Me and DBT

I started DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) in January. I have heard of it before yet wasn’t entirely sure of what it was about. In my present life, I felt something was missing, something that was unhealed, residual pain from the past. A phantom kind of sadness that I could not pinpoint.

First, I contacted my insurance company to find someone in the network. I met my counselor, S. At my first appointment, my husband came along to find out what it all entails and how he can be supportive of this next leg of my journey.

I found this DBT is a two-part process. It not only included a counselor for one-on-one, it also included a class on learning the DBT skills. After I met with the skills facilitator, it was determined that I have Borderline Personalities Traits, which to me is a step or two up from having Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). In the past, BPD, in the DSM manual, was indicated to not have a cure, that having this personality disorder is life-long. However, Marsha Linehan developed this program in response to her own journey. You can look up further information about DBT online. Before I go on about DBT and me, following is some information about my past which laid the foundation and led me to doing DBT.

In response to how I grew up with ongoing violence since before birth, I believe, I became conditioned to disregard myself because that what was I experienced. I believed I was not important, not valued, not loved, not wanted, not validated, resented, despised, an impediment that got in the way of my mother’s life and potential happiness. It seemed that nearly everyday she reminded me that she wished I wasn’t born, that it was all my fault that her life was the way it was. She was emotionally and physically abusive.

With the intensity of this deep invalidation, I had zero self-esteem, and turned that inward, punishing myself for their behaviors, firmly believing that I had done something so wrong, so evil, I must have deserved it. I would hurt myself, including cutting, throwing myself down stairs, almost anything physical to give me some relief from the phantom pains, the deep emotional pains. As I bled, I could focus on that. I also embraced suicide as a way out from the intensity of the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual pain.

When I was 15, I tried for the first time. Ended up in a small rural hospital. I then tried again at 19 and 20. After the third time, I began to believe that God had another plan for me. I also felt conflicted between wanting to end the deep and pervasive pain and figuring out to live. I struggled a lot with my emotional make-up. In my family, when I felt happy, grief, sadness, or anger, I had to go to my room until I can behave better. I could, however, exhibit terror and fear. I became more rational, shutting down my emotions as a way to survive. Each day I work up,  I would thank God for letting me live another day.

Along with the lack of connection to my mother, my father also did not have nurturing and nourishing parenting skills. At an early age, he began molesting me. It progressed to more invasive  sexual abuse. This compounded how I felt about myself, that I was worthless and only here to serve whatever physical release either parent wanted. Then I was thrown away until the next time then pushed aside until the next time. For my mother, she would beat me in a rage until her rage subsided. The abuse was a range of their own pain manifestations in response to their own upbringing. I became to identified patient.

This is not to solicit sympathy or any poor me’s. It is to give a context in how my life started. As I continue on with this blog, I will be sharing more of how I coped, changed my mind, and expand on how DBT is affecting me now as I make headway in letting go of the deepest stuck stuff.

Be sure to look at Recovery Road, too.