Throughout my time writing for the Odyssey and in my personal life i am typically very open about my struggles with Borderline Personality Disorder, Psychosis, Depression, and everything that comes with that. I am not afraid to speak out about it, actually I am more afraid to stay silent. I want to open that door of communication and say that it is okay to talk about this.

With that being said, I often get the question along the lines of "But how do you actually deal with all of that?" and I hear that question and I laugh because honestly its been a lot of hard work. Its been inpatient stays, awkward conversations with friends, broken friendships, residential therapy, and countless sessions with multiple AMAZING therapists. The common denominator of all of this has been DBT.

What is DBT?

DBT stands for dialectical behavioral therapy.

DBT is a specific part of cognitive behavioral therapy developed by Marsha Linehan in the 1980's. Marsha Linehan herself struggles with Borderline Personality Disorder and is a psychologist. This approach works towards helping people increase their emotional and cognitive regulation by learning about the triggers that lead to distess and helping to assess which coping skills to apply in the sequence of events, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to help avoid undesired reactions. DBT assumes that people are doing their best but lack the skills needed to succeed, or are influenced by positive or negative reinforcement that interferes with their ability to function appropriately. DBT best treats people with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and chronically suicidal individuals.

What are Skills?

DBT includes four sets of behavioral skills.

• Mindfulness: the practice of being fully aware and present in this one moment
• Distress Tolerance: how to tolerate pain in difficult situations, not change it
• Interpersonal Effectiveness: how to ask for what you want and say no while maintaining self-respect and relationships with others
• Emotion Regulation: how to change emotions that you want to change

There is increasing evidence that DBT skills training alone is a promising intervention for a wide variety of both clinical and nonclinical populations and across settings.

How has it helped me?

It's been a little over a year since I have been practicing DBT skills. I've had ups and downs just like anyone struggling to overcome something like borderline personality disorder (BPD), but through and through, the DBT skills have really helped pull me to the other side.

I'm what they consider "high-functioning" with BPD. Life had always been beyond busy, to say the least, so at first, when I saw all of the DBT skills, I thought "there is no way I can do this. It's too much. I can't handle this." But I've learned so much, and DBT has really changed my life in a variety of ways.

For example:

I handle my emotions better

I was a ticking time bomb. Before my diagnosis and DBT treatment, the littlest comments from teachers or bosses or even just the amount of time others spend on their work compared to mine would send me over the edge. Not in a rage, but in a I-take-everything-personal-so-I-need-to-breakdown-and-cry kind of explosion. And because of who I am and how I was brought up, I would shove these emotions down to the point where once one thing opened the flood gates, everything else came pouring out.

Since really focusing on the mindfulness skills, I've been able to remind myself to simply observe and describe my experience. Every little thing before used to have something ascribed to it - there was always an undertone that I put in place and then acted upon. With mindfulness, I am now able to see things as they are without putting emotion behind it. Things are what they seem until proven otherwise. This has significantly reduced my stress and anxiety. One of my favorite phrases now is “NJS” or “nonjudgemental stance” this lifestyle and philosophy allows me to separate my own judgements from people and things and see things for how they are without judgement.

I communicate much better.

I was so afraid of judgment. But I am in a much better place now when it comes to communicating my feelings and emotions with those close to me. I feared their judgment - what would they think of me if I told them how I was really feeling? "I'm supposed to be like this or like that," I used to think. But really, I know now that they just want me to be me.

Opening up to them was hard, and I was ashamed of how I had acted but by opening up to them and participating more and communicating more effectively, a lot of my relationships have been growing by leaps and bounds. I’m not afraid to be fully known.

I judge myself less.

It's amazing how the DBT skills become part of everyday life. They really are life skills and they help me to trust myself and trust that it's OK to be me. I help with the youth group at my church, and before DBT I would never of been able to even show up the first time, or talk with them the way I do now. I used to be someone who would be afraid in situations where I didn’t know anyone, and I would have never joined something brand new without knowing anyone. By going into it with a nonjudgemental stance, I could not only successfully go in but also have the confidence to keep coming back.

I self-harm less.

Before DBT, I didn't have thoughts of alternate forms of dealing with my emotions. My emotions would build up and I'd need to release, so I'd cut or punch myself. In the past five months, I have cut only three times and I have only hit myself once. Those times I was so angry the next day that I had gone there, but I reminded myself that it's ok. It's just a bump, not an end. I use distress tolerance skills a lot these days.

When I'm feeling anxious, overwhelmed or like I’m about to explode, I hold a frozen orange Or I take a walk. Those are my to go-to activities for avoiding self-harming behavior. Also, I talk to people who are in recovery and ask for prayer. When I'm feeling on the edge, instead of running away from them and trying to hide my emotions, I open them up to those closest to me. Getting them out and talking through them also helps tremendously.

I am able to accept my past.

Radical acceptance is one area that has taken me a long time to truly understand and practice. There is a lot of things in my past that I am so ashamed of and have kept hidden and pretended that I didn't do them. This has been the most challenging part of my work - looking back at the things I did and my ugliness that I pretended didn't exist.

It's hard to look at things as they truly were and it's even harder to really accept that they happened and move forward. But I can't move forward if I don't get the demons out and face my actions. And I certainly don't want to be stuck in the past.

So I'm getting there. I accept that things happened, but I do not think they are OK. This all just strengthens my desire to never return to those places and be that person ever again. The other thing with radical acceptance is that it's helped me in every day life.

If something doesn't goes as planned or I mess up at work, I try my best to say, "It is what it is. I can't change it now. What can I do in the future?" This has greatly reduced my stress level at home and at work and especially with my family. Holding on and trying to control everything just leads to build up frustration and negative emotions - living more freely and accepting life as it comes has helped me to be a more relaxed daughter, sister, friend and employee.

Please, do not get me wrong, DBT is NOT an easy process. It takes group therapy and individual therapy and homework and being willing to keep track of emotions by writing them down and it takes time. I have been at this for a year now and I am still now where I would like to be. But in all, it is worth it.

My life isn't perfect and it never will be. But with continued focus and practice with DBT skills, I think my life will continue to significantly improve. I'm already starting to feel that this truly is the start of a life worth living. DBT has saved me and become integrated into my life in ways I never imagined. The skills truly are becoming my behaviors and I have to try less. I'm able to just be me - the me I have always wanted to be.