Ever lose you cool in all of this and go off in a destructive way? We all have. We can get worn down, and there is a spark, and we blow up. What are the ways that you (or we) can best intercept our emotions before they go out of control and avoid making matters worse.

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Before you can make anything better, you have to stop making it worse~ Alan Fruzzetti

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So many times we read about how members react (over-react) in destructive ways that make matters worse. It might be saying really damaging things. It might be punching a hole in the wall. It might be worse.  Have any of you read about Joshua Federico (story here)?  A normal guys by all means (I know of him). His wife cheated on him and became pregnant. He lost it.

We have a helpful slide presentation on this DBT skill for anyone facing a crisis and who wants to dig in deep. I've posted a few of the slides below (click slide to enlarge). There are twelve more (see more information).

I've repeated to myself for a long time that line from the old movie War Games--"the only winning move is not to play." But it took Joshua a lot of iterations of the game to figure that out, and I'm not a computer, so I'm still playing tic-tac-toe (or global thermonuclear war) occasionally. Maybe one day I'll really learn that lesson... .

So the thing (or one thing) I worry about is whether I'm using some distress tolerance skills as an excuse to just not do anything. I agree that people need to be able to handle their own stuff, and it's not good to constantly jump in to try to "fix" things. But I also think it's good to sometimes fix things. I do this with every other person I care about in my life, and it works out just fine. I want to do this. I want to be a person who helps others. Of course, others aren't BPD. They take the help I can give, don't yell at me for helping or not helping, and are grateful for help I can provide. So obviously that's a difference. But still, my wife is an adult, and I love and care about her, and I want to help when I can. If she is upset, I'd like to help her not be. I don't really want a relationship where I don't do that. But I also don't want to be the object of rage or endless arguments, and that is often what happens when I try to help.

So what to do? What I often do is nothing, and I say to myself that I can't help, or that I shouldn't try to help, that my trying to help won't actually help, etc. And most of the time I think I'm right. But I don't like not helping. I don't like feeling like I'm giving up on her, or just leaving her with whatever demons are in her head without trying to help. I don't know where the line is, but I think there's some line here that I'm trying to figure out. There's some amount of help I think I should offer, and some amount of "fixing" I think I should try to do, even if I'm pretty darn sure I can't actually fix anything.

Anyway, I worry about detaching too quickly, or too often. That's not who I am or who I want to be. But I know I can't play the game we've been playing. But I don't want to not play at all. That doesn't feel right, either. I guess, like Joshua in the movie, I want to play a nice game of chess instead. Can I play chess while she's playing global thermonuclear war? I don't know, but at the moment, I guess that's what I'm trying (often unsuccessfully) to do.

This is a skill for when we are emotionally out of control. It is about not making matters worse when we are in an emotional state. It's not intended to be a problem solving tool or a routine situation tool.  

Taking a very simplistic example.

Case1 :

A new member comes to bpdfamily because his beloved girlfriend has left him. He wants to save the relationship, but he did something really destructive at the end and he needs help. A member says something to help him, but the comment triggers him, so he goes ballistic on the member and then attacks the moderators for trying to mediate the dispute and is suspended.

Case2 :

A new member comes to bpdfamily because his beloved girlfriend has left him. He wants to save the relationship, but he did something really destructive at the end and he needs help. A member says something to help him. He asks the member helping him to explain further and he listens carefully.

So, obviously Case #2 is the preferred course of action.  Case #1 is a train wreck and that member would have been better served if he realized he was going off the rails and applied Distress Tolerance Skills.



In Case #1, distress management could have been to:

Step away from computer and make lunch, takes his lunch outside and eat under a tree and watch the squirrels (Distract, Self-soothe, Improve the moment). Later he thinks about the pros and cons of telling this member off - pro/he puts the guy in his place - con/he loses a resource he needs for the larger objective of rehabilitating his relationship. He puts that on a sticky note on his computer (to remind him), logs in, thanks the member for the thought and ask everyone for more help.
 

I think many of us come from families where there's a history of dealing with a parent, or maybe a sibling, who reacted spontaneously with anger and irrationality. We may have learned at a very early age to tiptoe around this person, so that we "don't set them off."

At other times, this individual may have been exceedingly charming and loving to us, and as children, we desperately wanted that side of them to return, instead of the scary, unpredictable, angry part.

Through this experience, we incorporated an internal behavioral template: appease and hope that the "nice" person comes back soon.

Then when we enter the dating world, we meet an incredible partner, who is everything we could imagine in a mate. We are so taken by this person that we ignore little signs that perhaps indicate that our first impressions are not correct. (Oh, everyone has issues. This is no big deal, we tell ourselves.)

Over time, as the Honeymoon Phase draws to a close, the mask slips, and we see the Mr. Hyde side of our beloved Dr. Jeckyl. It comes truly as a shock to realize this incredibly wonderful person we fell in love with has an alternative angry persona, that can appear without warning.

Occasionally we can smooth things over through our attempts at appeasement, particularly in the early stage of the relationship, and I think this is where the concept of intermittent reinforcement can lead us into problematic behavior.

If we bend over backwards and apologize for some violation we apparently committed, for which we have no memory or understanding, and then our beloved changes back to their warm, kind self--we might think this is a useful strategy and continue to try to do this, even when later, it doesn't work.

Instead of trying something new, such as learning the "tools" taught here, we might just keep trying to appease, apologize, do more, do less, in a frantic attempt to keep our loved one from dysregulating.

Distress tolerance skills give us breathing room to step back, compose ourselves, get an overview of the situation, and bring our aware and most compassionate selves to the present moment. Having the behavioral flexibility to try new strategies, assess what works and what doesn't, give us the ability to not be drawn into the drama whirlwind, but to hold our center. 

I had an interesting opportunity for self awareness and use of distress tolerance skills yesterday. My husband and I went to a large social event where we knew no one, other than the person who invited us. We're both introverts and we dislike being in crowds.

On the way to the event, my husband, who had been asked to take a few photos there, started to get upset. Instead of trying to "soothe" him and "fix" things, instead I just ignored his grumblings and to my surprise, he got over it quickly. (I realized that I was getting upset due to his distress, so I just focused upon breathing and relaxing.)

Then, to make matters worse, the event was at two different locations and when we showed up where we thought he needed to be to take the pictures, only a few people were there, setting up decorations. So we hurried to the other place, where the event began, but neither of us had brought the card with the address, so we had to guess where it was, and after a few wrong turns, arrived at the venue.

So, more opportunity for anxiety. Again, I focused on my own discomfort, rather than his, and thus, didn't elicit even more agitation. It turned out that there were other photographers there, so he didn't really need to take any photos there.

I realized that to move the large number of people from one venue to the next would take some time and that if we turned around and went back to the first place, we'd be sitting around for quite some time. It also occurred to me that my husband hadn't eaten lunch and when he misses a meal, he gets more emotionally fragile.

So I suggested that we grab a snack somewhere before we returned to the party. He was really uncomfortable with that idea, thinking that we might be "late" but I prevailed. It was a good thing too, because even with the delay of having a bite to eat, we sat around a long time before everyone showed up and the festivities began. In the meantime, we were served drinks, so it was good that he had some food in his stomach. I demurred and just sipped water.

People were very friendly and nice, but they all seemed to know each other, while we sat at a far table by ourselves. My husband walked through the crowd, taking photos now and then, and returned frequently to our table.

It was a great opportunity for me to see how easy it was for me to project my own social anxiety upon him. I felt ill at ease owning it, but it gave me a lot of compassion for how it must be to be a pwBPD and so frequently have to deal with uncomfortable feelings.

I rarely "blow up".  I have done so, maybe once or twice this year I think, during a very bad couple of episodes.  Mostly, I "lose it" through falling into my own depressive hole. 

Looking at the slides, I feel I live in slide #2.  Don't make it worse.  This is pretty much the essence of my life these days. 

I try when I have the energy to engage in activities - usually cleaning or chores, but it's busy enough and I feel better if I can see some progress in cleaning.  I clamp down on ruminating thoughts when I can, and when I am conscious of it, I try to focus on not feeling how I feel, but to change it.  I try to turn anger into pity for the way BPD must feel.  I try to look at how his need to not be blamed or at fault makes him say the horrible things he does. 

I guess it self soothes me a bit to clean my house, change sheets, try to get one thing on my list done a day, even if it's only one.  I try to distract myself, I am often not successful.  I find a mindless button pushing game on my phone sometimes when I am too upset to read or focus, and I am in a place where moving around the house feels like walking on eggshells. 

I don't think I understand the Pros and Cons exercise.  In reference to what?  Staying?  Leaving? 

I'm pretty good at looking back after I've done something destructive. I can identify which emotion is driving my actions... .usually fear and/or anger. Catching it before it gets out of control is another thing. How can I best intercept my emotions before they go out of control? I think being mindful of what triggers these emotions is the first step. I'm still identifying what triggers me.

My T gave me this very assignment months ago: identify your triggers. I had the good fortune of having some instant experience with this when I got on the freeway and not all drivers were adhering to the universal "merge" rule of, "one then one." I got ticked off and rambled in my head about how it's unfair darn it! So I determined that I valued "fairness."

I'm not sure where to take it from there, recognizing.

~ OH