Borderline Personality - Tumblr Posts
FLAME
Use this guide to remember how to carry out a task mindfully.
F - Focus and shift your attention to be mindful of the present moment.
L - Let go of distracting thoughts and judgments.
A - Use Radical Acceptance to remain nonjudgmental.
M - Use Wise Mind to make healthy decisions.
E - Do what is Effective to accomplish your goals.
*More DBT guides here*
GIVE
Use this skill to maintain a good relationship and reduce conflict with another person.
G - Gentle: No attacks, threats or judgments.
I - Interested: Listen to the other person.
V - Validate: Acknowledge the person’s feelings, wants, difficulties and opinions.
E - Easy Manner: Use humor and smile.
*More DBT guides here*
Every day is hard, just being awake, alive, aware. I know what I have to do to feel better, to feel good in my skin and feel like my life isn’t a waste. Knowing the solution and implementing it are two completely separate things though. That’s what I have the hardest time with. And while I sit around waiting for the motivation to do the healthy things that will bring me closer to stability, or at least a little further from this hopeless feeling and depression, I have to constantly list the people I’d be traumatizing if I took my own life. The impulse is there, daily, hourly, because it’s so overwhelming being an adult human, or just being in general. I can’t picture any future for myself, just this meager existence, so talking myself off the ledge is constant work. I never get to clock out.
FAST
Use this skill to help maintain your self-respect when communicating with others.
F - Be Fair: Avoid judgments and stick to the facts.
A - Don’t Apologize: Assert yourself and ask for what you want. Don’t apologize for making requests, having opinions or disagreeing.
S - Stick to Your Values: Make sure to confidently stick to your truth.
T - Be Truthful: Don’t exaggerate. Don’t lie or act helpless when you aren’t. Dishonesty over time erodes your self-respect.
*More DBT guides here*
The soundtrack of my life lately as I’m processing my break-up, battling my latest self-image issues and searching for reasons to live:
Hits Different by Taylor Swift
I Almost Do by Taylor Swift
What Was I Made For? by Billie Eilish
Death By A Thousand Cuts by Taylor Swift
Moon by Reneé Rapp
If you’re living with BPD like I am you know that stability is hard to achieve and even harder to stick to on a daily basis. DBT skills are a vital part of us getting through the ups, downs, rages and triggers, with as little collateral damage, or damage to ourselves, as possible. After going through DBT group therapy I decided to start making my own guide graphics for the skills because there simply weren’t enough cute visuals available. I often think that something has to be aesthetically pleasing for us to pay attention, and for me that means lots of colors! I make these graphics, using Photoshop and DBT skill print outs that are easily found with a google search. I also think the less clinical language can go a long way💗
*I’m not a licensed clinician or therapist, I’m a woman who’s been battling her BPD for over 16 years. Thankfully, with the help of many professionals, supportive family and friends, and some key reading, I’ve survived past the “average life expectancy” for BPD, which is 27 years of age. I’ve been practicing DBT on and off over the years, at times finding it hard to use and unhelpful in moments of distress. Only this year, after my second hospitalization, did I find the right info to finally understand how it should work and it clicked. I still struggle with the daily triggers, bouts of depression, and the feelings of emptiness, but I do find that I’m able to survive it all because the DBT skills have actually sunk in. I’m also very aware that therapy is a privilege that many can’t access, and sadly even when you can, BPD is a tough thing to diagnose, treat properly, and get the help you need. So now I’m just trying to spread the understanding, help others figure out how DBT can work, and of course, breakdown the stigma associated with BPD.
*More info about my experience with DBT*
This post is to elaborate more on my experience in the DBT group and some of the reading and tools I found most helpful to me.
The DBT group I was able to take part in was a remote group that met once a week for 16 weeks via Webex. I was very lucky to get a spot and that my Medicaid covered any cost. It was run by two social workers as part of NYU Langone's Psychiatric Center at Sunset Terrace.
The weeks were broken down based on the 4 Modules (core skill groups) of DBT: Mindfulness, Distress Tolerance, Emotional Regulation, and Interpersonal Effectiveness.
Mindfulness: This is the base of any DBT practice, and what I always had trouble with in the past. Mindfulness is a kind of self-awareness that you can use to break down your experiences and give yourself a kind of reality check. Being mindful is being present and aware of your emotions, your body, and your thought process.
There are 3 states of mind with which we experience and react to the world: Emotion Mind (acting based on emotions alone), Reasonable Mind (acting based on facts alone), and Wise Mind (a combination of the first 2 and the goal of mindfulness).
Distress Tolerence: This module focuses on short term solutions for big emotions. The skills involved in this module are called Distraction skills because their goal is to just get you through the wave of emotion, resist any harmful urges, and survive your distress long enough to talk to someone or get to other skills.
There are quite a few skills in this module I found helpful, and I'll go into more detail on them in another post. The skill I think can do the most in the moment is called ACCEPTS, an acronym used to remember what you can do to distract yourself when feelings get too intense.
Emotion Regulation: This 3rd module focuses on learning to identify your emotions, understand where they come from and what they are trying to tell you, and processing them in a healthy way.
The purpose of all emotions is evolutionary survival. Emotions spur us into action to meet our needs (when you get hangry, you know you need to eat), and communicate danger to ourselves and others. Body language and voice tone can also often communicate emotions before words do.
*Use a feeling wheel to identify your emotions and dig deeper. If you can't process them right away, use a distress tolerance skill until you are able to sit with them.
*The best skill for emotion regulation is ABC PLEASE, an acronym used to help you recognize vulnerability factors in your life and minimize them.
Interpersonal Effectiveness: This last module focuses on skills that help us communicate with others. There are skills like GIVE, which can be used to maintain good relationships with others, and FAST, which can be used to help maintain your self-respect when making a request of someone.
*There are others that I will make graphics for, stay tuned!
Attending the group and learning the skills was only part of what I found helpful on my journey toward stability. I found a book, Mindfulness for Borderline Personality Disorder, that helped break mindfulness down in great detail and very easy to follow language. The book is written specifically for BPD-havers so it's really an excellent resource. The other tool I found helpful is something my therapist suggested I get, The Game of Real Life, which is a game that you can play to learn DBT skills in an interactive and fun way. It comes with a little book that breaks every skill and practice down, Skill cards which I find to be a great go-to for recalling a skill in a moment you need it (after all, it's a whole lot of acronyms to remember), and Conflict cards that give you examples of situations you might experience, and you have to pick a skill card to practice (can be done alone but better with someone you trust to really dive into the communication and regulation skills). I've actually been carrying a few of the skill cards in my purse wherever I go, just in case I need a quick reference in a moment of distress.
I have so much more to share with anyone who's interested. I'll keep posting, making graphics, and if anyone has a specific question about any of the modules, I'll do my best to answer or help you find the information online. DBT groups are super hard to find, in extremely high demand so it's hard to get in, and usually grossly expensive due to this country's horrible healthcare system. I consider myself extremely privileged to have been able to find a great hospital when I needed it and a great group that my insurance covered. I'm here for anyone who isn't as lucky. Let's make DBT accessible and break the stigma of the BPD diagnosis!
*More DBT guides here*
Trigger warning: s3lf h@rm
Feeling utterly alone
New wounds keep me company
Soon I’ll have little scar friends
They’ll never leave me
Trigger warning: su1cidal thoughts
I want to love myself. I want to love my life. I want to enjoy things. I want to be able to let go of what doesn’t serve me. I want to be happy, or at the very least be content. But currently the best I can do is hold onto enough mindfulness to follow my crisis plan when I’m holding a pill bottle in my hand.
As my therapist always says, therapy and treatment can only work if you’re alive, and the skills are there to help you stay that way.
Better buried in self-loathing and shame than in the ground, I guess.
Really just drowning rn. I made so many plans and had so many hopes for this summer and autumn. Now August is almost over and I bailed on 75% of all my plans that we’re supposed to make me feel alive because I’m so hopelessly depressed again. It’s so hard to have any hope at all for my life. I have no job or career prospects, too much anxiety and trauma to even want to find work, no hope of ever being able to manage my own finances or live a life where I’m even minimally comfortable without relying on my mom.
I feel worthless, pathetic, and I just have so much self-loathing running through my veins. My list of triggers is getting longer by the day and I need no reason to just break down and sob at any moment.
Obviously another hospital stay is very needed, and a more intensive and longer term inpatient treatment. I just hesitate to go, which is another thing that makes me hate myself.
On the one hand, in my Wise Mind I know that I need more help, I can’t do this or keep going the way I am. I know logically that the hospital was hard at first but it did wonders for getting me out of the deepest depression I’ve been in in recent years. But I also can’t help but recall all the discomfort hat came with being in such a restrictive and sterile environment, surrounded by strangers and having almost no privacy. It’s so hard for me in my current misery to wrap my mind around being even slightly more uncomfortable than I am, even if it means I’m getting help and support.
It’s like I’m looking at the world without my glasses or contacts on, and even though I know putting them on will give me clarity and help me see a way forward, I have absolutely no energy or motivation to get that shit out of my bathroom cabinet, and I’m utterly hopeless and don’t even want my vision back.
*(While typing this I actually sobbed one of my contacts right out of my eye and I’m literally just sitting here crying and half blind and in just my most pathetic state and I can’t move or help myself at all)
I seem to be turning nocturnal again. I think it’s easier to be alone when everyone is asleep, not have hopes of seeing anyone and being annoyed or disappointed when they either show up or don’t, answer texts or don’t. There’s no expectation of companionship when everyone you know is passed out at 4:30 am. It’s peaceful.
Today is #WorldMentwlHealthDay and I’ve been crying half the day cuz my Instagram feed is overwhelmingly full of terror and hate. To save myself from completely despair I’ve deleted it and promised myself at least a week without it…
At least my little corner of tumblr is still nice😌
I’ve been contemplating my depression insomnia a lot lately. Usually when I’m depressed all I can do is sleep for hours every day, but lately I can’t fall asleep (even with meds that should knock me right out and have in the past), or I just outright refuse to even try (like right now). I struggled to understand why, after such a rough, emotionally battering day, I wouldn’t just want it to stop and rest my weary mind. Then I remembered that sleep is what our brains need to shift our memories from the short term to the long term memory storage…and now it seems obvious that I just really don’t want to remember the truly rough days long term.
I’ve been finding this app to be a cute and engaging way to motivate myself to get through the day. Add me, inbox me your friend code if you want, let’s get through the hard days together🖤
I’m 9 months sober today.
When my flames are stoked into a full on teary rage, the only way to calm myself to a simmer is by plotting death…not mine, his.
This.
My 4 year relationship ended because he got tired of my debilitating depression and didn’t know how to help me other than kicking me out and making my mom’s house the only place I could go.
After years of threatening to leave and not leaving, he gave me the false hope, made me think we could survive it. But he bailed and I was left to pick up the pieces on my own.
Sure it was for the best cuz neither of us were mentally well, cocooned together in my misery, but I keep thinking, if he had the strength to leave sooner (cuz obvs my BPD and codependent ass wasn’t going anywhere), not keep making those empty threats that just sent me spiraling further down waiting for it to be true, maybe I would have been better by now.
You say you're not "threatening" to leave me, that you WILL leave me if I don't change. You've been saying that for years more and more. I don't understand why you don't just leave instead of making me think I have a chance and staying out of guilt and pity. I don't like being lied to just so you don't hurt me because you think I'll destroy myself. What's meant to be is meant to be.
Bones and crippling anxiety🥲
I need to feel productive and like I can accomplish something so I’m giving myself the goal of finally finishing my guides for the STOP and TIPP skills by next Friday, October 27th. And then diving into 1989 TV will be my “reward.”
I’m a girl with a desperate need for a gold-star feeling and pretty much no opportunities for moments like that. So I have to create them myself and reward and love myself…no one else is going out of their way to do it for me.
STOP
Use this skill when you are fully in your Emotion Mind to stop yourself from reacting impulsively to a distressful situation.
S - Stop: When distress is high, don’t react. Just freeze!
T - Take a step back: Remove yourself from the situation. Take 15-30 seconds to focus on your breathing and slow down your heart rate.
O - Observe the situation: Take in what’s going on around you and in your body. Remember to stick to the facts.
P - Proceed Mindfully: What’s your goal in this situation? Consider your thoughts and feelings, and those of others.
*More DBT guides here*