I’m writing this on my phone so please excuse any errors. We had a huge problem with a local internet company that led to data plans on our phones only, for now.

I was rereading my previous posts because I haven’t been here for a year, and they sound so knowledgeable. So self-aware, when the truth is, I usually feel anything but.

I began Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) last summer, and it’s amazing how much I have changed. It may be mostly inwardly, but that’s where change starts, am I right? It incorporates mindfulness with “interpersonal effectiveness” skills, “emotion regulation,” and what they call “distress tolerance.” You would think it’s the same thing as emotion regulation, but one is immediate emotions and the other is long-term.

It begins with mindfulness, which you might think, (as I did), that it’s meditation, something I could never do because I can’t concentrate for more than two seconds. Surprise! Even people with ADHD can practice mindfulness! It’s more about staying grounded in the moment than about sitting with your legs crossed and saying a mantra. It’s allowing myself to feel, to really experience, the emotions and thoughts I’m having, rather than fight them off with sleep, eating, or distraction. I learned that when we allow ourselves to fully accept our thoughts and feelings, we take away their power to control us. And oddly enough, they pass. We feel them, it’s awful, but they go away, and we can go on with our day. They no longer lead to a day in bed, staring at the wall, crying. We discover that fighting them only makes them worse. There’s more but I’ll save it for another post.

Today I’m working on a daily schedule. If you’re anything like me, you’ve done this a hundred times, positive that “this time” you’ll follow through. Well, my psychiatrist just assigned me to research something called “social rhythm therapy,” (because he knows I love researching) and my first assignment is to make a plan I can stick to. I’ll discuss that more as I go.