I've been in therapy and inpatient/day programs for other diagnoses (such as ED, substance abuse, etc), but once I was diagnosed with BPD I was referred to a DBT program. It was about a year on the waiting list, and so far I have been doing DBT for just over a year now. It involved a weekley one-on-one therapy, psychiatrist appointments once every month or two, phone coaching whenever needed, and I had to do a skills group once weekley for 6 months. I also have the option of doing the skills group again or going into another group as well. Everyday I have to fill out a "diary card" where I can review the skills and see what I've used. It's been quite intensive for an outpatient therapy, and they told me that treatment was likely minimum a year long. I learned a lot with mindfulness, distress tolerance skills, emotion regulation skills, and interpersonal relationship skills. A lot of the therapy also has to do with looking at facts, rather than just emotions and being able to act according to facts, despite how you feel. And I find this quite frusterating sometimes but I feel like I have grown quite a bit in the past year. They also encouraged to get off of my medications, and before I started the therapy I was on anxiety meds, sleeping meds, meds for depression, etc. and now I am only taking one a day. It is a bit challenging some days and there are times where I really just want to quit, but I feel more alive and more in control and honestly more hopeful for the future since I've been going through the program.
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