She is also an elder with very bad dementia.  I don't have real interaction with her anymore, but was still in contact until the dementia got bad.

Now, I'm trying to concentrate on some of the wounds and healing from childhood issues related to the way I was raised.  I'm wondering what modalities have worked best for others.  Whether is was a particular types of therapy or meditation or whatever.

So you know, I'm not diagnosed with anything, although I suspect I've had mild symptoms of ptsd at different times in my life.  Currently, I'm just somewhat depressed.

Thank you in advance for any replies.

P.S.  Walking on the beach helps me some with the depression, thus my name.   :)

Hello Beachbum! 

Must be difficult, first dealing with the BPD and now the dementia.

I've struggled with depression and anxiety myself, things that worked for me were cognitive behavior therapy and meditation. Meditation helps me calm down and better accept the past and present. Walking on the beach sounds like a good form of therapy too, maybe I'll try it out one of these days  Exercise is also something that works for me.

Different things at different points.  At the earliest points, any type of rigorous cardio was helpful, because it slowed down my mind and got rid of some anxiety.  Just generally made me more relaxed.  I liked really intense exercise, since that was the best at stopping my racing thoughts.  Later I got into CBT, which was helpful for recognizing that a lot of the thought patterns I had picked up from my mom were dysfunctional, and not what I really believed.  Going through it logically, step by step, was really helpful in detaching from these reactions that had always been just instinctive.  Even later than that, I got into mindfulness meditation, which is what I rely on the most to this day.  It's great for helping you get to know and accept yourself, and build up compassion for others.  Also it helps build patience and being in the moment, helping me stay focused on what is happening right now, rather than getting dragged into worries or ruminations.  Throughout I enjoyed massage a lot too.  A lot of what was missing in my relationship with my mom was loving touch - my need for touch was often rejected and judged harshly as neediness and clinging, so it's been very healing to become less detached from myself physically, and to find out that caring, kind, and respectful touch is not a shameful need, nor something I have to just learn to live without. 

I do love the water too... .   it's so soothing.

Exercise and a lot of reading about BPD were very helpful to me.  Mindfulness in Plain English is extremely good;

www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-Plain-English-20th-Anniversary/dp/0861719069

I also began a relationship with someone that was more about companionship than it was about sex.  That helped a great deal.  We're still good friends after several years.

Thank you all so much for responding.  I really appreciate it! 

Kwamina, it is difficult with the dementia.  Obviously watching any person with dementia is painful.  But when it comes to someone with a mental illness, it takes away the last hopes of them healing themselves, or of the relationship itself ever healing.  But, it does allow for you to finally take time to concentrate on yourself and heal your own issues.  So, at least there is that.

I will look into cbt and mindfulness.  Sounds like all three of you found that useful.  And thank you Dances for the book recommendation.  I like to read about these things to see what I think before looking for a therapist that covers these techniques.  So far my T is more talk therapy, which is better than nothing.  But I'm open to other things.

P.S. SailMonkey, Thanks again for the book recommendation!  I already downloaded it to my kindle and it really looks like it is going to be helpful!    |iiii

Your very welcome.  Someone here recommended it to me several years ago and it really helped me.  I can't recommend it highly enough.