Getting Back Up, VII: Hard Work, the Tools of Change

I took about five years of classes in a technique known as DBT. It’s a cognitive therapy system designed for people Borderline Personality Disorder and PTSD. I don’t have the former but I have a complex case of the latter. I learned about Mindfulness. I worked on Distress Tolerance. I hammered away at Emotion Regulation. I picked at Interpersonal Effectiveness, which is still my Achilles heel in DBT.

It’s a great set of skills to boost you that 12% I mentioned before. They’re probably the easiest answer for me to give when I get asked how I’m doing it. I just rattle off my DBT skills, and how I implement them. So my 12% is at least an hour of walking a day, cycling an hour 4-5 times a week, rigorously enforced regular sleep, vitamins, self-cooked meals using minimally-processed foods, very little meat, no high fructose corn syrup ever, daily meditation, an ever more challenging and full schedule of socially, emotionally demanding activities, cleaning, constant regulation and restructuring of my inner dialogue, a deliberate facing-off against panic and taking opposite action to negative emotions: approaching when the desire is to flee in fear, gently addressing or gently avoiding when the desire is to rigidly verbally and mentally lash out in anger, deliberate visibility and healthy volume when the the desire is to hide in unwarranted shame, activity when the desire is to collapse in grief. And as they never did me any good, I got off the psychoactive medications. Getting off your meds is not something I recommend for everyone, or even for most people. But it continues to feel like the right choice for me.

But again, this litany of skills didn't actually affect much, until the Universe knocked me down and waited to see if I was finally going to shake it off and get back up.