ferret-in-a-sock
Member
- Jan 25, 2023
- 72
DBT is mostly touted as a good solution for BPD, but some places like to expand it could be good for anyone with mental health issues.
It was absolutely not and utter hell. First off, if you're like me and you're always a "play by the rules, get the A, and get out" then a classroom setting triggers that behavior easily. It was very simple in "you do X behavior we praise you, you do Y we correct you." Now, if you're an obsessive bootlicking people pleaser...oh boy.
By the end I became a liar, purposely deceptive and outright hostile.
The system is supposed to be "participation makes it better" but it felt like honest participation put you on the block to be berated or questioned. Like "Sorry, doctor, have not a single clue what I was feeling when I was SH-ing. Uh, relief? Some what frustration from work? Why is that not a good enough answer? You want me to list negatives I felt after? But i didnt feel bad after." When even a glimpse of S-ideation and SH has to be examined under a microscope and they ask "now what prompted this? What were your emotions?" Suddenly, I'm scrawling 0s in the number sheet about those to pass those convos.
Then there was the "Hey, so, how about my phobias and my current hallucinations and delusions."
"Your what?"
"Ah, they're minor. Only anxiety. Like trust me, they don't think I have schizophrenia, but they happen when I'm stressed and I'm a bit irrational and all these coping methods like 'check the facts' and stuff make it worse."
"You're just doing it wrong. Have you tried doing it this way?"
You know. I should have picked up that the behavior got worse after one year in that program.
I'm happy to say outside of therapy, medicated and no longer pushing back on the delusions weekly as my therapist demanded...they stopped. Because they're stress motivated and driven by anxiety and the more they're acknowledged the worse they become. And I knew that. And I told her that. Yes, they're an atypical anxiety symptom, but seeing as every screening has had me pass far away from schizophrenia...it's anxiety.
But God. I became so much less empathetic and more harsh. The constant need to rate and detail your every movement every day, be ready to attest to skills you used (or craft a lie), meeting twice a week. I became outright hostile and flat out said, "I'm lying about the numbers. What? Do you want me to describe how I spent hours researching how to end it? I have a plan, and if you try to push me into inpatient I'll lie my way out, because that's the one good skill I got from my dad is I'm excellent at being a fucking ass and unless this conversation is recorded, what proof do you have?"
Yeah. Honestly. I was outright an asshole and kinda psychotic. Which was why she didn't give me a referral.
Now that I'm out of DBT and no longer monitoring my every move and dreading the meetings I feel better. That and dropping the entire book in the recycling bin. I just felt so unheard and like I was going insane by the end. The need to pretend to be getting better made me more suicidal than when I started it.
I don't know. I think DBT helps a certain type of mental illness. Just not mine. By the end I felt 20x more untreatable. I also don't like that's how I became. Like threatening I guess, but not in a physical way. I didn't want nor would I ever want to hurt anyone, except I guess emotionally. Some part of me is like "you know, fucked up I admitted I had active SI and you really gave up because I got combative verbally and that's it. Like geez, you would not survive working a night shift. Now imagine if I actually CBT."
It's really bothered me, because I've become so much more defensive now. I'm more quick to become hostile when questioned or asked about feelings now and even less likely to willingly share them. I guess one year of that kind of talk leading into being berated on unhealthy coping kind of triggered like PTSD. My narcissisitic mom was similar in how she questioned me.
Just a vent and retrospective as I realize that...wow...that therapy made me worse.
Which sucks because I wanted coping skills but now the only skill I learned is "how to lie like your life is on the line and be completely uncooperative."
It was absolutely not and utter hell. First off, if you're like me and you're always a "play by the rules, get the A, and get out" then a classroom setting triggers that behavior easily. It was very simple in "you do X behavior we praise you, you do Y we correct you." Now, if you're an obsessive bootlicking people pleaser...oh boy.
By the end I became a liar, purposely deceptive and outright hostile.
The system is supposed to be "participation makes it better" but it felt like honest participation put you on the block to be berated or questioned. Like "Sorry, doctor, have not a single clue what I was feeling when I was SH-ing. Uh, relief? Some what frustration from work? Why is that not a good enough answer? You want me to list negatives I felt after? But i didnt feel bad after." When even a glimpse of S-ideation and SH has to be examined under a microscope and they ask "now what prompted this? What were your emotions?" Suddenly, I'm scrawling 0s in the number sheet about those to pass those convos.
Then there was the "Hey, so, how about my phobias and my current hallucinations and delusions."
"Your what?"
"Ah, they're minor. Only anxiety. Like trust me, they don't think I have schizophrenia, but they happen when I'm stressed and I'm a bit irrational and all these coping methods like 'check the facts' and stuff make it worse."
"You're just doing it wrong. Have you tried doing it this way?"
You know. I should have picked up that the behavior got worse after one year in that program.
I'm happy to say outside of therapy, medicated and no longer pushing back on the delusions weekly as my therapist demanded...they stopped. Because they're stress motivated and driven by anxiety and the more they're acknowledged the worse they become. And I knew that. And I told her that. Yes, they're an atypical anxiety symptom, but seeing as every screening has had me pass far away from schizophrenia...it's anxiety.
But God. I became so much less empathetic and more harsh. The constant need to rate and detail your every movement every day, be ready to attest to skills you used (or craft a lie), meeting twice a week. I became outright hostile and flat out said, "I'm lying about the numbers. What? Do you want me to describe how I spent hours researching how to end it? I have a plan, and if you try to push me into inpatient I'll lie my way out, because that's the one good skill I got from my dad is I'm excellent at being a fucking ass and unless this conversation is recorded, what proof do you have?"
Yeah. Honestly. I was outright an asshole and kinda psychotic. Which was why she didn't give me a referral.
Now that I'm out of DBT and no longer monitoring my every move and dreading the meetings I feel better. That and dropping the entire book in the recycling bin. I just felt so unheard and like I was going insane by the end. The need to pretend to be getting better made me more suicidal than when I started it.
I don't know. I think DBT helps a certain type of mental illness. Just not mine. By the end I felt 20x more untreatable. I also don't like that's how I became. Like threatening I guess, but not in a physical way. I didn't want nor would I ever want to hurt anyone, except I guess emotionally. Some part of me is like "you know, fucked up I admitted I had active SI and you really gave up because I got combative verbally and that's it. Like geez, you would not survive working a night shift. Now imagine if I actually CBT."
It's really bothered me, because I've become so much more defensive now. I'm more quick to become hostile when questioned or asked about feelings now and even less likely to willingly share them. I guess one year of that kind of talk leading into being berated on unhealthy coping kind of triggered like PTSD. My narcissisitic mom was similar in how she questioned me.
Just a vent and retrospective as I realize that...wow...that therapy made me worse.
Which sucks because I wanted coping skills but now the only skill I learned is "how to lie like your life is on the line and be completely uncooperative."
