DBT gives me PTSD

I've only recently heard of and read about DBT in the past month or so from reading posts and articles here on PC, and then googling it and reading some more. DBT makes me so ANGRY when I read about it!!

Why. It does me also.for me i think it just is the way its worded it feels dismissive and like they are talking down to us.

I don't know why exactly. Some of it is maybe my delusional thinking, though not sure. I feel like people have been doing DBT on me (irl) without telling me?

Also it sounds like torture to me! To have things that have traumatized me, like past childhood sexual abuse, be brought up to me time and time again so it does not have the impact???!!! All I get is more traumatized when things like that happen. Like when I was first here and read a post about CSA and got triggered & reacted to it horribly.

Also yes, it does sound like this kind of therapy expects that everything can be cured, fixed, turned around? Like my feelings aren't important and shouldn't be acknowledged and respected.

My T told me that she doesn't think DBT would be useful for me because I would probably find the whole thing to be a huge insult to my intelligence. I usually know the thinking is wrong, but it's my emotional side that needs the help.

I'm not sure what kind of therapy she is using with me now, but I know it's not DBT!

Of course we aren't going near the PTSD stuff for a while so I don't know what we will do for that.

I have such major trust issues that this kind of "balancing" style sends me running for the door. Using A Confrontational Tone and Calling The Patient's Bluff screams "game-playing" to me.







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Wow. I didn't read that. That is very intimidating to me. I'm just wondering how it helps some people? Maybe it's not meant for people with PTSD?

Okay I just went to the wiki site, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect...havior_therapy

It says there that's it's for people with Borderline Personality disorder. I wouldn't think it would work well for people with PTSD.

I'll have to look up what EMDR is also. Have no idea.

Hey Pom.....

I have C-PTSD and DID. I did 8 months of DBT and it helped me soooo much!!

The goal behind DBT is to teach us to recognize our negative coping skills, how they affect our goals, and to learn positive coping skills and how and when to use them.

A lot of information out there says it is to treat BPD, and yes, it is a primary treatment for that, but it is also now being used for other issues as well.

When I first signed up for DBT, I was angry too. I went to one class got pissed off and scared and dropped out. I told my T that I didn't think it was for me.

So....after a year went by, with 2 suicide attempts and one inpatient hospitalization later, my T told me that she couldn't continue to see me if I wouldn't agree to do the DBT. I was mortified at losing my T, so I went back. I hated it at first, but after about the third class I started working the program and embracing the information and saw that it really was helpful. I completed the therapy and went back to my old T, who I've been with since.

One thing that we learn in DBT is that anger is considered a secondary emotion. It acts as a coping skill almost for other emotions such as fear, disgust, sorrow, to block a person from feeling these emotions.

So my anger I had towards it really wasn't anger at all, I learned. It was fear!! Fear of failure, fear of something new, and even the fear of getting better, because if I got better, then I wouldn't know who I was anymore. Who would I be without all these issues? It's a scary question for anybody.

DBT is not for everyone, but I found it very helpful and it has actually saved my life and kept me from hurting myself a lot since I did it.

Just wanted to put in my two cents.

Yes, it was originally developed as the main treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder, but like Elysium said, it's seen as being helpful for tolerating and managing extreme emotional distress.

Maybe it's because of my PTSD paranoia but if T "tried" this with me I would run for the hills. It seems very manipulative. Man oh man, I sure do make T earn her keep, lolol. And (as she is so fond of saying) I hold her feet so close to the fire her toes are crispy.

It was very manipulative of my T to put her foot down about the DBT, I agree. At first I was sooooo angry and devastated by this but I would have been more devastated losing my relationship with T at the time. I really didn't have any other support group or friends. Now, I know that my T did this for my best interest. Had she not put her foot down and pushed me into it, I think I might be dead now. I know she did what she had to do to help me stay safe, and I know she didn't like putting me in that position. I actually really respect her for it.

Before, people would manipulate me for evil things....she used that for something good, and something that has saved my life at least a dozen times. I don't think I can ever thank her for that.

{{{ Elysium and her T }}}

I need to clarify my response. I was referring to the actual style of therapy, meaning I would run from the process not from T. If someone treated me like Linehan outlines treatment in her book, I would've walked out!

I was reading her "strategies" and it just seems like a bunch of manipulation to me. Like where it says, T oscillates intensity of emotions or T uses silence or T weaves a web. That crap is game-playing in my eyes.

Does that mean everything they say, everything they do is planned out instead of just being genuine caring people? Is the therapeutic relationship a big fat scam? ARGH! You can call it fear cuz it is!!

Anyway, it wasn't about your T. I'm glad she saved you!

Noted, Pom, thank you. Only, I don't think (and I'm not entirely sure you do, either) that making you angry means it's necessarily bad -- even for you, but especially for someone in a different place from you.

I've never been diagnosed with PTSD or BPD but I'd like to share a couple of (tangential, as usual) experiences here:

1. Years ago when "encounter" and other non-therapy groups were more common, I lived in an area where there were many such and used to go to them pretty regularly. Some I found "better" than others (and I guess "better" for me would've meant something like "more honest".)

A technique that people sometimes offered each other, and even set up groups especially for, was something whose name I've long forgotten, that was about putting someone (the victim, I jokingly called them, never aloud) up front or in the middle and having everyone take turns handing them warm fuzzies: telling the person what they liked or admired about them or saw as their best qualities. That was emphatically not what I wanted from a group, perhaps not ever but certainly not then. I envisioned myself (if I were ever to get a dose of that) half disbelieving it (they were only saying that because it was the assignment), half wondering how much mileage I'd get from it before it wore off and I had to go back for a recharge. In short, I didn't want comfort in hanging back from whatever battles I was having with myself or others; I wanted confrontation, of sorts, and the opportunity to get more adept at dealing with my own and others' stuff.

2. A few years after that series of experiences (and after a hiatus), I participated in a workshop where the workshop leader announced up front that (a.) he didn't care about us, i.e., didn't have an investment in whether we got better from the workshop or not; and that (b.) whatever he might say, we shouldn't "believe" it but just get that he'd said it, sit with it, and see what came up for us in response. Yes, it sounded thoroughly scary going in -- but also cool, neutral, and refreshingly honest, which happened to be exactly what I'd been looking for all along.

The rest of the workshop, which was quite long, always ran true to form. Parts of it I loved, parts of it I hated, parts of it I was afraid "weren't working" as I'd expected (or more likely, I wasn't "doing it right") -- but all of that turned out to be just part of the workshop, just more of my stuff coming up to be looked at, and it turned out that there really was plenty of room within their (our) ground rules to look at it all, talk about it, and let go of it. I'd say I got more out of that program (which, by the way, is no longer being offered) than out of any one thing I've done before or since.

That wasn't DBT, nor apparently much like DBT from what I've read, but it showed me very convincingly that the comfort level of an activity or program was not at all a good guide to its value for me.

Orange Blossum I think you and I must have run into more than our share of manipulative SOB's because I feel just the same as you do. This whole thing, and what Fool Zero wrote below, all sound terrifyingly frightening to me. I remember encounter groups and they also struck me as highly manipulative and like one or two smart as*'s got to beat up on the rest of us naive or not as psychologically sophisticated people. Maybe it's just my PTSD.

I'm very happy it works for others and has helped them and I'm not trying to disrespect anyone here. It's just that anytime I try reading about DBT or when I read FoolZ's post here, I get a panicked, angry feeling that is quite extreme. It triggers me. It just sounds like so many mean people in my past who tried to take advantage of me, or make themselves look smart and funy at my expense. This whole thing is very confusing to me and very triggering.

I was hoping someone could explain my reaction, or share that they had a similiar reaction and if they went through with the therapy and what happened, which Elysium did a good job of. And I'm certainly interested in hearing more people's experiences with DBT, or even just reading about it.

I do understand and agree with what you are saying FoolZ. But, if you read my post above, response to Orange Blossom, you'll get a better feel for just how threatening it is for me. It's a trigger and I'm puzzled and ..... surprised by my reaction to even READING about it. That's why I'd like hearing people's experiences, like you and Elysium's. It's helping me put things into better perspective.

Pom -- I grew up in a family of con artists and patholigical liars. They would rip you off and lie to your face. Started out small. Money here and there. A TV or two. They even stole my mother's wedding rings. (This was after my dad died) They used to steal her Social Security checks, forge her name and cash them in for heroin. That was our money for food. Throw in lots of abuse issues and trust disappears.

I was on high alert for danger at every turn. Drug dealers with guns drawn, cops with guns drawn, and a mother working two jobs and never home. It was a highly stressful situation for a preteen to be in.

Trust is difficult for me.

If I thought I was being conned by someone trying to "dangle a carrot of compassion" in front of me, waiting to yank it away for punishment if my behavior didn't change, I'd run. (I read the carrot reference but can't find it now)

Maybe our issue isn't with the therapy itself, maybe it's with the woman who started it, lol. Wanna go meet her for coffee?

(((((Orange)))))

I know what you mean about some of the models and methods in Linehan's book. It felt like manipulation to me too when I originally started. That's what had me running away screaming the first time.

I guess the therapy was manipulative in a way but it was like using powers for good and not evil. It isn't an in your face kind of manipulation...but I don't know if that makes a difference or not. I was frustrated quite a bit with my primary DBT T because of the methods he used from time to time, but I really learned the most from the group T which is where they taught us the strategies of emotional regulation, distress tolerance, communications skills and others.

As for mind games...I HATE them. My family was very emotionally abusive towards me and my brother and mind games were the norm. The rules always changed. There was never any safe or stable ground. I agree with you all...it truly does suck!!

Can I join you and Pom at coffee with Linehan.....

Orange Blossom, Elysium & I having coffee with Linehan. LOL!! What a thought. You two are braver than me. I'd be happy to have coffee with you two anytime.
Linehan? I'd feel like a piece of steak being thrown into the lion cage at dinner time.
Hunh. It's the same way I feel about getting into any kind of serious conversation with my mother.

I didn't say it would be a civil conversation. I'm known for spilling coffee BY MISTAKE ONLY on people's laps.

Coffee anyone....?

The trigger flag, in deference to Pomegranate...

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... but being flown at half staff because I'm not sure this is going to be all that triggering.

Let me start with a digression; sometimes that's the quickest way to the point.

R.D. Laing describes a patient (schizophrenic, I think, but I'm not certain) who sometimes experienced himself as only "a cork bobbing on the ocean." Laing comments that on the ocean, what safer thing to be than a cork?

Personally I'd be honored to have coffee with Marsha Linehan, though I imagine she has much more pressing things to do than have coffee with me. Unlike Pom's steak in the lion cage, I'd expect to feel much more like a cork on the ocean. Not like a fish in water, which is how I've been known to feel in other extraordinary situations -- I simply don't consider myself in Linehan's league.

I just figured out that when I was growing up the rule in my family was, "Don't you dare do anything to trigger us!" It wasn't reciprocal; my parents could, and did, do plenty of stuff that triggered me. I carried that rule around with me for a while afterwards but it seemed as though who was and wasn't allowed to trigger whom, depended chiefly on who had the most power in a particular situation. I think the "mind games" that Elysium refers to, must include a lot of what went on in my family, that I later found myself ill-prepared to cope with when I encountered it elsewhere.

When I went to those encounter groups I mentioned, I was already working on the question, "What is and isn't OK, really, for me to say?" Not, "What's likely to trigger the fewest people?" -- the answer to that would have been simply to tell the blandest lies, to say nothing, or not to be there at all. I was more interested in what was and wasn't OK with me: how to tell the truth as I saw it, let the chips fall where they may, and walk away confident that I'd done no real harm. One key element seemed to be to stay in the "first person": if I said that something was true for me -- that I was or wasn't angry, that I did or didn't trust someone -- there was no way anyone could contradict me or successfully mind-game me.

A few years later when I went into that workshop, I knew very little about what to expect but I had a good many misgivings. Based on previous experiences, I expected that at some point I'd be expected or required to lie -- perhaps to pretend something was working for me when it really wasn't, or to offer someone a "warm fuzzy" when I felt neither warm nor fuzzy. By way of defense against whatever they might do to me there, I was determined to stay true to my own experience no matter what: for instance, to say nothing that I wasn't satisfied was true for me personally at the moment I said it.

The joke was on me, because the workshop turned out to be about training us to do exactly that. Only, I'd always feared there were limits on what I should allow myself to experience lest I get into some unspecified kind of trouble, but in the workshop we explored way farther beyond my previous limits and I kept finding that, despite whatever fear and other stuff happened to come up for me, I still felt perfectly safe.

Linehan says, in one of the page snapshots Orange_Blossom posted, "The therapist communicates '********' to responses other than the targeted adaptive response." One of the points of the workshop was to teach us to draw the distinction between our experience -- what was so for us at any given moment, "I feel fear" (or anger, or whatever) "and it reminds me of..." (whatever) -- and the stories we'd often make up about it, such as "I feel like there's a curse on me and nothing I do ever turns out right". The workshop leader would indeed actively welcome communications of the former kind and call "********" to the latter.

-- Bob Lind, of Elusive Butterfly fame.

Several years ago I had a brief and stormy relationship with a gf who, in retrospect, was showing some BPD traits. One thing I noticed about her after a while was that she didn't seem to like to ask me for anything she might want from me, such as not to talk to her about something just then. Instead, it seemed to me that she was constantly looking for ways to make me do what she wanted: she'd snap at me or derail a conversation if it started to go in a direction she wasn't comfortable with, or not show up for a date when we had a lot of loose ends in need of talking about. I'd try to coach her: "If you don't want to talk about something, the magic words are, 'I'm not willing.' Just say that, and I'll respect it. When you say, 'Cut that out!' or 'Quit analyzing!!' I haven't a clue what you mean."

[The astute reader may note a certain resemblance between the situations described just now and the "Don't you dare do anything to trigger us" ones referred to earlier.]

People with BPD seem to have acquired, quite likely unfairly, a reputation for being "manipulative." I can see how someone might easily come across that way if (a.) they don't expect to get what they ask for; (b.) they do expect to feel frustrated and to get triggered by it -- reminded of lots of other times they asked for something and were denied or squashed; so (c.) they've learned ways, often maladaptive, to get around ever having to ask. I can see where in DBT, part of the lesson plan might be to get the client to (a.) ask instead of gaming, and in the process, (b.) to confront whatever stuff the act of asking may trigger for her.

I can also see where, if someone weren't ready to let Linehan walk them through the Valley of the Shadow this way, they could experience fear and/or anger just thinking about it.

Great observation by Elysium, earlier. It makes perfect sense to me but I don't recall ever seeing it brought up before: Pom, I love you for your honesty and there's no way I'd ever fault you for saying that. Furthermore, I'm almost positive that a good DBT therapist -- OR a good workshop leader -- wouldn't, either.
Connections, connections! Follow the trail! lol Don't look now, but you're doing DBT already

Dare I suggest... that it might be neither with the therapy nor with the woman, but with what you wouldn't want either one to trigger for you right now?

Will the Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse be there? (Oh no, that's right, they're all tea drinkers.)

Oh Yum! Let's do!! We can have tea also. And those cakes and cookies and biscuits??? I'll bring some delicious ginger cookies filled with lemon creme. Where do you all get those pretty pictures and how do you get them in a message???

Meanwhile: MY T CANCELLED MY APPOINTMENT THIS MORNING. I FEEL LIKE CRYING. I FEEL SCARED.

I wish we could all have coffee together irl this morning. Hugs and reassurance, I need lots of both.

I feel fragile, jumpy and a bit paranoid. (Did he do this on purpose??) What if he's sick of my depression and negativity? I'm such a mess.

I take it that that applied to (a.) also...

Good points Pachy! I didn't even catch that. I'd hear the a. and wonder WTF??? Get insulted, angry, hurt (hurt/angry same thing?) and leave. I don't like feeling confused.