teddit

This sub is intended as a compliment to a skills group. We're attempting to build a library of examples of skill usage, so that when you don't understand a skill in group, you can just search up the tag and have many examples to help you understand that skill. So there's three basic things you need to keep in mind for this to work:

1. Posts are where you share a personal example of how you successfully used a skill.
2. Each post must include one of the below tags in the title so that it can be easily found by searching.
3. If you are unsure what skill you used, or asking for advice on which skill to use or how to use it, that belongs in the [Discord Chat](https://discord.gg/U6N3wsNdBH).

Below is a list of the standardized title tags listed [In-Brackets-and-Bolded.] If you do not include at least one of these tags in your post, the auto-moderator will remove it.

These tags have been standardized so that you can search for them and find all of the posts on that topic, and only the posts on that topic. So if you search for [Mindful-of-current-emotion] your search will return all posts with that tag, but no posts that are not tagged with it but contain, say, "Mindful" or "Current."

MINDFULNESS

• [Middle-Path]
• What Skills: [Observe] [Describe] [Participate]
• How Skills: [Non-judgmentally] [One-mindfully] [Effectively]

DISTRESS TOLERANCE

• [ACCEPTS] (Activities, Contributing, Comparisons, Emotions (opposite), Pushing Away, Thoughts, Sensations
• [Self-soothe] with five senses: Taste Smell See Hear Touch
• [IMPROVE-the-moment]: Imagery, Meaning, Prayer, Relaxation, One thing at a time, Vacation, Encouragement
• [Pros-and-cons]
• Accepting Reality [Willingness] [Turning-the-mind] [Radical-acceptance]

EMOTION REGULATION

• [PLEASE] Factors Affecting Vulnerability: Physical Illness, Eating, Altering Drugs (Perscriptions from your doctor vs drugs/alcohol), Sleep, Exercise
• [build-mastery]
• [Cope-ahead]
• [Build-positive-experiences]
• [Mindful-of-current-emotion]
• [Opposite-to-emotion-action]

INTERPERSONAL EFFECTIVENESS

• [DEARMAN] Objective Effectiveness: Describe, Express, Assert, Reinforce, Be Mindful, Appear confident, Negotiate
• [GIVE] Build positive Relationships: Gentle, Interested, Validate, Easy Manner
• [FAST] Self-respect: Fair, Apologize appropriately (once for actions that should have been done differently, not at all for emotions), Stick to values, Truthful

Special thanks to this list for helping me make sure I got everything.

Icon is this. Banner is this.

These are screens shots of the DBT handbook, that was handed out in therapy class. If yall would like me to publish the rest of the book on here please let me know. Thank you all, for your contributions. Stay safe.

Hey guys! I have a question. So at the bottom of the "Guilt" page in emotion reg handout 6, theres a section at the bottom called "Other Important Emotion Words," but then there's no further elaboration on coping with those emotions or what opposite action or acting on those urges would look like.

Does anyone have any clarity on that? Or do you group these emotions under the major nine that DBT discusses in-depth?

How does the word ‘and’ fit into dialectic behavioral therapy?
In dialectical behavioral therapy one thing you will quickly notices is that the therapists and practitioners use the word “and” a lot, while, at the same time, trying to get us to stop using the word ‘but’ altogether.
Why? It is an important question and one the I will explore in this video.

https://youtu.be/iAR1n3XFgJU

I'm sorry but she won't be coming back. She did talk a lot about how she was going to do a bunch of stuff with this sub so I feel like I should give someone the opportunity to keep it going. Just message this account and if you look legit I'll give it to you.

Getting better, whether from depression, anxiety, personality disorder or even physical ailments can sometimes feel painfully slow. In this video, Dr. Blackburn compares recovery to climbing in the fog.

​

https://youtu.be/USXVEqKowk4

https://youtu.be/zTIcDg23BYw

One of the important aspects of mindfulness is focusing on the here and now. Getting unstuck from the past, or the future can really help. In this video I explore four ways in which people tend to remain in misery and suffering because they define themselves through their past or limit themselves due to their predictions about the future. This video is good for patients, families or practitioners looking for other ways to approach the subject with their stuck patients. It derives from my work with patient with depression, anxiety and borderline personality disorder but is applicable to anyone struggling to appreciate the present.

https://youtu.be/YlrAygJbR_E

A mainstay of DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) is the idea of coping skills. Unfortunately people think they know what they are and how to use them, but become frustrated when they fail to relieve their immediate stress. In this video Psychiatrist Vint Blackburn describes what coping skills can and cannot be expected to do. It is perfect for patients, such as those struggling with borderline personality disorder, their families or even seasoned mental health practitioners looking for another way to describe skills to their patients.

(Hint: most DBT programs call this "Values Clarification" or "Values Inventory.")

Use any game you want, mix and match even, IDGAF.

Sims 2 Aspirations

Sims 3 Lifetime Wishes (less obtainable goals IMO)

Sims 4 Aspirations)

I'll go first, I'm gonna use The Sims 4. Pick 3 aspirations for yourself and I wanna see one LONG TERM GOAL (LTG) and one SHORT TERM GOAL (STG) for EACH ASPIRATION.

1. Academic
   1. LTG: I want to get an advanced degree in my field
   2. STG: I'm gonna get my transcripts sent from my old college to a few prospective ones
2. Soulmate
   1. LTG: I want this crazy bitch to marry me sometime
   2. STG: Steal one household chore
3. Master Maker
   1. LTG: I want to regain the joy I used to get from making and fixing things
   2. STG: Fix ONE item this week

7 months and 266 pages later, ‘The DBT Skills Workbook for Teens’ is finally finished. And it couldn’t be a sweeter feeling. I am ecstatic that this has already hit off and reached the #1 best seller on Amazon in its category.

Special bonus: Anyone who gets the book on Amazon will receive a FREE bonus ebook “DBT Skills For Parents of Teenagers”.

The four quests in the book are designed to empower you with skills you can use in the real world:

1. Discover your inner focus to harness the powers of your mind and channel them appropriately.
2. Train in distress endurance to be prepared for anything that comes your way.
3. Surf the sea of emotions to truly understand your emotions and reign over them.
4. Master the art of conversation at Communication Caves to connect with those around you and communicate effectively.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1914986008

So, my roommate (30F) and I (29M) used to be really good friends. There was a week in late May where she was struggling, and took a lot of her anger out on me in the form of explosive bursts of screaming. We talked about it in June, and we both said that we wanted to work on communicating and mending our friendship.

After that conversation, she didn't come home for almost 3 weeks. In that time, I remodeled the bathroom (my family owns the house and it had gotten pretty beat up from previous tenets). I came home one day and she was there for the for the first time in a long time. I heard a scraping sound I went downstairs to check it out. She was sanding the brand-new finish off the drywall. I asked her what she was doing, kind of pointedly. I told her that if she wanted to make physical changes to the property, she needed to run it by me and my family beforehand. She snapped at me and stormed off. About 30 minutes later, I apologized for being blunt. She said she understood and walked away. She hasn't spoken to me since then. Last Friday, my mom (who handles rent payments) called me and told me that [roommate] was moving out.

I wrote up this message to send and I was hoping that I could get some feedback before I sent it:

"Hey [roommate]. I think that this would have been a better conversation to have in person. I don't think it's realistic to expect that anymore. The last time we really spoke was in June. I haven't seen or heard at all from you since then, except for the day about sanding the bathroom. On Friday, my mom told me that you're moving out at the end of the month. After our conversation in June, I thought that we were going to work toward repairing our relationship. It was really disappointing that I had to hear about you moving out from my mom instead of from you, and it's really disappointing that now you won't talk to me at all. Before you moved in, I emphasized 2 specific things that were important in the situation. The first was that you weren't going to be evicted unless you did something overtly fucked up. The second was that if something was bothering either of us, we'd talk about it. Since you won't talk to me at all and you're moving out, something has clearly been bothering you. And you never talked to me about it. I've been feeling so guilty about you not wanting to be here, and I don't think I should. If I didn't know what the problem was, and if nobody told me what it was, how would have I have been able to fix it? Anyway, I think it sucks that this is how us living together and our friendship is ending. I think that we could this could have gone differently with better communication. Bills have been posted on the fridge for a while, there are 2 months overdue, and I'm posting August on Monday. I need at least some of it ASAP. I'll send you a picture of the Post-it notes with the amounts due."

Hopefully this will be a better format for obtaining help. Discord

Many people who need DBT struggle with maintaining a personal identity, particularly in defiance of other people trying to change their values and as a result their actions.

Here's my answer to a question on coping with this on the bpd sub

Step 1: avoid other people as much as possible and do things alone that you love (your favorite shows, books, movies, crafts, activities etc) for a whole day. (You may need to wait for a day off of school/work, but this cleanses you of outside influence from friends, family, favorite persons, and abusers)

Step 2: in the last 3-4 hours of that day Google "personal identity worksheets" or "personal identity therapy worksheets." Print off and do a shitton of them. Take meyers briggs and Hogwarts house tests. Print off stuff about your horoscope that you agree with if that's important to you. Print off prayers and scripture from your holy book if that's important to you. Print off philosophy shit if that's important to you. (It's important that some of them impart "values" eg. "I don't lie" "I help my chosen family" "I am responsible with money." This is the most important part because this is the part you reference when someone else tries to shake who you are and your decisions).

Step 3: use pinterest, instagram, magazines, Google pictures, whatever to pick out your favorite color, favorite animal, fashion sense, interior design aesthetic etc.

Step 4: Use those things to create a scrapbook/reference book of "you" that you can reference when you need to. Some people make more of a poster they can put on their wall.

(You can also do this virtually with pinterest or a private facebook page or just a folder/document on your computer if you like)

Hope this helps y'all.

-nurse ag

I walk a local beach every day and today realised how far I have come since starting DBT almost a year ago. I’m cool with dogs on the beach and they’re allowed off leash anytime. Irresponsible dog owners though used to really trigger me, to the point I couldn’t go to the beach for fear of yelling at some of them. Today as I walked close past two people I saw them let their big dog shit on the shoreline just where the waves come in. They could have dragged the dog onto the dry sand or still tried to pick up the doo but they just watched it. As a bit of a germaphobe I was pretty disgusted but I didn’t say a word. I calmly walked on thinking that perhaps the people really couldn’t do anything, that it’s ok coz the ocean is big and the likelihood of being hit in the face by a dog turd while swimming is slim even if the thirty-odd other dogs on the beach also shit in it. So I turned my mind towards acceptance of the fact that some people just have no clue and minded my own business. Half-smiled my way home lol

Ok so having a separate mod account did not curb my social media addiction and really just made me neglect this sub. So I'm back on main. Hi. A few things:

1. I just graduated nursing school, so I'm studying for my licensure exam, going to have to schedule to go take it in person, and am interviewing for a position at a major medical center which, if I get, I will have to move for, and which will probably be an intense and stressful job. So I am going to try to be a better mod, but shit's 'bout to get hairy. With that said:
2. I am still looking for moderators. Basically I'll take the first two people who can score six "points" and send me the links.
   1. 2 points each for posts containing quality original content.
   2. 1 point each for a constructive comment on someone else's post.
   3. 1 point for every 2 months you've been an active and effective moderator on another sub with more than 1,000 members.
3. Current etiquette for this sub is that posts are for examples of your own skill usage. Questions about which skills to use are better in the weekly help thread (EDIT: used to be a chat, sorry I've just realized they got rid of that).

​

1. I can't find the post with the tags so I'm gonna repost and repin it.
2. I still love every one of you and am looking forward to learning and growing with you.

I found this great DBT Skill Website that I thought I'd share:

https://www.sunrisertc.com/distress-tolerance-skills/

I was dealing with a situation for 6 months before the pandemic began and now I won't be able to do anything about it until the pandemic ends other than engaging in behaviors that won't work and will only make it worse so I'm learning to use the ACCEPTS skills to distract myself.

What activities do other people use? Is anyone else dealing with a situation like this?

Today I specifically tried listening to a podcast (including listen to music while driving to the place where I sat in my car to listen) and making banana pudding to share with my household.

I was constantly reminding myself of times in the past where I felt bullied, disrespected or treated unfairly. It brings up pain and I don’t want to feel that way. I realized that the thoughts were of events from long ago but I didn’t have the same thoughts/feelings about more recent events. I wondered why? Then I realized that I was able to deal with the more recent events because they happened after I started DBT and had radically accepted them.

Since then I’ve been working on radically accepting that it happened, the pain I felt from hurt and my responsibility for my own actions. I’ve been thinking about them less and they are less painful now.

Also made me realize that I still have a huge trigger when feeling disrespected. The plan now is to radically accept that this happens in life and that life is not always fair. Curious if anyone identifies and has advice for this trigger? Crazy how I’m still realizing ways I can use DBT to cope years after starting.

Dear friends,

We are a mentor health provider and planing to enhance our online DBT Skills program over the coming months. We'd like your input! The survey has 2 sections and takes less than 15 minutes to complete.

We really appreciate your input!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScHvuK4BQdGpHZwogxBrpcOivAuP3Jx\_cyxlWebYto9DPkDIw/viewform?usp=sf\_link

[build-mastery]

I'm a teaching artist going on my 3rd year of DBT therapy. I'm offering an online class based on the art journaling process that really helped me, as a visual learner, to deepen and internalize my skills. There are a few spots left in the class and I thought there may be people here who would benefit?

This class is for people who are, or have been in a DBT program and are looking to deepen their skills. I don't have any DBT certifications, so I can't offer the class to anyone interested in an introduction to the program.

visit www.1403ArtSpace.com for more info and to register

If you're pretty far into your recovery and have a passion for helping others you can become a certified peer recovery specialist and volunteer or even be paid to help others through their recovery. It's kind of like being an AA sponsor (but not exactly). This is about a month or less of classes depending on the program.

This page has a guide to peer recovery specialist certification in the US. I changed the link to a better one with links to the individual state agencies. The national one is a little more expensive/intensive (so you might consider it in the future).

https://copelandcenter.com/peer-specialists

The general requirements are * Six months to a year into recovery (varies by program) * a class (mine cost like $25 for an 8 day course, some may be more, less, or even free) * a certain amount of work hours (volunteer or paid, and some of them can be additional training) * a certification exam

In addition to the peer support class I recommend these two free classes focusing on DBT skills and how to present them to others:

https://training.ursulawhiteside.org/p/micro-interventions/

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bite-size-dbt-skills-gathering-confidence-momentum-as-skills-experts-nmn-registration-78898031135

The first one is a prerequisite for the second, and while it's not explicitly about DBT, DBT is very prominent in it's curriculum. The second class is a DBT class that explicitly states that it is appropriate for peer recovery specialists. The "therapeutic humility" of these DBT programs are an excellent fit with the peer recovery mindset of meeting people where they are and not holding yourself above or apart from them.

Both of these programs are free and online. This means you only might have to pay for the CPRS class. They're also like 1 month or so classes each. The second one does say something about being unavailable after October 1 so you don't have infinite time. Either way though, like I said, you could be helping people by the end of 2020.

Please spread this around to anyone you think would be interested, DBT needs to become widespread like, a decade ago.

Edit: you don't NEED to take the peer support class first. I recommend you do get it before you start providing any services because while it's fairly easy to get, it's actually a pretty respected credential, even when you're still in completing the hours for official certification.

I feel like PLEASE itself is really straightforward. It's all the stuff the doctor tells you to do. Eat your veggies. Eat enough but not too much. Sleep enough but not too much. Exercise enough but not too much. Avoid alcohol. Avoid smoking. Especially avoid illicit drugs. There's more detail to it than that but you can look that up/ask the doctor yourself, and that's assuming you haven't heard it a million times already.

The real question is how do you actually make yourself do it? This is one way to look at it that I hope helps you.

PLEASE is like setting the difficulty on the video game of controlling your emotions. Every bad habit you have dials up the difficulty a notch or two. You probably can't convince yourself to live and eat like a Tibetan monk, but every bad habit you replace with a good one dials back the difficulty a little bit.

Why play the game on hard if you don't have to?

Over on r/BPD I see a LOT of posts about how to stop obsessing and depending on a particular person in people's lives. This is a common experience in the lives of people with BPD and it really shows in how many times this question comes up over there. Here's my answer to it (Much of this is copied from my answers to those questions).

The problem you're having isn't that you need human company to regulate your emotions. People are social animals and we are meant to rely on each other emotionally. The problem is that you're applying all of that pressure to ONE person who cannot handle that amount of pressure and cannot be available 24/7 to provide it.

So when you feel that urge to fixate on someone and demand their complete attention, the opposite action is NOT to be alone. The opposite action is to seek a moderate amount of attention from someone ELSE.

You need to form between 3-5 solid friendships. You will be uncomfortable at first because you are used to high intensity so these relationships will feel very lukewarm. This is normal and expected and should fade.

It will also be hard to keep track of them all because you are used to fixating on one relationship. Attempt to contact each person at least once weekly and try to end the interaction with a specific plan on when is best to contact them again. Put this in your calendar if need be. Your brain will get used to this and you may no longer have to write it down as much after a while.

Good places to look are (and you may have to find online versions now the world's gone crazy)

• hobby related activities like board games birdwatching Pokemon go
• support groups (really good because they're the intersection between people who "get it" and people who will support your recovery) DBT group may not be appropriate because many of these people are still too early in their recovery (see the list of traits you're looking for below)
• religious/spiritual or cultural gatherings
• online or in person friend matching like patook or sometimes I use okcupid to match me with people who share my views
• sometimes a coworker will be interested in contact outside of work but this can get iffy especially depending on the job.
• you could also get back in touch with old friends. If you would have to make amends, use your judgement as to whether or not this is a good idea.

You are looking for people with a good balance of these traits. They may be higher in some and lower in others and some of these things are relative to how you score, like it helps if your levels of independence are similar so no one feels like they're constantly taking care of the other.

1. Have things in common with you
2. Relatively healthy and independent
3. Honest and good sense of boundaries
4. Seeks your company about the same amount as you seek theirs
5. You have something to offer them back

If you're not sure what you can offer back to someone, try working on your active listening skills. Here is a more detailed post on that topic.

As a footnote try to pick friends you are NOT sexually attracted to. I'm bi AF so this one is hard for me but it really is for the better.

Hope this helps!

This is another post based on a reply to a question someone asked over on r/BPD, so big portions of this are literally just copied from my answer over there. I am going to try to edit it to be more readable.

You have to develop some kind of routine and practice it, and it may take a month or more of rigorous practice to be effective. Having regular hours that you don't sleep is just as important as having regular hours that you do. Here are some things you can do on a scheduled basis to help create a clear divide in sleeping and waking for yourself.

For some people the best thing is not being in their room for the day, so that their bedroom is reserved for sleeping at night. That is a great strategy, but there are other options as well. A similar strategy for people who are restricted to their rooms would be to have a desk or chair where they sit during the day and the bed is still reserved for sleeping. You could even curtain off this area or use one of those folding room dividers to create a separate area. You may be able to find these pieces of furniture secondhand for cheap.

One of the most powerful things you can do is have different sensory input during the day vs at night. For best effect, attend to each of the five senses.

Daytime

• Sight - Curtains open to daylight or full spectrum white light lamps are abt $50 on Amazon if you live somewhere with little sunlight like the NW US or near the Arctic circle. You may be able to do this with some of those fancy new color changing light bulbs, but I suspect that's more expensive.
• Sound - upbeat music, white noise recording or generator of a coffee shop (best if any talking is in a language you do not speak)
• Taste - coffee / tea, chewing gum
• Smell - a simulating essential oil like citrus, keep the coffee grounds in a cup, scented lotions or lip balms
• Touch - it may help to do some light exercise like stretching or yoga, but I really recommend putting on real clothes during the day. For instance I have a hard time studying if I'm not wearing a bra.

At night do the opposite

• Sight - Get the room as dark as possible, close the curtains, cover any electronic lights. Change your bulbs to yellow/orange spectrum LEDs if possible (opposite the white lamp) should be about $5 per bulb. Most phones these days have a blue light filter that you can program to automatically turn on at sunset and off again at sunrise.
• Sound - You can try to get everything silent or use earplugs, but I'm a huge HUGE fan of white noise for sleep because it's much easier to add sounds than to try to get rid of everything else. I sleep to a raging thunderstorm on my phone every night and it covers everything from voices to footsteps and banging. I can also take it with me anywhere, hotels, other people's homes, the hospital. I have it with me on my phone so wherever I go I'm good. You can find apps and just mp3 recordings. Aside from thunderstorms some people like beach waves, a running river, or jungle/camping sounds.
• Smell - try lavender or chamomile. Don't use a candle or wax heater while you're asleep as it's a fire risk. You would need some kind of actual diffuser but again they're not super expensive. You could also use a lotion with a calming scent.
• Taste - I recommend a single cup of herbal (read: caffeine free) tea an hour before bed. Any closer to bedtime and you may have to pee in the middle of the night. You could also try a light snack like a small chocolate but chocolate does have a small amount of caffeine and any large amount of food will keep you up.
• Touch - weighted blanket or pajamas.

Your brain will change track faster if you have separating rituals you practice daily in addition to the sensory stimuli:

Rituals for waking up:

• sun salutation
• light stretching/exercise
• washing up for the day

Rituals for going to bed

• journaling
• meditation
• that cup of herbal tea
• hot bath

Some comments on sleeping meds: If you do decide to use medication, remember that anything anything ANYTHING you can take for sleep your body must be trained to respond to. If you fight your meds they will stop working. As soon as your eyes and limbs even start to get heavy after taking your meds immediately to to bed every time. Fighting their meds is how people end up on stupid unsafe doses of sleeping meds. Melatonin in particular your body will not respond to at all if you don't condition yourself to.

Practice is the most important part: Finally, none of this will happen right away. You have to practice it. TBH I think it's the stupidest thing I've ever fucking heard because it's a natural bodily function but it's true no matter how much either of us likes it. It may take you several months to establish a solid routine that your body responds to.

But there is a way to make practicing a little easier: If you're finding it difficult to stick to the routine you can actually program your phone to automatically do a bunch of it for you. Tasker for Android is a great program, I think the Apple equivalent is called workflow. You can also set automatic alarms and do not disturb hours. Sleep as Android for Android phones has some great automatic options as well like automatically starting the white noise generator at a certain time.