In 1944 I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. In 1998 I went to Phoenix Interfaith Counseling and I went to a group called Dialectrical Behavior Therapy. I learned skills like Distress Tolerance, Mindful Emotional Regulation, and Interpersonal Effectiveness. I learned skills to use in stead of doing any harm.
When I'm feeling depressed or suicidal, I can do journaling, watch a movie, talk to a friend, call the crisis line, or take my dog for a walk. No matter how long this feeling lasts I cantinue to do it till it pass. I like to journal my feelings and I use different colors tooo for different feelings; like blue, feeling sad, or depressed - gray, feeling blah - yellow, feeling chicken or scared, and green feeling alive and happy. I took the group for a year and a half. I graduated in June 2000.
I'm grateful that I learned these skills and they are really helpful. I know I'm on my way to recovery. I use teh skills daily to help me when I'm not feeling well and also to refresh my memories on what skills to use. I'm grateful that Value Options found this group and I was able to participate in it and learn the skills.
The therapist I had was a wonderful, caring and understanding person. She had helped me a lot through the good and bad times. I learned a lot from the group and her, also I got a lot of support and got a lot of feedback, and encouragement. It was a great group.
For those of you who have Borderline Personality Disorder I would suggest to talk to your case manager about getting in the program called DBT. It's a wonderful group. By Christa D.