For me it took going to a DBT group with an outstanding group leader who treated the group more like a college class, teaching us also how the mind works. Then getting an understanding of words that described what I was experiencing. One thing that stands out was the list of emotions I was given.....HUGE LIST. I went through & wrote down all the words that expressed what I was feeling at the time & next to that wrote the why that was causing the feeling. Wow, that shocked me when I wrote down 2 pages of words. That sort of broke the ice for me in identifying what was going on inside of ME because I had no idea how to put it into words & really describing the feeling didn't express what the problem really was.