First off, learning something completely NEW that you have never done before is scary....& the older we get the more scary it feels....you are not alone in your feelings.

I was completely unaware of what DBT was all about & what mindfulness was all about either.....but I found out that really, mindfulness is really just taking our emotional thoughts & our rational thoughts about something & putting them together to come up with our best solution with how to deal with a situation that is bothering us. For me, it was sort of like flow charting a computer program.

There are parts of the mindfulness that I'm just NOT good at which is the breathing & feeling everything...but the good thing about DBT is that there are many things we can do to achieve the same results & if one doesn't work for you, something else will.

Being aware of our thoughts & what they are is important....but we don't always know where they come from & that's ok....we just have to acknowledge that the thoughts we have are what they are & we learn how to deal with the actions that come from them them through the mindfulness of putting together rational thought about them with our emotional thought & thus determine what action might be more appropriate for the situation.

To think I had NO IDEA what this all meant before I started DBT in January.

Your thinking that your T is just trying to get rid of you with the DBT is your emotinal mind speaking.....a rational mind would be thinking....ah, DBT provides skills to be able to function in life better & my T really wants to help me get through this rough part of my life.....T is really thinking only about the fact that they found a tool that works for everyone that learns it & the skills are skills that we are ones that many people are taught while growing up....but many of us with Mental Illness haven't learned those skills....T is wanting you to grow & get better, not get rid of you.

Emotional mind says "I can't do it", rational mind says, "I can learn".

The thing is that our minds have formed neuropathways of thinking all our life & it's those neuropathways that DBT aims to change with learning & practice. For most DBT groups, they always give it 2 times thought each topic with mindfulness between each of them.....this is what gives us the practice, practice, practice & only with practice can we change those neuropathway thoughts & actions that keep messing us up.....part of DBT is providing the skills & the insight into other ways of looking at those things that are causing our life problems so that we can change them through the learning what they are & the practice of looking at things in a different way.

I absolutely LOVE my DBT group. I was crushed when I couldn't afford even the reduced price that they were charging......I was shocked when my psychologist & the leader of the DBT group got together with the director of the center & they approved my going to the group without charge.......DBT has definitely opened my eyes to things that I was oblivious to in my life. I didn't think that any therapy would really work let alone DBT.......I can honestly say that it's the best therapy that I have come across & realized how many skills I was lacking....but also learned how many skills I actually had been applying throughout my life & didn't even know it.

Think you will really love it once you really get involved with learning it & putting it into practice.....but it takes quite awhile to really understand what they are saying to start with....it really was like a foreign language & went right over my head for quite awhile to start with. Think that's why I love the group setting with it because I learn from other's experiences also.....& sometimes we all just offer our thoughts about something & the leader helps us put it into DBT terms so that we understand better.

Hope it works as well for you as it has for me.....but have patience with it & don't expect to just learn what they are saying & know how it applies.....helps when your T can point out how it applies & sometimes with us, it's a matter of how could you have handled that in DBT terms of mindfulness......it's at least 2 year project of learning one year for the first time through & the second year for the second time through in order to really understand it & practice it to the point that the old neuropathways of action are actually being changed....no overnight magic acts that's for sure.

Best wishes for this becomming a wonderful experience for you.