They said to use distress tolerance skills; the skills they mentioned are, for example, "bake a cake", "go for a run", "watch a candle burn", "read a book", "watch a movie" etc. These do not work for me at an elevated emotional intensity, in some cases they even make the situation worse. I can't think of an activity that would actually help short of self-harm or harming others - and obviously that would be problematic - thus, I am asking what you guys do when at that intensity. I assume many of the people here have done DBT and/or have found their own way to cope, else you'd all be dead or worse off by now. So, what do you do?

I am virtually never in a relaxed and happy mood. I was slightly relaxed but still anxious during the week I decided to leave hospital - for about 5 or so days; that was the first time I felt calm in over a decade and it died very quickly. I haven't been calm since then.

Being tense like this all the time makes me tired and aggressive but I can't relax because I don't feel safe enough (emotionally or physically), or proud enough in myself to be able to relax. I can't feel proud or safe if I don't work hard and achieve stuff, but I'm so ****ing angry and tired all the time that focusing and working effectively is difficult - if possible at all. It just becomes a massive cycle with no beginning or end. Then to top it all off my lecturers and "friends" remind me daily that I'm not good enough and a "loser" - which is why, this year, I decided **** them: If they add to my emotional turmoil I'll destroy them, it'll give me satisfaction and remove a massive ****ing stressor from my life.

I get emotional flashbacks constantly, when I'm awake or when I sleep. It makes it ****ing impossible to focus. And, yes I know, "be mindful" - I AM TRYING! It's much easier said than done. "So, then, distract yourself" - yes sure, but what if it takes an hour or two to effectively distract myself??? Then I've wasted an hour or two or more and that adds to my stress, which means as soon as I try to get back into whatever I was doing the flashbacks just come back again.

I'm really good at suppressing my emotions so chances are I won't explode at my peers or lecturers until much much later - exploding like that actually, genuinely feels good, until I get punished for it. But if I make it so they can't punish me anymore I can destroy them when I feel they deserve it and feel good about it without any negative results. So, I don't overreact easily in public - online like now, sometimes yes. I've noticed that I've been very aggressive on here as of late but that's probably just my frustration with the "help" I was supposed to get. And in private also yes, but I have no private relationships so it's not a problem.

Ultimately, I would obviously just like to no longer be stressed. Which, again, is why I'm asking advice from people who have the same **** as me and if you guys can't help there obviously isn't a cure - maybe not even a real problem - and then I'll deal with it my way and everyone else can just go **** themselves and the problems they have with me.