Okay, to some degree yoga can help people manage all of the above conditions. But I know in my heart that some things are so rooted in the biochemical that it seems unlikely yoga would make much of a dent. Last night some friends were talking about borderline personality disorder. I remember studying this in my psychology classes at VCU but must admit, the details are a bit sketchy. I was reminded that it falls somewhere between untreated bipolar disorder and psychotic break. Scary stuff: people with it tend to be highly unpredictable, aggressive, and moody, like in bipolar, but they also have no remorse (or even memory of) their episodes, as during a psychotic break.
My friend grew up with a mother with b.p.d. and she recounted horrible stories about abuse, alcoholism, and broken trust. As a result, she says, she has developed into a very nervous and anxious person. She reads into environmental cues as a self-preservation mechanism-- to an extreme, she says, because when she was young she learned that the sound of her mother's car pulling into the gravel driveway foretold the evening to come. This is heartbreaking for me. My friend is such a caring and warm person, and like me, an only child. Having grown up with an alcoholic mother, I understand that feeling of walking on eggshells. Being nervous all the time. Second guessing myself and others. Living in a state of fear. And b.p.d. has no treatment, because it's a personality disorder-- she said, if you look at the brain like a cake, it's marbled throughout, affecting everything. And apparently, things can be going along well and something-- a major life event, a stressful encounter, or seemingly nothing at all-- and it can be triggered.
What perhaps is most worrisome though, is that it's genetic. She has a young son and, universe willing, will have another child in the next year or two, and I asked the question: How would you know if your child had it, since kids are so moody anyway, it seems? Nobody really had an answer for this.
I keep thinking to myself (and probably intimating to others) that yoga can be a treatment for everything. But maybe it's more precise to suggest that its techniques could be used as a preventative mechanism. Teaching kids early to breathe through painful and tumultuous times could be so valuable later on. Teaching them about the interconnectedness of everyone, and how we rely on each other for survival. And how the body and the mind truly rely on one another, through the breath. I remember learning about neural pathways being carved in the brain through repetition. In depression, it's like a slow downward spiral which, if caught early, and its victims taught coping skills, can be halted or reversed.
I wonder if those with b.p.d. could benefit as well. It's a nice thought. But the attitude and behavior of yoga require so much personal responsibility though, so much self-monitoring, so much mindfulness, that it may not be possible.
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