About the meds - I think you are very right to want to develop skills to deal with life, rather than have your feelings dialed down by pharmaceuticals.

Yeah, my university offers a self-help course open to anyone, and they use a book with DBT and Borderline Personality Disorder in the title, but they stress these skills are useful for everyone.

I took the course. I found it somewhat interesting, but I found mindfulness meditation much more useful.

Some starting points if you are interested:

Shambhala Sun - How to do Mindfulness Meditation


Shambhala Sun - Getting Started (How to Meditate / September 2010)

A couple of key points:
>The biggest obstacle to establishing a meditation practice is the erroneous idea (firmly held by most people who want to establish a meditation practice) that meditation should calm and focus the mind. Therefore, if your mind is not calm and focused, you are certainly doing it wrong.


and


> You evaluate your practice on a much wider and more generous calculus. Not: Is my mind concentrated while I am sitting? But: How is my attention during the day? Not: Am I peaceful and still as I sit? But: Is my habit of flying off the handle reducing somewhat? In other words, the test of meditation isn’t meditation. It’s your life.

So, you can see why that would be helpful. I started doing 10 minute sittings 3x a day just over 2 weeks ago and started noticing better emotional control within 2-3 days. Actually, my husband noticed the dramatic change. I yell sometimes. Now I don't. I tried getting control over that for years. Suddenly both it and swearing disappeared without me even trying. And it's not religious. Mindfulness predates Buddhism. Here's another interesting article about three valuable concepts or traditions that cut across many religions and philosophies:

Shambhala Sun - Mindfulness, Compassion, & Wisdom, Three Means To Peace

If anyone finds this useful, feel free to let me know. I'd be glad to hear it.