...and anyone else who wants it.

Apologies 12AM that it's taken me so long to post this info, but I haven't had any internet for ages :/ I hope that this is useful!

This is a DBT handbook that I found online. Personally I think DBT skills like emotional regulation and distress tolerance can help anyone, whether diagnosed or not, with coping with difficult emotions. They are also now doing studies using DBT with bipolar, depression and anxiety, so it’s not just for those diagnosed with BPD.

https://myjourneythroughmadness.file...-dbt-group.pdf

Page 56 has some good suggestions of positive activities to regulate your emotions. Obviously everyone is different and you will need to find what works for you. I also found that completing a gratitude list, either in my head, or on paper each night before I go to sleep has focused my brain into being more mindful of the positive things that happen each day, which then meant I was more aware of things that I could do when I was feeling down to improve my mood. Even if you have had the worst day of your entire life, there is always something to be grateful of - I have a roof over my head, and food to eat, and a fluffy dog who loves me to cuddle.

SometimesPsychotic has shared before how she was recommended to do multiple positive things together to increase their impact eg having a relaxing bath with candles lit whilst listening to your favourite music etc. I have found that helpful too.

Acting opposite to your emotions is a big part of DBT and also ACT (Acceptance & Commitment Therapy), which are both later-developed types of CBT. Personally I never got on with CBT, although it can help lots of people, but I find ACT (and DBT skills I was already using before I even knew that they had a name) invaluable. Oftentimes people say that they need to feel X before they can do Y, but most of the time doing Y, even when you don’t feel like it or want to, will help you to feel X. The big one IME is motivation - often people don’t do something because they are waiting to feel motivated to do it, which may never happen! A good example from my own life is walking my dog - often I don’t want to do it. It’s cold or raining or I’m too scared to go outside or I’m feeling too lazy to move etc etc, and so I don’t want to go, but I know that my dog needs me to go and that 90% of the time I end up enjoying myself. So I force myself to do it regardless that it’s the last thing that I want to do, and I usually enjoy myself. And even if I don’t enjoy myself, I still accomplished something (leaving the house) and I know that it’s good for my MH in the long run. So, “do it anyway” as ACT would say!

Learning to self-soothe in healthy ways (distress tolerance) is a MASSIVE skill that would benefit each and every person on the planet! Page 62-63 have some good suggestions, but, again, everyone is different and so you will need to experiment what works best for you. I also find that reminding myself of other difficult feelings or situations that I successfully coped with in the past is useful to remind myself that I am strong and that I have coped before and so I will do so again.

Since 12AM mentioned coping with PTSD symptoms, I also wanted to mention grounding techniques. I don’t have PTSD, but I used to dissociate a bit in the past. I found grounding techniques invaluable. It uses the 5 senses to ‘root’ you in the present moment, and is quite like mindfulness (or the way I use it, not in the meditative sense of focusing on breathing, but being fully present to the sensations of the environment). Through experimentation, I found that touch was the best way to ground myself if I noticed myself starting to get a bit ‘spacey’. It does take practise too, but I found that either very rough or very soft textures would orientate my in the present moment. So I carry around tiny little things in my pocket/bag to use if I need to, such as a smooth pebble or conker, or a small soft toy, or a tiny, rough pine cone. I rub my fingers over the object and try to focus my mind on exactly how they feel to my fingers, and focus my eyes on exactly what they look like; the minute changes in colour, the changes in shape etc.

Page 67 covers breathing techniques and there are loads of videos on youtube with guided meditations, guided mindfulness, breathing exercises etc. Personally, I’ve always had mixed results with breathing techniques. Slow belly breathing can be helpful for me, but if I become to aware of my breathing, I often feel anxious because, usually, the only time I become aware of my breathing is when I am already anxious and hyperventilating. So I use mindfulness without focusing on my breathing or physical sensations within my body. Instead I focus on what’s outside of myself, and often do this whilst outside sat in the garden or whilst walking my dog. So I will focus on the sun warming my face, or the way that the breeze dances across my skin, and the things I can hear like birds tweeting or distant cars going past. I will focus on shapes and colours and textures around me, like the fluffy tail of a squirrel running past, or the bright colours of a flower or butterfly, or the irregularities in shape and colour of a stone wall (often touching it to ground myself too). I use photography in this way too; finding something interesting to photograph and then using my phone camera to pick a good shot/angle.

Acceptance is a major part of ACT and DBT and, I will admit, I struggled MASSIVELY with it. I knew cognitively that acceptance was different to resignation, but I couldn’t understand how to go from resignation to acceptance. I wasn’t happy with the way that things were in my life, so why I should I accept them and essentially say it was ok that my life was like that??! I wanted to be the way that I was before! Honestly, I can’t walk you through how I went from resignation to acceptance, or even why acceptance is not the same as settling or saying that you want your life to stay exactly as it is. Accepting you hear voices (or whatever) is not the same as saying that you like hearing voices or that you want to continue hearing voices. I honestly have no idea how I shifted to starting to accept things because it occurred gradually and on an emotional level, not a cognitive one. So I can’t guide anyone else how to do it. But acceptance (“it is what it is”) makes life easier - you are not battling so hard with yourself anymore (though it doesn’t mean you have given up at all!), which gives you more energy to focus on improving things. It’s hard to describe, sorry, but I hope that you understand the difference.

This is an introduction to ACT: https://www.actmindfully.com.au/upim...o_chapters.pdf

I bought The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris, but most of the info and worksheets are available online, which I will try to post here, so you wouldn’t necessarily need to buy the book. There are also lots of videos explaining the concepts on youtubes, especially the metaphors.

And this website explains the basics well too: https://www.getselfhelp.co.uk/act.htm

And here are the worksheets to work through: https://thehappinesstrap.com/upimage...heets_2014.pdf

I recommend identifying your core values (not values you think you should have, or that others around you want you to have), so that you can create goals to work towards. Oftentimes goals aren’t reached because we don’t actually want to reach them, we just think we do, or think we should reach them. Once you have your goals, broken down into manageable steps, you then use the other techniques such as “do it anyway” and distress tolerance etc to work towards them. Even a baby step is progress and should be celebrated. But often there are setbacks (see pages 42-43 for troubleshooting ideas), but that’s when you use the distress tolerance and emotional regulation techniques to feel better and then get back on track.

Anyway, I realise that I’ve given a lot of information and it might seem overwhelming right now, but the workbooks are here as a guide to dip in and out of, and slowly work through. Not everyone has access to good quality therapies/therapists and so we have no choice but to help ourselves. If you have any questions, feel free to ask and we will try to answer them. I finally have internet after being stuck in the Dark Ages for over a week, so I will try to check back in to answer queries, if I can.

All the best!

*Willow*

[Sometimes psychotic]

Wow willow this is fantastic!

Originally Posted by Sometimes psychotic

Wow willow this is fantastic!

Thanks. It's just stuff that I've come across over the years that I found helpful. Hopefully it can help others as well.

*Willow*

[12AM]

Wow! Willow, this is amazing, you are amazing. I agree that DBT skills like emotional regulation and distress tolerance can help anyone, mentally ill or not. Thank you for not only sharing me the links but also sharing your understanding and experience with it.

As far as I know there are 5 steps that we would experience after traumatic events; denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. My C-PTSD somehow makes me trapped in anger and depression. Often those feelings happen without any real trigger. I don't know what I'm angry about. I don't know why am I depressed. Acting opposite my emotions seems like the solution.

I also have a bad habit of expecting negative things to happen in my life. I often dissociate when I feel happy. I feel that negative feeling and negative thoughts are me, not just a part of me. Trying to do multiple positive things won't be easy, but I'll give it a try along with the other techniques that I can find on those links.

I really appreciate this. Thank you for spending time just to help me and people like me who don't have access for a proper mental health care. Reading your story somehow brings out the memory that I had forgotten, which is how I was before all of these pills and insanity. Thank you so so much

Thank you 12AM for the kind post and visitors' profile message. I hope that the info is helpful to you.

Your post made me wonder if you'd ever tried asking your subconscious why you feel angry or depressed, and if you feel that you don't deserve to feel good if it causes dissociation?? I've not personally tried free writing, but I've heard it's a good way to tap into your subconscious. I used to do this mentally, asking myself Qs, and feelings and thoughts would surface. One example was that I left a particular therapy session feeling really dejected, even though on the surface it'd been a good session. So I asked myself why I felt sad and I heard a voice out loud say "because it's pointless", so then I asked myself why is therapy pointless, and the same voice replied "you're pointless!" and then I understood why I was sad. Back then I was operating on the belief that I was an awful person and so I felt that I didn't 'deserve' to feel better or make changes to my life. If a person feels like that, they will often subconsciously sabotage their attempts to improve things, so it's an important belief to work through. I don't know who the voice was, it certainly wasn't me, but it helped me realise things that day.

Another way I've seen work (though with voices and with people, but I don't see why it couldn't work on emotions too??) is the empty chair technique. You sit in a chair facing an empty chair where you 'sit' the voice or person or part of yourself (or emotion in your case), and you talk to them and somehow your subconscious gives you 'their' answers. So, for example, if I was you I might put my feelings of anger or depression in the empty chair and ask it why it's angry/depressed and what you can do to help it feel better. I will admit that it does feel silly at first, but it can be a good way to unlock answers from inside yourself. Just don't try to force the answers: let them come from inside you naturally.

I also thought that maybe giving yourself 'permission' to be angry or depressed in a dialectical way might be useful? E.g. So you could say to yourself something like "it's ok to be angry, but I'm going to do X to calm down". Or "it's ok to feel scared when good things happen, but I still deserve to feel good" etc.

Acting opposite to how you feel and "doing it anyway" is hard. I've been doing it my entire life and I still find it hard sometimes. In some respects, I am very good at compartmentalising my feelings and experiences and getting on with what's needed, but it is tiring. What I'm saying is, don't be demoralised if it's hard or you can't always do it. I can't always do it either. You are not looking for perfection: it is not attainable. If doing X opposite to what you want to do feels impossible, try Y which is slightly easier but still gets you in the right direction. For example, if I'm too scared to go out to run an errand, I will force myself to walk my dog. I feel safer outside when I'm with him so it's easier to go out with him when I'm scared, though still hard. But once I've done that (and praised myself for it), it is then easier to go and run my errand on my own because I can tell myself that I've already been out once before and it went ok. And some days it just doesn't happen for whatever reason, and that's when you need to be gentle with yourself. E.g. "I'm disappointed that I couldn't do X, but that doesn't make me a failure and I will try again later/tomorrow".

All the best

*Willow*

[12AM]

Yes, this is a good point that I feel that I don't deserve to feel good if it causes dissociation and then unconsciously try to sabotage things. Once I realized this vital point every other puzzle seem to be easy to be solved. Why, what, how and all those stuff. The next task is acting opposite my mood. Again, thank you for helping me realizing things, I'll tell you how this DBT and ACT goes