BPD Self Helps??

What self help books, medications, coping strategies have helped for borderline? I've been in DBT for 5 months and it just doesn't seem to be sinking in. I feel like I'm panicing because I just don't try hard enough.

All inner HEALING takes place in time to those that are strong enough to seek it.... I PROMISE!!

LoVe,
Rhapsody -

Here is a link that I hope will shed some light on the answers you seek....

LINK: http://www.bpdworld.org/coping_strategies.php

LoVe,
Rhapsody -

<font color="blue"> </font>Thank you! The link looks very interesting and I earmarked it to go back and check it out some more.

I was in DBT for a few years before I got the hang of it. Hang in there! It takes time!

I recently read "Lost in the Mirror" by Richard Moskovitz. I thought it was excellent, and I related to it a lot. This author seems to know how to talk to people with BPD. He's honest, and recognizes things like the black and white thinking that can even affect how well-received the book might be, and that we might love it or we might get offended and throw it across the room.

There is a whole chapter on resources at the end, including treatment programs, books, & websites.

One of the parts that I found particularly helpful was under treatments, where he outlined a list of treatment goals for BPD. My T keeps asking what my goals are, and I try to come up with something so that I don't just sit there and get stared at. This helped to give me some ideas and structure.

Sounds like a great book. I'll have to check that out. Thanks for mentioning it.

gg

Well, I don't know any self help books or programs... But if you need advice I have some.

Personally, I didn't really get to do any self help programs or see much concilors. I saw one when I was 12 years old for exactly one week and that was even before I knew I had BPD.

I found it so much easier to talk to and discuss my problems with people that I actually shared love with.

I think you should talk to really close friends or lovers about it...

But I don't know, I think the cure is learning to actually love yourself and trust that you're not alone and there are people who are not abondoning you.

Its hard, it takes a long time, but I'm sure if you really want it, you can have it.

If you need any help, I'd be happy to be there for you. ^_^

When I was first diagnosed I read lots of books about BPD. I learned what to look out for in my own behavior. That helped because I could recognize the key words in my thinking, like "never" and "always" indicate that I am slipping into black and white thinking. But after a while reading books about BPD was like reading the same thing over and over and there was no use in it. I now find reading inspirational books works much better for me. I prefer books on Taoism because they focus on living in the present. Focusing on the simple things in life which of course is sooooo very important for people who suffer circular thinking patterns that spiral into the past.

The most important thing is to realize this is a tough illness and it takes practice, practice, practice to make our learned new behaviors become second nature. What we are trying to do is to form new neural pathways in the brain. The younger you start the process the easier it is, but the brain is and incredible thing and continues changing throughout our intire life so even those of us who are older and create these new pathways. Think of it as wagon tracks in your head. The new tracks are still covered in grass and hard to find. The old tracks are well worn and just suck your thoughts along. So it takes sheer effort to use the new ones. But as you use the new pathways more and more the grass gets beaten down and the path is easier to follow. Meanwhile the grass starts growing on the old pathways and we are less likely to follow them. Unfortunately I have found that the ruts in the old pathways are deep and even though the grass has grown if I accidently get on the path it is hard to get my wagon wheels out of the the ruts. For me I find that xanax helps. My doctor has given me a very small supply of them to use only when I absolutely need to. It stops my brain for a few hours then as it wears off I am usually able to get back on the new road. But I have been doing this work for years and years so an occasional medicinal help works for me. It takes absolute dedication the the process to make it work.

Zen

I have never personally don't DBT, but from what I have heard, people prefer CBT over DBT. They find it more helpful...so maybe you could look into it?

I did CBT very breifly and it helped me quite a bit.

hey. DBT has been shown to be the most effective treatment for BPD so it is great that you are doing it :-)

i did one year of DBT. I remember that we went through the skills 2x over the course of the year. i remember that a lot of it didn't sink in until the second run through. i remember that even then i still felt like i was missing a part of it lol.

i used to read a lot about BPD to try and understand what was supposed to be wrong with me...

there is a variety of material out there, and i noticed that it varies a lot in terms of how understanding vs judgemental it is. some of the stuff... is simply hurtful, there is no other way to say that.

the most helpful to me...

was to read Linehan's treatment manuel.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/089...lance&n=283155

yes it is expensive, but you should be able to find it (or order it in) from your local library. i cried and cried my way through it. it helped me understand a lot about myself. it also helped me understand what my therapist was trying to do. it also helped me understand the rationale for the treatment. it also helped me understand the skills.

did you get handouts for the skills part of the course? IMO this is worth getting (and photocopying) too:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/089...lance&n=283155

i found it helpful to have the handouts from there (which summarise the skills). but i found it EVEN MORE helpful to have the little blurb that introduced the handouts where they talked about the rationalisation / justification for the skills. they talked a bit about problems people may have with understanding the skills and applying the skills and so forth. i got that and photocopied the sections (that were meant to be for the skills trainers) and that really helped me understand the skills, and that really helped me do the skills too.

i also noticed this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/157...lance&n=283155

i have no idea what it is like... but it may be worth a look...

WOW! I have not been here in awhile (even forgot my password, almost)! I appreciate all the replies/help I have received. Since last here, I really believe the DBT is my answer (it combines Zen with cognitive). It takes a lot of time and work to understand, but I'm finally understanding how to apply it. I've been very fortunate to have the chance to attend the group, at a reasonable price, and it just starting to sink in how lucky I am, and I want to work hard even though it can get very nasty and painful at times. I am very touched by your comments!

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crackednfragile said:
What self help books, medications, coping strategies have helped for borderline? I've been in DBT for 5 months and it just doesn't seem to be sinking in. I feel like I'm panicing because I just don't try hard enough.

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Maybe it's just the group you are in. Sometimes if we don't mesh with the group it's kind of hard to move forward with it.

One of the things that helped me was doing DBT one on one with my therapist.

When I started DBT I felt like it was a waste of my time but I find I'm actually using the skills a lot without even really thinking about it - so it has actually helped me a lot more than I thought it would.

Yes, I like the group. I need to be in a group to learn how to cope with people. The leader always says, the person you don't get along with is your gift to learn your skills. But I also have social phobia, so need to confront it head on. I work with my therapist, mostly DBT, every two weeks. We usually go over diary cards, check for SIBS, and make sure I'm not in Emo...all that "good" stuff

I also recently picked up this book and read through it in the last day or so.

I found parts of it hard to read, mainly because of my frustration with the author pushing so much blame on sexual abuse and less on physical and absolutely nothing was mentioned about verbal abuse, though there is a chance that it was implied to be included in with physical abuse.

I found the story at the end of each chapter to be something that I could relate to, and the healing chapters near the end brought tears to my eyes that I had to painfully scrub aside before people could see the emotions boiling within.

I can understand the idea of focusing the book more on women, as it seems that they are seemingly diagnosed with the disorder more often than men, but it seemed that there was so little that was directly written to men that I felt I didn't take away as much as I feisably could have if I were a woman. They suggest changing the sex connotation from "she" to "he," but in the later chapters there are such blaitant positions of "this is the female and this is the male" that it made me unable to relate myself in the position, as I don't think any men that I know would be the "stay at home dad" that was shown by so many of the examples.

All in all I felt that I could idealize with the pains that they were feeling in the book, but was unfortunately turned off to it in a way because of the gearing of the book toward women.

Women make up BPD heavily and there is also a vast amount of BPD's that have been sexually abused. In fact they have come up with a diagnosis that almost puts BPD's with SA in a separate category. It is called "Complex PTSD", which is not included in the DSM IV. It is also known as Disorder of Extreme Stress. BPD includes many that self injure/anamia and these behaviors are also very much weighted on the female side. But I agree that the physical and verbal abuse is also very invalidating and with the biosocial theory, BPD is the combination of extreme child invalidation and genetic predisposition.