DB What?

I wrote For Me, Suicide is Always on the Table a few years ago and never thought that would change.

I always wondered what the fuck DBT was and how could it possible help me not be me.  Here's an example of how I applied it. I've been pretty fucked up recently and wrote this when I wasn't. I'm fresh from the dark side though and reading this helped a little in pulling me back. I doubt it could help anyone else, but man if it could, I'm happy to share.  That is a scary, shitty place to get stuck.

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My 11 year old daughter is supposed to be at Girl Scouts camp this weekend so I was surprised to see her active on facebook. I wondered if camp was cancelled and tried calling but my calls were rejected. I tried messenger and called again with no luck until a text arrived: mom please stop. This stung more that I thought it should. She's a tween and I'm the parent, I should be able to handle this but my insecurities flared up and I wondered if my yelling last weekend drove her away.

I wondered if I should let her be or find out more information and decided to text a question mark.  She called and told me she didn't want to talk me.  My mind immediately assumed it had been right all along and I am a bad mom.


You might wonder why I would jump to that conclusion right away, a valid question. It's because I was raised in an abusive, alcoholic home where the hate towards me was palpable. I'm terrified I will unwittingly carry on the cycle.  I'm not, but the fear is always lurking like a shadow.

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I asked my daughter why she didn't feel like talking and her response was her throat hurt.  I pretended to believe her while pain radiated through my chest. I quickly got off the phone as my thoughts wandered down the familiar path of self-loathing.

It was as if my brain had a distorted lens that I was now looking through. All of a sudden I was interpreting recent events as evidence I'm bad, not liked, rejected, etc. I looked at unanswered texts I sent and suddenly thought I was ignored on purpose. I looked back at recent interactions and viewed my behavior as bad, other's reactions as negative.

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Before DBT I would have continued down that painful path, combing through the mountain of evidence I had collected over the years proving my awfulness.

I used to live in suicide ideation, not by choice but because it was the only thing that made me feel better. It seemed everyday I was tumbling down a dark, suicidal spiral until imagining in detail every gory aspect of the death I thought I deserved. It felt like the only thing I could do to redeem myself for the pain I thought I caused.

Today is different. I've been in DBT for 10 months and have skills to escape the impossible hell that no one who hasn't been there could understand. In case you haven't heard of DBT, it stands for dialectical behavior therapy which is a fancy way of saying there's two sides of the therapy that happen at the same time: accepting myself the way I am while also accepting that I want to change.

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I've learned the sooner I catch myself and use skills the quicker and easier they work. I stormed out many times during the first few months and was really scared DBT wouldn't be able to help me but eventually it caught on.

If you're curious about the skills, the first one I used today is Describe. It's based on mindfulness and works how it sounds - I looked out the window and described to myself the green leaves rustling in the wind, the grey sky, the mango candle I could smell, the birds I could hear singing. It brought me back to the present moment and out of the past I was wading in. 

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The other skill I used is Check the Facts. I looked at the situation and considered the many possibilities besides what my gut was telling me to be true. I realized that my daughter is in a hotel room with a bunch of other girls her age and probably doesn't feel like talking in front of everyone while they're hanging out. I looked at my sister's unanswered texts and realized it was Friday night and she may have been on a date, tired, distracted - who knows? I thought about my best friend and instead of assuming he must be angry at me for some reason I realized the fact is I have no idea what is happening in his life.

When I first started DBT I doubt I would have caught these thoughts in time. I probably would have ended up dunking my face in a bowl of ice water for 30 seconds - that is also a DBT skill and is fantastic when it feels like your emotions are going to rage out of you. It activates the dive reflex in the body which slows the heart rate and calms you down.

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For me, suicide felt like a plague I couldn't shake. I knew in my gut that I was horrible and couldn't fathom anyone convincing me otherwise. The past had happened and there was no other explanation besides it was all my fault.  DBT got me 75% better but didn't fully dispel that belief until I read this answer on Quora.com by Brian Barnett. He explained how those with Borderline Personality Disorder form a subconscious belief that they and their feelings are inherently bad.  This was the answer I needed to see the past in a new light and destroy my belief that I was a horrible human being.

I don't want to come across as someone who has the cure but do want to offer hope to those that might not have any.  I used to scour the internet for anything that could help me, something to let me know that I wasn't alone and that it could get better but I didn't find that, instead it was therapists refusing to help BPD patients and horror stories from loved ones at their wit's end dealing with BPDers, which just crushed me further and validated my belief that I was awful.

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It takes me three hours and a ferry ride to get to DBT but not going isn't an option. I live in a rural area and when Obamacare passed I thought I'd be able to get help but couldn't find a DBT group that accepted Medicaid.

I went to the county behavioral health center because it was my only option with Medicaid. I sued them after they refused to fire a therapist that wanted to have sex with me.  I was then turned away from the neighboring county facility while in crisis and about to go through with my suicide plan. I already felt like the world hated me so when the only available help turned me away it brought me that much closer to tragedy. 

After a four year battle I was approved for Disability/Medicare and was finally able to get into a group. My DBT group has an 18 month wait list for medicare patients but somehow I started immediately, I think they sensed I was about to die. 

On the ferry to DBT

If you have Borderline Personality Disorder, struggle with self hatred and think about suicide I want to let you know you are not alone. What I've learned is our emotions and reactions that cause us shame actually make sense given what we've been through. Growing up in the environment that triggered this disorder was not our doing and there is hope for our lives to become worth living.

I seem to be on the other side now and want to help those still suffering. I had a hell of a time getting into DBT and if this is the case for you please leave a comment (anonymous is OK) with your city/state and insurance if you have it. I am interested in forming a nonprofit to bring DBT to those who need it.

Also, I heard Marsha Linehan speak about a grant her team was awarded to put DBT online so hopefully that will be coming in the future.

I greatly appreciate feedback so feel free to let me know what you thought of this post by commenting below.