GIVE

GIVE

Use this skill to maintain a good relationship and reduce conflict with another person.

G - Gentle: No attacks, threats or judgments.

I - Interested: Listen to the other person.

V - Validate: Acknowledge the person’s feelings, wants, difficulties and opinions.

E - Easy Manner: Use humor and smile.

*More DBT guides here*

I was healthy, working out, yoga daily, skincare routine, balanced diet, all for 3 months but I still wasn’t happy so now I’m depressed again and not sticking to any of those things that I know are good for me. It’s so hard living like everything is a phase and nothing fills the void.

I dunno if any of these pieces are actually me or if they’re just the personalities of the people around me or in a tv show or movie.

Not knowing who you truly are is one of the quiet killers of bpd. I always feel so broken and empty.

speak now week day 5: create something that celebrates individuality and standing up for yourself.

and all you’re ever gonna be is mean

This post is to elaborate more on my experience in the DBT group and some of the reading and tools I found most helpful to me.

The DBT group I was able to take part in was a remote group that met once a week for 16 weeks via Webex. I was very lucky to get a spot and that my Medicaid covered any cost. It was run by two social workers as part of NYU Langone's Psychiatric Center at Sunset Terrace.

The weeks were broken down based on the 4 Modules (core skill groups) of DBT: Mindfulness, Distress Tolerance, Emotional Regulation, and Interpersonal Effectiveness.

Mindfulness: This is the base of any DBT practice, and what I always had trouble with in the past. Mindfulness is a kind of self-awareness that you can use to break down your experiences and give yourself a kind of reality check. Being mindful is being present and aware of your emotions, your body, and your thought process.

There are 3 states of mind with which we experience and react to the world: Emotion Mind (acting based on emotions alone), Reasonable Mind (acting based on facts alone), and Wise Mind (a combination of the first 2 and the goal of mindfulness).

Distress Tolerence: This module focuses on short term solutions for big emotions. The skills involved in this module are called Distraction skills because their goal is to just get you through the wave of emotion, resist any harmful urges, and survive your distress long enough to talk to someone or get to other skills.

There are quite a few skills in this module I found helpful, and I'll go into more detail on them in another post. The skill I think can do the most in the moment is called ACCEPTS, an acronym used to remember what you can do to distract yourself when feelings get too intense.

Emotion Regulation: This 3rd module focuses on learning to identify your emotions, understand where they come from and what they are trying to tell you, and processing them in a healthy way.

The purpose of all emotions is evolutionary survival. Emotions spur us into action to meet our needs (when you get hangry, you know you need to eat), and communicate danger to ourselves and others. Body language and voice tone can also often communicate emotions before words do.

*Use a feeling wheel to identify your emotions and dig deeper. If you can't process them right away, use a distress tolerance skill until you are able to sit with them.

*The best skill for emotion regulation is ABC PLEASE, an acronym used to help you recognize vulnerability factors in your life and minimize them.

Interpersonal Effectiveness: This last module focuses on skills that help us communicate with others. There are skills like GIVE, which can be used to maintain good relationships with others, and FAST, which can be used to help maintain your self-respect when making a request of someone.

*There are others that I will make graphics for, stay tuned!

Attending the group and learning the skills was only part of what I found helpful on my journey toward stability. I found a book, Mindfulness for Borderline Personality Disorder, that helped break mindfulness down in great detail and very easy to follow language. The book is written specifically for BPD-havers so it's really an excellent resource. The other tool I found helpful is something my therapist suggested I get, The Game of Real Life, which is a game that you can play to learn DBT skills in an interactive and fun way. It comes with a little book that breaks every skill and practice down, Skill cards which I find to be a great go-to for recalling a skill in a moment you need it (after all, it's a whole lot of acronyms to remember), and Conflict cards that give you examples of situations you might experience, and you have to pick a skill card to practice (can be done alone but better with someone you trust to really dive into the communication and regulation skills). I've actually been carrying a few of the skill cards in my purse wherever I go, just in case I need a quick reference in a moment of distress.

I have so much more to share with anyone who's interested. I'll keep posting, making graphics, and if anyone has a specific question about any of the modules, I'll do my best to answer or help you find the information online. DBT groups are super hard to find, in extremely high demand so it's hard to get in, and usually grossly expensive due to this country's horrible healthcare system. I consider myself extremely privileged to have been able to find a great hospital when I needed it and a great group that my insurance covered. I'm here for anyone who isn't as lucky. Let's make DBT accessible and break the stigma of the BPD diagnosis!

*More DBT guides here*

“Happiness is like a butterfly, the more you chase it, the more it will evade you, but if you notice the other things around you, it will gently come and sit on your shoulder.” HENRY DAVID THOREAU

The thought that keeps me stuck in place the most is that I’ll never have the means to match the lifestyle I feel comfortable enough in to stay alive. I’m paralyzed by it. I can’t picture a future where I’m not struggling, not in this world. So when people tell me the point of being alive is just to keep being alive, I don’t get it and I just wanna give up.