Interlude – using DBT skills in a mini-crisis

I’m in the midst of a crisis, all self-inflicted  - what a great opportunity to see if I can use the DBT tools to calm myself down. I can’t stop reminding myself that I was feeling reasonably content (or was I?) before I caused this drama involving, to my mind (utterly murky near-sociopathic urges).

If I could turn back time…but I can’t. So therefore I’ve applied Opposite Action by going to the gym ( this worked as a distraction for a while). And then things got worse. I aimed to talk about self-inflicted issue #1 in my therapy, but then the therapy appointments themselves (scheduling matters) were called into question. And this tipped me over the edge. At this point I did something a bit unusual for me, and said, 20 minutes into the session ‘I know this is a bit unorthodox, but I’m leaving the session for today.’ And then I went, the world crashing around me as I did so (or that’s what it felt like). I realised, with some horror, that this DBT lark isn’t at all easy, and that the road isn’t going to be smooth. I might have kidded myself it could be. I noted that  I can’t always problem -solve when I feel overwhelmed, though I did feel my withdrawal from the situation showed Wise Mind, and later at the gym (second session in a difficult day) I remembered Linehan’s idea that Wise Mind can operate even in distressing circumstances.

Once I’d done my withdrawing, I then focussed on trying to fix self-inflicted issue #1 (which involved a raffle and a bottle of Tequila) resolved.

This involved some texts and was partly successful. It was one of those ‘emotions fitting the facts situations’, and these tend to get much worse for me before getting better.

There are  DBT resources which are designed to help in crisis situations. I appreciate that none of what I’ve written about sounds like a crisis, but it was bad enough to make me think of suicide later that evening. Instead I read (The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists) – a novel in which most  of the characters have it considerably worse than I do, and that took the edge off. Even then I found I couldn’t really focus on the words.

 The DBT crisis resources – here’s some examples below –

There are more pages on Crisis Survival Skills, and they can be found free online, or as part of worksheet books. As with all the DBT skills, these need to be practised and reflected on to be effective. But yesterday I think I managed to use the STOP skill semi-effectively.