Anon asked:
I’m interested in pursuing some kind of therapy that is more psychoanalytic than DBT. I take issue with several of the assumptions of DBT (on metaphysical grounds) and because of that, I wouldn’t be able to make myself benefit from DBT. Has anyone here had any kind of psychoanalytic or psychodynamic therapy for BPD?
Anonymous asked: Hey. I think your blog might help me reframe "I am borderline and therefore I am a crazy abusive manipulative treatment-resistant fairy-tale witch of legend THIS IS THE WORST THING IN THE WORLD I COULD POSSIBLY BE!!!" as "I am borderline and therefore I can help positively represent a severely stigmatized and demonized (often in misogynist terms) group of people." That's probably good! I have other things to say but ask boxes are small and I should sleep. I will try to keep reading this blog.
:D
We’re glad to hear it!
-Devyn
therareandferociousswamprabbit asked: Thank fuck. I was just diagnosed, just started group DBT. Kind of overwhelming, but this blog is really helping. If you've answered this before, just point me in the right direction: why is this diagnosis so controversial?
I’m glad this blog is helping you!
There are a lot of factors that contribute to the controversy about BPD as a diagnosis, but I’ve identified three common mis-conceptions in particular:
Sorry my response is a little disjointed, but does this answer your question?
-Devyn
The mods have gotten a few messages from followers who were disappointed or angry that none of us had gotten a chance to respond to their questions yet. Messages like these can be stressful because while we respond to everyone as soon as possible, we all need to budget our emotional energy to make sure that we don’t burn out!
If you send us a submission or question and haven’t heard back for a few days, please know that it’s either in the queue or that the mods don’t have the resources to write a good, non-bullshit response yet. We publish and respond to the vast majority of asks/submissions immediately, but sometimes we’re all too busy or stressed or triggered to get to it right away. We’re not ignoring you, we promise!
Thanks for your patience and contributions to the FYBP community,
I wrote this while trying to explain what BPD is to me and how it affects me.
(submitted by punkrockgoth)
[Lyrics and chords are both in the video description at youtube]
Anonymous asked: I am an art student with BPD. I've recently realized that I really struggle to complete any assignment that is centered around me and who I am. Things like self portraits, collages about me, etc. I tend to keep these at an arm's length and avoid them, until I either get a 0 or a bad grade. I currently have an assignment that is centered around me, and the thought of even working on it makes me very anxious. Any advice?
Oooh I relate to this so much. I’m not an art student, but I absolutely hate writing assignments that have to do with ~who I am as a person~.
My best advice, from an artistic perspective, is to construct a narrative instead of looking for a fundamental truth about ~who you are~. Focus on a specific event, identity/community, or activity, and then build outwards. Another thing to think about is whether or not you can write about yourself without having to rely on a self-concept. For example, see if you’re able to center your art piece how you’re perceived or the expectations placed on you or some kind of oppression you face.
Anyone else have suggestions?
Have you been diagnosed (self or professionally) with borderline personality disorder, or are you questioning whether or not you have BPD? We want to hear from you!
“F Yeah, Borderline People” is a contributor-run group blog dedicated to building community, sharing information, and distributing resources among borderline people, and we’re taking submissions. Submissions should come from a borderline perspective and focus on borderline people or BPD itself. Non-borderline people should feel free to submit resources that they think might be helpful, but otherwise we ask that you take a back seat. Hate speech or oppression against any group is absolutely not tolerated.
If you’re interested in submitting but can’t get started, here are some suggestions and writing prompts to consider:
-Questions, solicitations for advice, and calls for help
-Personal stories
-DBT skills or strategies
-Online or offline resources other borderline people should know about
-information about BPD
-Diagnosis stories (including self-diagnosis)
-Artwork or creative writing about BPD
-Advice you want to share
-Your experience with therapy, medication, or other kinds of treatment
-BPD and relationships
-BPD and social justice
-BPD and abuse
Borderline personality disorder carries a huge amount of stigma and oppression. As borderline people, we contend not only with our own volatile emotions and internal crises but also with the message from the outside world that we are monsters and non-persons. FYBP was created because for all the talk about borderline PD, there is very little in the way of resources out there for borderline people, especially those of us who are oppressed on multiple axes and face other healthcare disparities. The empowerment of borderline people—to share experiences, to claim personhood, and to pass on knowledge to one another—is an issue of fundamental social justice.
This is my “care bag”. In it I put stuff that can help me look after myself in a crisis; things that feel, look, smell, taste and/or sound comforting in some way.
I made it myself! I knitted and made the bag out of soft wool, so the bag itself is comforting. Inside I’ve put one of my comfort books (Amulet of Samarkand), as well as a small notebook and pen so I can draw or write. Also some madagascan vanilla refresher oil I got from Sainsbury’s years ago which is one of my favourite smells.
I’ll probably add stuff as I think of it.
Has anyone else done this or something similar as part of DBT?
(Source: smallspidersad)
(by Devyn)
“DBT” (which stands for “Dialectical Behavior Therapy”) is a type of therapy commonly used by people with borderline personality. The purpose of the DBT Skills Series is to share information, techniques, and strategies among borderline people.
“Distress tolerance” is a subset of DBT that specifically talks about how to handle intense emotions, including extreme emotional turmoil, suicidality, urges to do self-destructive things, and impulsiveness. Not all of these strategies will be accessible, affordable, or useful for everyone, of course. If you reblog, feel free to add on to what I have listed here.
Distraction
Step away from your current emotions
-Go for a walk, bike ride or drive, especially if you’ll see some calming scenery on the way
-Watch a TV show or a movie
-Read something light and/or funny.
-Go to the gym. Make sure that your workout isn’t boring, though, because monotonous workouts can be a breeding ground for escalating ideation. Try a class or else pump upbeat music and tire yourself out.
-Listen to music. I have a playlist specifically for laying listlessly on my bed and one for favorite songs that perk me up.
-Intellectual pursuits: Immerse yourself in a favorite project. Read about something that you find fascinating. Jump from wikipedia entry to wikipedia entry (or trope to trope). Make “logophilia lists” of cool words that you want to commit to memory. Learn some fucking German!
-Organize or decorate your room. Throw out old papers. Go through your clothes to see what fits and what you want to get rid of.
-Play an instrument, discover new music online, or sing along to a power ballad. Soundcloud has a bunch of tracks by independent artists for you to listen to (and in some cases, download for free). And tumtaster is great for saving mp3s found on tumblr. I often go hunting through the tags for new musicians that I’m starting to get into.
-Plan for (or fantasize about) the future. Think about goals, visions, anything you want to incorporate into your life at some point in the future. Research dream colleges, jobs or grad schools.
Self-Soothing
Introduce new, pleasant emotions to replace the bad ones
-Take deep, intentional breaths
-Self-groom: shower, shave, floss, style your hair, etc. Doing kind things to your body sends yourself the message that you are lovable and worthy.
-Take a bath. Incorporate as many senses as possible: warm water, nice-smelling oils, music (or just the quiet whooosh of the bath itself), even some strawberries
-Cry. Fucking sob. It’s awesome and endorphins-releasing (probably). People generally feel much better after a totally self-indulgent cry.
-Write in a journal. It can be on paper, on a word document, or even on a website like tumblr or dreamwidth. You can publish it or make sure it never sees the light of day. “Free write” about anything that comes to mind. Pay as little attention to the mechanisms of style or coherence as possible.
-Practice self-care by the senses (written by Tuesday, one of the mods here)
-Do something that will make your life easier these next few days or weeks. Reply to emails that have been pilling up in your inbox or do your laundry.
-Try these excellent grounding exercises from Pandora’s Project, if applicable.
-Find poetry that speaks to you. Repeat it in your head again and again. I particularly recommend “We are Hard on Each Other” and “You Fit into Me” by Margaret Atwood. Gwendolyn Brooks has some amazing stuff too, as do Richard Siken and Lucille Clifton.
-Do kind things for others. Send nice notes/texts/messages, run an errand for a friend, volunteer to help out in your community.
-Think about what you would say to a friend who was in your position. Would you call them worthless or broken? Would you tell them that they should go ahead with destructive behavior or that things will never get better for them? Probably not. It can be easier to show kindness and love to a hypothetical person than to yourself. Think about what you would want for someone else in your situation. Then do that.
Buy Yourself More Time:
While major problems rarely work themselves out on their own, acute feelings of crisis often do. Taking “time off” from dealing with a stressful situation or making a potentially self-destructive decision will often help you calm down.
-Give yourself a time-frame. For example, if you’re too angry/paranoid to think clearly you can say “I won’t make any decisions about this relationship today.” This also works well with suicidal ideation: “all I’m going to ask of myself right now is that I make it through tonight.”
-Go to sleep (really!). It’s very, very common for a borderline person to go to sleep angry, despondent, or even suicidal and wake up feeling fine.
-If a situation is really triggering some bad things for you, step away from it if at all possible. Ask for an extension on the paper, step out of the room, turn off the computer, etc. At one point in a really [really] bad relationship, I actually wound up asking someone if we could postpone a fight for a few days so that I could finish my college applications. Some situations require immediate action, but whenever it’s possible, taking a few days to get some perspective and regain stability can be great.
Interpersonal “Grounding:”
For many people, dysphoric episodes are triggered or made worse by being alone. Making contact with other people can be a huge help.
-Reach out to a friend, partner or family member
-Post to your tumblr asking people to send you messages. You can specify if you don’t have the energy to respond or if you don’t want people to ask what’s wrong/offer advice.
-If you want to vent or get validation about something specific, you can post a request on your tumblr saying “can someone who has experienced [thing] email me?” It can be good to talk to one or two people who know what you’re going through.
-Call a suicide hotline (1-800-273-8255 in the US) or use crisischat online.
-Participate in some kind of forum or IRC chat that’s relevant to one of your interests (FYBP has a channel of our own, just saying).
-Simulate interpersonal interactions. Write letters, re-read old IM conversations—even watching a TV show with characters you’re familiar with or reading an advice column can make you feel better.
Long-Term Strategies:
-Do away with sources of significant stress or upsetment. Be they a toxic relationship, an overly-demanding job, a triggering volunteer project, something you haven’t come to accept about yourself, or even your location, external factors can often make your experiences of “intense, episodic dysphoria” much worse and much more frequent. If you’re finding that some things about your life now are triggering these feelings often, it can be very helpful for you to cut back on them or get rid of them entirely, if you’re able.
-Take care of your health as best you can. Physical discomfort often magnifies mental distress, so the more you can do to feel good in your body, the better. Some things to try include exercising regularly, keeping a steady sleep schedule, and finding/taking the right medication(/s).
-Set realistic, flexible, and constructive goals. Before you do this, take an inventory of the goals and self-promises you’ve made before. What worked? What was terrible? What do you want to accomplish, and how can you lovingly hold yourself accountable for accomplishing it? For example, I have a lot of lofty academic ambitions and a lot of equally lofty health-related ambitions (like “brush your fucking teeth today,” which I just did(!!!)). I find that my most motivating goals are process-focused and not results-focused. I would do better to say “my goal is to work on this paper for at least twenty minutes a day” instead of “my goal is to get an A.” Working on your goals can be a source of self-esteem and consistency. It’s a way of being your own ally and feeling the control you have over your own actions and life. These goals should make you feel better, not worse. Avoid the temptation to “punish” yourself for falling short at all costs. AT ALL COSTS.
(by Devyn)
“DBT” (which stands for “Dialectical Behavior Therapy”) is a type of therapy commonly used by people with borderline personality. The purpose of the DBT Skills Series is to share information, techniques, and strategies among borderline people. You can include these in your current therapy regime or use them on your own.
As someone with BPD, I’m often anxious, suspicious and terrified of abandonment. If a friend texts me to say “can you give me a call when you get the chance?” I immediately assume that they’re going to tell me something awful, like that they have suddenly realized that I am a terrible person and so they hate me and they never want anything to do with me ever again. By the time I’m dialing their number, I’m probably close to tears.
When I was talking a little bit about positive interpretation on my personal blog, I described it as basically forcing yourself to assume the best possible intentions behind other people’s actions. I have never gotten a text from a friend who wanted me to call them just so that they could tell me they secretly hated me, you guys. Not once. But I have gotten texts from people who wanted to discuss a plan of action in detail over the phone, or who wanted to vent about frustration without needing to use spellcheck, or who don’t have an unlimited text plan but do know that I don’t check voicemail. Positive interpretation is about recognizing that the anxiety some people’s behaviors introduce is unfounded and telling yourself sternly to chill the fuck out and think about all of the more plausible explanations.
Techniques:
- I ask myself “does what I’m afraid of really make sense? what are the more likely explanations? what has happened previously in situations like these?” Once I think of the many non-disastrous, non-terrifying things that might really be going on, my anxiety starts to decrease. To bring it down further, I breathe deeply and slowly. I repeat the likely explanations to myself over and over until they sink in. For example, when a friend doesn’t call me back for a few days, I might initially become convinced that they hate me (or worse). But then I’ll make myself think of the more likely explanations: they’ve been busy, they’re planning on seeing me in school, or maybe they just forgot.
- I also keep a “positive interpretation log” in my journal. Every time I use positive interpretation to decrease my anxiety and give me a more realistic perspective, I add a new entry. My log has four sections: date & time, the triggering event, what I told myself, and how it made me feel. This log shows more explicitly what other people know from memory: that positive interpretation usually makes you feel much better, and that it gets easier the more you do it. The more I prove myself right about a situation, the quicker I am to adopt a positive interpretation the next the same situation crops up. I’ve been doing this for just a few weeks, and already major triggers have become much easier to deal with.
- I also distinguish between probable crisis situations and situations that just resemble crises. If my abusive ex gives me a call, for example, I’m allowed to throw the phone to the other side of the room and start crying, because that call probably is a bad sign. But if someone with an unrecognizable number calls me, I need to acknowledge that my panic is just because I have a false association between phone calls and boundary violations. Since I can’t reassure myself that it’s just a friend, I need to find other ways of calming myself down: deep breathing, reminding myself that there are a lot of reasons for someone new to be calling me, and answering the phone to see who it is.
Benefits:
-Positive interpretation can dramatically decrease anxiety!
-The decrease in anxiety also makes it easier to function. I’m more likely to be proactive about things that I feel okay about as opposed to things that terrify me.
-Over time, positive interpretation starts to happen naturally and triggers disappear or become dramatically less pronounced.
-It also becomes easier to identify when someone in particular is intentionally putting you in crisis situations. When you’re always expecting that your friends are clearly just about to ~abandon you forever~ or start a huge argument, it’s hard to see when someone really is constantly picking fights and making manipulative threats of abandonment. When you learn to expect that things will work out fine, someone who “creates drama” or is outright abusive becomes an obvious exception and not the rule.
Other skills to look into:
-Trigger avoidance: to decrease my overall anxiety, I usually ask closer friends to avoid communicating with me in ways that I find particularly anxiety-provoking. Much like positive interpretation, trigger-avoidance also decreases the feelings of crisis in my life and makes it easier to pick up on actual red flags in people’s behaviors. (For example, when my dad ignores my requests to not YELL AT ME LIKE THIS OVER EMAIL, I recognize that as a problem with his behavior and not an inherent part of conversation).
