The program I was in was DBT based. Dialectic Behavioral Therapy. That was a new type of therapy for me. It turns out to be very very effective for me. It takes a lot of practice but the skills make sense to me and with practice they have been working. I started with the simpler skills of Mindfulness and Wise Mind and as those have been working I've been expanding with the things like REBT.

The skills haven't stopped working but I think partly work has gotten a little more anxiety producing for me and I've gotten lax at practicing the skills. I'm taking it easy this weekend and I think I need to get out my notebook and review again.

The great part for me was that the Mindfulness was able to quell my anxiety after I practiced it a while and with that I was able to introduce other skills that were able to prevent the anxiety from occurring in the first place, which is a better long term solution than always have to be fighting the anxiety. So my "backslide" is that the anxiety is back but I'm still able to control it with the Mindfulness.

Before this program I was in constant emotional pain and constantly thinking about suicide all day and all night. So I have to remind myself that although I'm feeling a bit poorly again I am still on a much much higher plateau of wellness than I was before.