Over the coming weeks and months, one of Australian our members will be blogging for us about her journey through DBT. Dialectical Behaviour Therapy is a relatively modern therapy, and is proving to be beneficial to many people who self-injure, especially those with additional complicated mental health problems such as Borderline Personality Disorder.

Avril (known as hopefulav on our Message Board) has just begun this much sought after therapy, and it’s great that she’s agreed to share her journey with us. I’ll pass you over to Avril now as she tells you a little about herself and describes her very first impressions of DBT:

Me – well I’m 31, I’m an actor, mum, writer, and I’m studying Counselling. I have been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, PTSD, ED-NOS and Generalized Anxiety disorder – I’ve been suffering from this for as long as I can remember – as far back as age 8 I remember trying to self-injure with gravel in the playground. So I can never remember a time of being well. Thus DBT is my desperate attempt to get a life – a real life not this horrid self loathing one. 31 years of mental illness is just too much. I also have a Psychiatrist and Outreach Worker for extra support.

First, introductory session:

So, it was only orientation, but it was scary, as all new things are to me, but this feels like my last hope, my life boat and without trying this then I might as well give up.

There were only 5 of us in what was meant to be a much larger group – run by someone much younger than me – which is always scary – when the therapists start getting younger and more accomplished than you!!

The first half of the session was outlining the therapy and what it would involve. Essentially its general goal is to “Learn and Refine skills in changing behavioural patterns associated with problems in living, that is causing misery and distress”:

replacing interpersonal chaos with interpersonal effectiveness skills
replacing labile emotions and moods with emotion regulation skills
replacing impulsiveness with distress tolerance skills
and confusion about self with mindfulness. (I really don’t understand half of these terms yet)

We then had a session on what Borderline Personality Disorder is – this diagnosis seems to be much more accepted in Australia than elsewhere, such as the UK. I suppose it’s because we are so hard to treat – the self-injury aspect and the inability to control such strong emotions must make many therapists feel kind of helpless.

But DBT is meant to help – although as yet we don’t talk about SI in group, but in individual sessions. Also, there’s no crisis plan, as per usual that is up to ‘you and your psych’ – so essentially Lifeline or CAT team (public crisis team for mental illness).

One thing that really struck me was the explanation of how BPD develops – the biological aspects – having mood instability in the family, having high emotional levels naturally, then the environmental aspects – trauma in childhood and instability in upbringing plus emotions being invalidated. And oh look I got all of it. all of it. And that hurts and sucks and makes things better and worse….

Hopefully the actual therapy sessions will work for me. I’m hoping that this therapy will give me ways to learn how to deal with what happens in my head (the over the top emotions, black and white thinking etc) before it gets to the point where I SI to make it all stop for a while. This is a huge commitment – 12 months of therapy, plus an extra year if I need it – but if its what will help me then it is worth it.

And after all – the first goal of the program, in particular the individual sessions is to stop behaviours that hurt you – such as SI and Eating problems… as to how they will do this, I’m not sure ( I swear if they offer me ice or a red texta pen I will scream) . But I know that it has worked for others, slowed down and stopped their SI of choice, so I’m just clinging to that small light of hope and holding on.

First session (Individual and group) next week and I’m terrified…..

(A big thank you to Avril for kindly agreeing to share her journey with us. We look forward to posting further guest blogs from Avril as her DBT sessions continue).