Stronger Than BPD , livre ebook

“ Stronger than BPD feels like a best friend holding my hand while I learn practical tools that really work for managing my emotions.”
—Tamra Sattler, PhD, MFT , therapist, researcher, and entrepreneur
“Debbie has written a wise and wonderful book for those who struggle with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Stronger than BPD provides an honest look at recovery while inspiring all of us to be our very best through more skillful living. I’m exceptionally proud to recommend this book to my clients and their family members.”
—Amanda L. Smith, LMSW , dialectical behavior therapist and treatment consultant, and author of The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Wellness Planner
“This book offers you a set of skills from someone who has been there. These are not theoretical experiences but instead the help and reflections that come from someone who has been there to those going through real-time struggles. A great addition to the literature.”
— Blaise Aguirre, MD , medical director at McLean 3East Continuum of Care, assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and coauthor of Mindfulness for Borderline Personality Disorder
“Written with the wisdom of one who has both suffered and lived in the solution, Debbie Corso’s Stronger than BPD is a unique and highly accessible guide for those struggling with BPD traits, and the people who support them. Through powerful personal examples and with the clarity of a seasoned professional, Corso teaches the reader, step by step, to apply dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) skills to the storms of emotional turmoil and turbulent relationships. The author’s hard-won success is an inspiration and testament to the power of DBT to heal and create lives truly worth living. Perfect as a stand-alone workbook as well as a complement to clinical support, Stronger than BPD is a remarkable guide that will change lives and bring new understanding to the practice of DBT.”
—Kiera Van Gelder, MFA , author of the highly acclaimed memoir, The Buddha and the Borderline
“DBT is touted by thousands of clinicians all over the globe. This book raises the bar because it describes survivors’ lived experience—the most important testimonial of all. Congratulations to Debbie!”
—Perry D. Hoffman, PhD , president and cofounder of the National Education Alliance for Borderline Personality Disorder (NEA.BPD)

Publisher’s Note
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.
Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books
Copyright © 2017 by Debbie Corso
New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
5674 Shattuck Avenue
Oakland, CA 94609
www.newharbinger.com
Cover design by Amy Shoup
Acquired by Jess O’Brien
Edited by Brady Kahn
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file
Contents
Foreword
Introduction
Dialectical Behavior Therapy
BPD and Emotional Sensitivity
Chapter 1: Paying Attention to Your Life (on Purpose)
The Power of Mindfulness
Taking the First Step
How Mindful Living Helps
Applying Mindfulness in the Real World
Examining Your Experience Under a Mindfulness Microscope
Stay in the Lab, and Keep on Your Lab Coat
Your Inner Judge and Jury
Examining Self-Judgment
Making Judgments Useful
Doing What Works for the Situation
Conscious Redirection of the Mind
Accepting Reality to Reduce Suffering
Noticing Opportunities for Practice
Chapter 2: Coping Effectively with Distress
Tolerating Distress Takes Practice
Real-World Example: Road Rage
Step Back from the Situation
Distract Yourself Mindfully
Show Self-Compassion
Skillful Distraction vs. Avoidance
Setting Aside Thoughts for a Time
Put on Your Random-Acts-of-Kindness Hat
Building Emotional Resiliency
Keep Choosing Skills over Sabotage
Chapter 3: Regulating Your Emotions
Dealing with Emotional Reactivity
Listening to Emotions
What Your Emotions Tell You About Yourself
Dissecting Your Emotional Experiences
Step 1: Name the Emotion
Step 2: Rate the Emotion’s Strength
Step 3: What’s Been Going On?
Step 4: Describe Your Thoughts (Including Assumptions, Beliefs, and Judgments)
Step 5: Notice Body Signals
Step 6: Notice the Urges
Step 7: Notice Your Actions
Step 8: Notice the Aftereffects
Step 9: Rate the Emotion’s Strength Again
Getting Out of the Rut
Turning That Frown Upside Down
Using Visualization
Emotionally Healthy People Make Better Friends, Partners, Parents, Employees
Chapter 4: Working on Relationships
Mind Over Mood
Three Main Relationship Goals
The Benefits of Slowing Things Down
Focusing on Your Interpersonal Goals
When Things Don’t Go as Planned
Getting the Validation You Need
When Loved Ones Invalidate You
A Secret Recipe for Validation
Healing Old Wounds
Dealing with Identity Issues
A Wake-Up Call
Discovering the Real You
Choosing Your Values
Paying Attention to How You Want to Feel
Figuring Out Who You Are
Black-and-White and Red Flags All Over
Become a Fact Checker
No Leads on the Case?
Relationships Are Complicated
Chapter 5: Putting It All Together
Thank You
References
Foreword
The practice of dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) can seem deceptively simple. Many non-DBT therapists will talk about DBT as just a set of skills that you need to learn. In fact, this is how you may have been sold on DBT.
However, when you choose to embark on the journey of DBT, you quickly find that learning the skills is the easy part. Most people find learning the DBT skills relatively straightforward: some skills are more intuitive than others and some perhaps a bit more confusing; some people get lost in the multitude of acronyms, while others find the acronyms the easiest way to keep the many skills in mind.
The challenge comes after you learn the skills—when you have to use them in your life and in our fast-paced culture, with its high levels of stimulation and instant gratification. You’ll find you have little time to consult your skills manual when responding to a text message or setting a limit or an expectation with your boss. The immediacy of daily life means it’s hard to respond without losing your cool or, worse, losing your self-respect. Skill takes time to build. What we know is that the best way to begin to be skillful is to practice—practice new, more effective ways to live your life and manage your emotions. Practice means that you must risk messing up, getting it wrong, or—maybe the scariest possibility—letting your emotions get the best of you one more time.
As you persist in practicing DBT, you will not become a new person. Rather, you will gain the skills you need to manage the parts of your life that currently feel unmanageable. The more you practice doing things ineffectively, the better you get at being ineffective. Fortunately, the more you practice being effective, the more effective you become. This link between practice and skill is one of the few simple things about our very complicated brains, and it is good news. Even older brains can change and rewire.
This book is a wonderful companion if you are in a DBT therapy. I have had the pleasure of working with Debbie as she has written this book. Her own experiences, and her passion and dedication to healing through the use of DBT, shine through each page. Debbie humbly shares her own experience as she teaches you the intricacies of both learning DBT, and, more importantly, applying it to your life. This book offers you a set of skills, real-life examples of when they work, and the roadblocks that you may run into. A little humor takes the edge off some of Debbie’s own challenging, and sometimes painful, learning experiences. As you embark on this path of skill-building and healing, Debbie stands alongside you.
It is quite a gift not only to be taught DBT by a professional, but also to augment your journey with the company and support of someone who has been there. I often tell my clients that sometimes it takes a village to support you making these changes, so look for people and resources in your life that will support you.
Wishing you a skillful and mindful journey.
—Gillian Galen, PsyD
Program Director
3East Adolescent Intensive Residential Program
McLean Hospital
Instructor in Psychology
Harvard Medical School Department of Psychiatry
Introduction
What’s more upsetting than being told you’re a drama queen (or king)—or that you always need to be the center of attention and that you thrive on chaos and crisis—possibly because at least a tiny bit of you knows that there is truth in the accusation? That was the question on the table for me yet again. My boss couldn’t understand my emotional reaction—or “breakdown,” as I believe he called it—in response to an escalation of stressful deadlines at work. A few days prior, we were out in the field visiting customers and vendors, and I hadn’t eaten enough, which caused a scary episode of low blood sugar. I felt weak and dizzy and had tremors all over. It was preventable, but self-care was not something I typically thought about at that time of my life. I had been anxious and didn’t feel like eating, so I didn’t. I didn’t plan ahead or think of how I would deal with the consequences of that choice or that there might, in fact, be any.
And, just as I had not been making my physical health a priority, I wasn’t doing so well with my mental health either, and this evidently was experienced by the outside world as my being dramatic—at least, that was the feedback I was receiving. A few days later, lying on a hospital cot with an oxygen sensor on my right index finger and an IV tube with saline fluids going into my left arm, I d