Over the course of the last year, I’ve been in DBT therapy through the VA. This program is intensive in that I’ve attended two sessions a week, every week (Induvial and group) for the past year. 104 sessions in total. Persons who are placed in this type of therapy typically suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and are at an especially high risk for suicide. Today I’m excited to say that I graduated from the program and have been reclassified as medium risk. For me that’s a tremendous victory in and of itself. There are many things I’ve learned over the past year that have helped me with things such as behavior, self-image, thinking, relationships and mood. This journey hasn’t been easy, the emotions and ups-and-downs of everyday life challenged me. Imploring me to utilize every skill along the way.
There are four primary skills that I’ve learned over the past year:
· Mindfulness
· Emotion Regulation
· Interpersonal Skills
· Distress Tolerance
These four skills are covered in depth in a 350-page workbook, which I have thoroughly navigated over the past year.
Mindfulness is a way to experience reality as it is, not as we wish it to be. This has been tremendously helpful for me. I’ve tried to wish something away which brings more distress but by learning to accept “it” as it is goes a long way in reducing distress. Mindfulness allows me to reduce my suffering providing a pathway for happiness. Mindfulness also allows me to take back control of my mind. There are so many ways to practice mindfulness in our everyday lives. Think of Buddhist practices, we can be mindful in eating, walking or meditating to name just a small few. But to take it a little further, being mindful of our thoughts and harnessing the power of those thoughts is enlightening.
Emotion Regulation is a practice of harnessing our emotions by being mindful of them and using varying skills to effectively manage them. Some of the goals of my treatment in this regard were:
· Understanding my emotions
· Changing unwanted emotions
· Decreasing emotional vulnerability
· Limiting emotional suffering
This is one I struggled with early on. Because of life circumstances and alcohol use my emotions were all over the place. I didn’t understand my difficult emotions leading me to a suicide attempt and I don’t know how many stays in psych wards. Those of you who have followed me on social media have probably seen my trials play out. At least the ones I shared publicly.
Interpersonal skills address just that, how we handle our interactions with others. The skills I learned to incorporate into my daily life:
· Getting what I need and want from others
· Build relationships and end destructive ones
· Walk the middle path (my personal favorite)
In utilizing Interpersonal skills I’ve learned to manage my emotions by effectively communicating and understanding both healthy and unhealthy relationships in my life. I think it’s understanding what unhealthy relationships are/were in my life and effectively mitigating the unhealthy and fostering the healthy. But there’s no black and white in my opinion, the middle path is the “way.”
Distress Tolerance is one of the skills that has probably saved my life on more than one occasion. I would get worked up over any number of things. I recall a time I was extremely distressed over my former neighbor’s barking dog. Long story short, half the town’s police department ended up at my house and I ended up at the psych ward. This is probably one skill everyone could use some help with. Some of the points I covered in Distress Tolerance:
· Managing and surviving crisis situations
· Accepting reality for what it is
· Becoming free
Surviving crisis situations without making them worse is extremely difficult. It takes for me a combination of skills, but most notably for me is a “sub-skill” called Divers Reflex. This skill I use to calm my central nervous system, shock it is more appropriate, to quell the intense feelings/emotions I may be feeling. A few of the ways Divers Reflex is employed is by sticking your face in a bowl of ice water or taking a cold shower. When I first learned of this skill, I used it nearly every day. It was the middle of winter, and I would go outside in only shorts. No socks or shoes, just shorts in the snow and just stand there. I clearly remember early on, being on the phone with my Dr. who was trying to advert a crisis and I’d go outside in the snow in shorts. This occurred on many, many occasions and was HIGHLY effective in reducing my distress level. Accepting reality and taking control of our emotions is a key component as well. Becoming Free of our own undesired self-will, urges and intense emotions which can encumber our healing is a hard one. Our desires unchecked can cause us to make decisions which can put us in a crisis.
Final thoughts, I’M GRATEFUL TO BE ALIVE!
I’m also extremely grateful for my treatment team at the VA who I’ve grown to love, and they have been there through this process. I laughed, I cried and most importantly…I survived.
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