Little Things Mean So Much

We all recognise the daily grind. The wear and tear of a million tiny burdens which work together to bring us to our knees. In much the same way as drops of water add together over time against land to wear away our literal foundations, the constant wearisome action of day to day problems tend to grind down our emotional resilience. As someone who is emotionally sensitive the impact of the feelings of weariness may at times seem out of proportion to the triggering event. If only I could give as much weight to the little positive things, as I do to those things which work against me and my emotional resilience.

It is a phenomenon that is not reserved solely for those of us who battle internal as well as external pressures. Large firms are quoted as giving additional weight to positive comments about their service or products as opposed to the more frequent negative comments. We find it easier to notice and dwell on the negative in our lives, than we do the positive.

The fact is that life is light and shade, ups and downs, positive and negative. In our DBT skills group we had a jar which was passed round the group into which we placed different coloured glass beads. We had to tell the group about positive and negative events from the past week and place coloured beads accordingly into the jar, but we had to put two in for every positive event and one for negative. It was a great way to help me to notice how many positives there were in my life over time.

As someone who feels things intensely I find it fascinating that I am comfortable in experiencing the negative in life, that I tend to dismiss the positives that flow my way from positive relationships and events. Noticing and keeping a record of good things has become a necessary discipline in helping me to maintain emotional balance.

Another thing I have noticed is that, at first, I kept waiting for the big events and encouragements, whilst I dismissed the small things that make life bearable at times. If only I would give myself more of a break and let go of the million small disappointments and knocks that are also a part of life.

I have started listing the little things that lift me up.

1) The extra boost that the lengthening days gives to my mood.

2) The joy of how satisfying it is to bake and cook for myself - also helps that the products can be consumed - saving me money and keeping me from junk food!

3) Allowing myself to get soaked through on a rainy day followed by enjoying a hot shower and some pampering before climbing into my onesie.

4) The physical and emotional sigh of getting undressed at the end of the day and curling up in my pjs afterward.

5) Enjoying the freedom of dancing madly to fun music - thankfully I've reached an age where I just don't care and I'm enjoying that!

6) I can choose to make myself sick on all my favourite childhood sweets - if I want to.

7) When I am happy I can indulge it as much as I used to indulge my negative feelings - without feeling guilty.

8) I love enjoying cotton sheets and clothes - cool

9) Coffee - just excellent, freshly brewed coffee, the smell, the taste, the sight.

10) (I'm wary of advertising, but here goes anyway...) Lindt chocolate - eating a Lindor - slowly...

At first I need to be deliberate about noticing and keeping a record of these little things, but, as with most things in life, as I keep going it will become as much a part of my world view as my tendency to think negatively about myself and my experience of the world used to be.

Water - the neglected Element?

As I recall - and I could be mistaken because it has been some decades - at school I was taught that the human body is 70% water. Whatever the accurate proportion, water and how I use it has to be an essential part of how I care for myself physically. I cannot survive without it. What about the part water has to play in my mental health? For me it is one thing that is easy to overlook, but in terms of managing my moods it is one of the most basic, and the most important things to get right.

Am I thirsty, or losing control of my mood? We readily recognise the impact food, or lack of it, or too much of it, or the wrong quality has on our moods. We are quick to notice when hunger is bringing our mood down, or the impact sugar has on quickly giving us a 'high'. Too often in the past, I didn't notice that being thirsty has a major impact on my low moods. I have found that I need to drink a minimum of 3 litres of non caffeinated fluids a day so that I remain relatively stable in my moods. I don't know why, except to understand that the description of emotionally sensitive indicates that those things in my environment or physical being which affect my moods and emotions are likely to have a bigger impact on me than the average 'bear'. I start my day with a pint glass full of squash - I marry this with my medications prior to breakfast and is one of my essential routines. When out for a coffee or having lunch I will buy a bottle of water or ask for tap water along with my hot drinks. I am able to notice when I haven't had enough to drink during the day and make use of a wide range of sugar free squashes to keep my water intake steady.

So far, so internal. What about how we use water to soothe and manage difficult moods. I learned to swim when I was three. Was a competitive swimmer from the age of six, I am supremely confident and comfortable in and around water. Here are some ways that I've used water to manage difficult emotions.

1. Mindful Showering and Washing. Noticing the feel, temperature and effects of the water on my skin. This is a self soothing activity for me, particularly when coupled with aromatherapy shower gels and bath cremes/bubbles.

2. Changing Temperature to Manage Distress Tolerance. In a similar way in which some use ice cubes, I have used changes in my bath temperature to help me overcome self harm impulses. The process of running the bath mindfully allows me time to notice the intensity of the impulses and to give myself 'time out' to allow them to subside. I will run the bath as hot as I can stand it - the shock to the system, 'wakens' me away from the internal pain. When I am fully immersed I let a certain amount of the hot water out of the bath before running cold water in. This allows me to notice the waves of cold water mixing in with the hot. Again, doing so mindfully focuses me in the here and now and creates a distraction from the emotional pain. For those for whom baths can be triggering the basic principle of switching between hot and cold can be used in a shower, or by running tap water over the inside of your wrists. This is something I learned to do when working in Africa - it is a quick way to cool yourself down! If you have the time and access, as a luxurious self care treat visit a Turkish Baths (there is an excellent council owned one in Harrogate), you don't have to book in for expensive massages, but can enjoy the simple process of hot steam rooms followed by freezing cold showers, or plunge pools. It is amazingly relaxing. The fact that the steam is infused with eucaplyptus and other aromatherapy oils, means you leave with skin that feels around 10 years younger!

3. Swimming. As I have said I am supremely comfortable in water, I can happily plough up and down the pool, as much as runners can enjoy running for miles. I can also relax by simply floating - something I learned so early I don't remember never being able to just lie on top of the water. On sunny holidays I more likely to be found floating in the water than lying by the side of the pool or on the beach. I also enjoy immersing myself completely so that all sound is drowned out. It's peaceful at the bottom of the pool. The rhythms of swimming are excellent ways to practice mindful breathing. I find that swimming allows me to both exercise and release tension - so much so that it's hard to stay awake after. I am certainly more relaxed that after other forms of exercise.

4. Get used to it. Not everyone is at home in water as much as me. If this is you, try to enjoy the same sensations by observing drops of water on the back of your hand. Watch the different directions it may run each time and try to do so using the principles of mindfulness.

My DBT 'Let that Emotion Out' Playlist

Sometimes I don't want my self soothe to be an opposite emotion - sometimes I'm right to feel angry or frustrated - it is after all only a human response to some things in life. Not all these songs are obvious choices, but for me, sometimes the real power is in the lyrics and the expression of thoughts, particularly about injustices in life. Some you will naturally already guess at, just cos they let you bounce around the room and shout your feelings out - safely!

1. It's my Life - Talk Talk (beautiful expression of becoming an individual - No Doubt also did a brilliant cover).
2. Caught out There - Kelis (!)
3. My Life - Billy Joel
4. The Frog Princess - The Divine Comedy (best ever break up revenge song so clever and funny! - don't miss the guillotine)
5. I know where I've been - Hairspray soundtrack (This is righteous anger well articulated - great build up to crescendo)
6. Just a Girl - No Doubt
7. Not Ready to Make Nice - Dixie Chicks (for when you encounter assumptions and prejudices!)
8. Gives you Hell - All American Rejects (Just angry)
9. He had it coming - Chicago soundtrack
10.Road Rage - Catatonia

I guess this falls into Emotion Regulation rather than Distress Tolerance as it is a way of accepting emotions such as anger, but equally being able to express it safely is part of managing distress. Listen and move to the music until the crest of the wave of emotion has died down - it should be easier to manage and 'sit with' afterwards. HINT: Don't focus on the cause of your anger as you listen, try to focus on letting the song express your anger or frustration and let it go at the end.

Learning to Manage the Calm

I have found myself in a strange place recently. More often than not, my life has taken on the tone of routine, almost humdrum and certainly lacking in anything approaching crisis mode. Suddenly the corkscrew roller-coaster that has been my emotional life since childhood has untwisted. I no longer start my day with a spasm of gagging and/or vomiting due to overwhelming feelings of panic and anxiety. The dramatic swing of moods from one hour to the next has slowed down and I find myself better able to recognise and manage both the up and the downswing of moods to which I was once a martyr.

So far, so good. Over two years of DBT skill building and therapy have brought me to a point where I am no longer confused by the overwhelming clouds of emotion that used to swamp and overwhelm me. I find myself better able to reflect on difficult emotions, I no longer run from them, but accept them as evidence of my humanity in the face of significant trauma throughout my life. I still have moments, usually when I have tired of my new structured life. I have caught myself being tempted to familiar path of self destruction, perhaps in a different way than in the past, but nonetheless, I have found myself short circuiting good things in my life.

I know that now, rather than being plagued by capricious emotional storms completely outside of my control, I can learn to recognise the signs earlier. The storms still come, but I am better equipped to survive them.

Except, that I sometimes petulantly, deliberately choose to ignore my emotion regulation skills. In my last 1:1 DBT therapy session the admission that I am regularly staying up through the night, brought an almost exasperated response from my therapist - I mean she's right, just 'what am I playing at?' It's bothered me as I reaped the whirlwind this week and found myself tossed about on the kind of emotional storm I haven't really experienced for at least a good few months. I've realised I haven't been practising my skills when things are good, so that they are second nature when I really need them. I didn't need to go through the exhausting emotional maelstrom and the exhausted aftermath, (still feeling it three days later). Or at any rate, I could have used my new skills to limit the damage from my negative emotions quicker.

Instead, I revisited some familiar old feelings and reassured myself that I could indeed consider myself a total failure, as my internal monologue has convinced me of since my childhood. So, what does this tell me? It tells me that we are indeed products of our past. It tells me that when we have had the mirror of our minds distorted by our childhoods of invalidation then it is all but impossible to recognise a fair reflection of ourselves in it. It tells me that I am not finished healing and recovering from my BPD symptoms. Just because the untwisted mirror image of my 'good life' seems shocking to my invalidated mind, does not mean that I cannot become accustomed to it.


There is something else that this has taught me about certain emotions. Having spent so long learning to manage and 'sit with' negative emotions, I am having to learn to use the same skills to manage positive emotions. One of the reasons for my disturbed sleep has been a propensity to allow the lightness of emotion lead to 'hyper' behaviour, the energetic surges from feeling 'happy' have resulted in really productive moments, but I have not controlled these moments and channelled them, but allowed myself to be carried away into the wee small hours of the morning.

As a result it's back to the basics of distress tolerance and emotion regulation for me. Looking after myself and my lifestyle in order to provide a stable foundation to keep going on a day to day basis. In a sense I am fighting the same enemy, but at a different end of the spectrum. Positive emotions are equally difficult for me to manage, mainly because I find them uncomfortable as they are a dissonant voice challenging my self critical inner monologues. As much as I need to use my Mindfulness skills to 'sit with' my grief and sadness, I need them to 'sit with' and become comfortable with feeling good about myself and what I can achieve in life.

In a sense I am fighting a battle that is familiar to me. I am using my skills to keep me and my emotions in the here and now. Where my negative emotions tethered me to the past, my positive emotions risk catapulting me into anxiety and the future. So, when I started to feel nauseous and was throwing up at the end of last week, I maybe could have been more aware that all was not well.

What is most encouraging for me is that I am no longer unable to articulate an amorphous emotional cloud, but I am naming the emotions and how they are affecting me at the moment. I know what I have to do to regain my equilibrium, it will take more time and effort on my part. I have the skills I need I just need to use them. I don't need to beat myself up for this latest storm. As Scarlett O'Hara memorably said 'After all, tomorrow is another day.'

The Long Road to Self Compassion

When most of your life has been about trying and failing to earn parental validation then internal expectations can become exceptionally distorted. From the outside I look fairly successful, I have completed three degree courses, am fully qualified and experienced as a Teacher and a Probation Officer, from an early age I was a successful athlete, swimming for my school and regional teams of elite swimmers. I am considered to be an effective communicator and have managed to write and perform comedy sketches in a range of contexts. Yet, yet, yet...I consider my life at best to have been a triumph of mediocrity and at worst to have been a complete failure.

I am writing this post at the end of an exceptionally stormy week when I have perceived myself to have failed utterly in my attempts to manage the symptoms of my BPD. What has prompted this castigation of yourself? You ask. I lost my temper in a DBT group and (in my mind) caused a scene by storming out of the room. Suddenly, after months of managing to regulate my emotional life and remain relatively balanced in my perception of the world and people around me, I found my emotions spiralling out of control. So much so, that after the group finished I had to wait nearly an hour before my emotions were stable enough for me to feel safe enough to drive home. That was actually progress because in the past I wouldn't have been able to use wise mind about the risks of driving while dysregulated.

This in itself has not been the greatest battle I've faced this week, such escalation in emotional intensity is common for those with BPD. What I have battled with has been in 'giving myself a break'. First of all, in response to my initial reaction of ending my participation in the DBT Graduate group, my therapist pointed out to me that my outburst was neither out of proportion, nor unexpected. Secondly, most of my anger was not related to the incident in the group, but was directed entirely towards myself for 'losing it'. Again, my therapist pointed out that I was wrong to assume that my emotional outburst had 'ruined' the whole group. She also pointed out that the statements I was making were not based on fact but on judgement - primarily of myself, for being a failure.

I know the DBT skills I need to use: wise mind, mindfulness focusing on my feelings in this moment, thought diffusion and emotional regulation skills to return me to balance in my responses. I could maybe try a 'loving kindness' meditation (UCLA Website: https://itunes.apple.com/itunes-u/mindful-meditations/id434136047?mt=10#ls=1) But I have struggled with one massive obstacle - suddenly the old default to self punishment has reignited and I am finding it very difficult to find reasons to be compassionate towards myself.

The heart of the problem is the problem of my heart towards myself. Suddenly, my assumptions about myself are challenged by the time I've spent in treatment, by the stable relationships and friendships I have been learning to accept. Where do I begin to find validation? I am no longer capable of returning to the old failed ways of coping with extreme emotion and am on a long road towards new ways. Trouble is I'm not there yet, so I am having to take slow, baby steps that focus my mind on what compassion in general feels like and then, in turn, seeking to get used to what compassion for myself feels like. I am a work in progress:

1) Peeling off the 'protective skin': I am now aware of the protective covering which has prevented me from truly feeling the warmth and acceptance of true friends. It is for me to practice accepting their love, without anticipating rejection or abandonment - in a sense I am unlearning 'mind reading' which, in reality, I was never particularly good at. I am learning a new skill and that is taking people at face value - if someone is kind, it doesn't mean that there has to be a sting in the tail. The people in the here and now are not the same people who have hurt me in the past and they should not be punished for the wrongs of others. The song Innocent Man by Billy Joel comes to mind. If I can learn to risk myself in friendships in small steps and learn that now is not then, maybe I can allow the protective 'skin' to be removed.

2) The Child inside Me deserves some Compassion:I need to learn that the child who was so hurt and whose fears and pain still surface from time to time, doesn't deserve punishment, but actually requires some compassion from me. I am the adult who gives voice to the pain of that child and therefore, I need to be able to acknowledge that we are one and the same. If it were any other child, I would weep. If it were any other adult I would understand the struggles and seek to help. That's my challenge.

3) The Adult Survivor deserves some Credit: At some point I have to give myself credit for getting this far in life. Despite the pain of my childhood, in spite of my BPD, I have achieved a lot. Most of all, I have lived through real suffering and trauma. Too often I am looking at myself through the critical eyes of the abusive parent and I owe it to myself to accept that I am one strong woman simply by virtue of the fact that I am still here. Anything else is a bonus and credit to the skills and character that drive me on to be the voice of the child I was and to become the person who has taken every twist and turn of my life and used it as a stepping stone to a better quality of life, than I have known previously.

4) Healing and Recovery take Time: Time is not a luxury but a necessary gift to myself as I move towards healing. It took me well over thirty years of breakdown and rebuilding to get to where I am. Healing will take time and I won't always get it right - skills can be learned quickly but take a lifetime to master. DBT skills can help me to manage my BPD, but they will have to become an intrinsic part of my life if I am to manage my condition effectively, long term. In addition, sometimes I will still need to find time and space in which to recover - and that's ok, because surely taking 'time out' has got to be better than self destructing as a response to difficult days.

If you are like me, someone who is a perfectionist, someone who has exceptionally high expectations of yourself, try to open your heart to yourself, in the same way as you open your heart to others. You know how to be compassionate, just try turning it on to yourself.

DBT PLEASE Skills - my latest challenge

I've got myself into bad habits - again. My Therapist even admitted to having a 'judgemental' thought when I told her my average sleep over the past three weeks has been between 3 and 4 hours. I know, I know, Churchill and Thatcher - but I'm a definite 7-8 hours a night woman myself. When I don't get enough sleep everything starts to go 'weird'. My emotions and thinking become befuddled - not unlike the sensation of being drunk or on sedative drugs. This would be fine if I wasn't trying to manage the emotional instability of BPD. Why? Why is it so hard for me to look after the most basic of my needs? I would think judgementally about myself too - I mean I'm one appointment away from discharge! And I've been doing really well.

I don't have a definitive answer. Except that my mind has been so free from negative, circular, black and white thinking that I have been 'buzzing' off a fresh creative surge which usually emerges around the end of the Evening News. This I am beginning to recognise is also part of my BPD. Part of the swing in moods between negative and positive. The other, deeper and therefore avoided reason is my lack of basic self care. I am still working on believing that I am worth looking after.

So, just as I would apply DBT skills to managing negative thinking I need to use the same skills to manage my more 'manic' phases. They too come in waves, and they reach a crescendo before receding. If I can manage the 'ups' without self destructing, then I will have learned even more about a balanced and stable life. Above all other skills the emotion regulation skills are needed right now. I need to manage my sleep patterns, have routines and eat regularly. So basic, but so necessary.

So this week I will be mostly working on my PLEASE skills. (P&L - treat Physical ILlness, Eating, Avoid mood altering substances, Sleep and Exercise)

Music, my own special TARDIS

I have always loved music, playing it, singing it, listening to it. Emotionally, of all my pastimes, I have found music the most evocative in terms of conjuring memory. When I was growing up I was selectively mute for many years. Music became the way that I expressed myself. It helped me to survive. I just didn’t speak to adults, I had one friend in school who spoke for me. After my first year at school, aged 5 my friend was taken from me as they put us in different classes. Due to my non communication I was labelled as ‘remedial’, requiring ‘special help’. When teachers started to ask questions about my physical and emotional welfare, my parents took me and my brother out of our local school and we then attended a private school in the city centre. In 1970s Northern Ireland, child protection was a taboo subject. During this period, from the age of seven, I discovered the joy of playing music. I would lock myself away with my piano and play for hours on end. Then in my teens, I learned to explore every nuance of my pain through other people’s music, again, locked away with my stereo/radio for hours on end. Perhaps, an extension of my choice not to engage with the world around me.

It is when I attach personal feelings and memories to my music that I believe it finds its real power. Music has the power to lift your spirits, to articulate your grief, to take you back to specific times in the past. In a sense Music, along with the sense of smell tends to be the most powerful of ‘time machines’, usually with a default to the past.

It was at this point that I found music to be a potential obstacle to my recovery. Mindfulness training and DBT exercises were focused on bringing me to and keeping me in the moment. However, one of my true pleasures in life was in danger of inadvertently causing me to ‘time travel’ to the past. I didn’t want to lose out on one of my real pleasures in life, just because of my overwhelming emotional responses to it. Not every memory is painful and it’s important to acknowledge that, even before recovery, my life was actually made up of shadows AND light.

Because of my tendency to use music as shorthand to express important emotions, it follows that when trying to build up the skills to manage my overwhelming emotions more effectively, I needed to find a way to either use it as an aid to my recovery or lose it by limiting my exposure to it.

It occurred to me that the waves of emotion evoked by music, had a tendency to recede if I focused on the music itself, rather than use the music to unpick my emotional scars. So I recognised that the way forward was to perhaps treat the emotions evoked by music in the same way that I had learned to let go of unwanted thoughts and feelings which arose during mindfulness exercises in DBT skills group.

In practice, this means that my focus is not on the emotional impact of the music on me, but is on the notes themselves, the instruments and voices listened to. When my feelings arise and are in danger of taking me into the past, I notice them, then return to my musical focus. Listening mindfully is an excellent practice, simply because music is all around us and could become a problem, with songs evoking flashbacks and unwanted feelings and thoughts in all sorts of environments. It has taken me some time to extricate my emotional memory from music and learn to enjoy it as it is in each moment. Equally, music can express emotions effectively so that it can soothe, or change emotion, or help us to ‘sit with’ painful emotions. For me the important factor is about ‘when’ I am feeling the emotions: am I ripping the plaster off painful feelings from the past, or am I experiencing sadness, grief etc. in the here and now? In which case, music becomes an aid to observe, describe and then let go.