Ok, this DBT stuff works. As I mentioned the other day, my mood has been a bit low for the past week or so. But now I’m feeling a bit better. (Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) is a psychosocial treatment developed by Marsha M. Linehan)
A major symptom of Borderline Personality Disorder are the persistent, intense and frequently fluctuating emotions. One of the things they teach in DBT is how to regulate emotions.
Well yesterday, I inadvertently wound up practicing the “opposite action” skill.
A little information about this skill: The idea behind this skill is that words, actions, facial expressions, and even posture can influence our emotions. By consciously reversing them, we can change our emotional experience. For example; if fear urges us to run away, the idea of “opposite action” suggests that we should face what we fear until we become confident. Thus, if depression urges us to hide and give up, the opposite action would be to engage in activities until we feel better.
So sometimes, when I feel really lousy, I try to do activities that will make me feel competent. One time, I was really low so I spent an afternoon taking IQ tests. I got a nice score and felt better about myself.
Anyway, yesterday I had an appointment with the dermatologist. This past spring and summer my never-ending-adult-acne really flared up. My “self-harm” behaviors weren’t helping either. Anytime I had a bad pimple, I had a strong urge to pick and cut it. If I wasn’t paying attention, after five minutes of mindless hacking, I’d have an open crater on my face.
It took a while – I had to convince myself to call my doctor, get a referral, find a dermatologist, and then wait until they had an appointment available. During this time, I took Jessica Simpson’s advice and started using “Proactiv” (which actually worked reasonably well – making the dermatologist’s appointment seem somewhat pointless.)
Anyway, the dermatologist couldn’t do much for me. Once she heard that I was trying to get pregnant, she even recommended that I stop using the Proactiv! (Apparently nobody’s studied the effects on a developing fetus of a mother’s topical use of benzoil peroxide or salicylic acid. Here’s my bet – they do nothing!) She told me to come back in a couple of years when I’m done with pregnancy and breast-feeding. Then she’ll be able to give me all the drugs western medicine can think up. Sigh. I can deal with a few more years of pimples, I guess.
But as long as I had the dermatologist’s attention, I decided to ask her to check all my various freckles and moles. My dad was diagnosed with melanoma this spring and since I’m so pale I’m practically translucent, I’ve always known I’m in a high-risk group. She checked and no problems yet.
While she checked, we talked about all the drugs you can’t be on (but are probably safe – it’s just that nobody has tested them) when you’re pregnant. I told her about how I tapered off all my psychiatric meds this summer. She asked if it was hard. I told her yes, but that I was ready to try it… I’ve had a lot of therapy in the past few years. And you know what? She was really… respectful. She didn’t treat me like a crazy lady or anything. She seemed interested in my experiences and didn’t tell me how irresponsible I was for trying to get pregnant with my diagnoses. She didn’t even seem annoyed that my visit was kind of pointless.
And I felt better when I left. I acted competent. Like a normal, intelligent, adult woman who can take care of herself and get her moles checked out and taper off her medicine when she chooses to.
Thank you Marsha. Even though you do have helmet hair in all your videos.
4 comments:
Not to seem disrespectful, but your post made me giggle thinking about my all time favorite episode of "Seinfled". Have you seen the one where George does the opposite of every instinct that he has ever had? It's the best. And it does often seem to work in real life!
Glad you had a good experience with the derm and talking about the meds. And you know, some women have the clearest skin of their life while PG (I unfortunately fell into the opposite category), so, pregnancy could be better than proactive!
How funny!
When I was writing the post, for some reason, all I could think about was the episode of "Seinfeld" where Kramer pretends to be a dermatologist and has to conduct fake mole checks!
Which, of course, made me think about all the episodes at George's office, especially the one where he tries to get everyone to call him "T-bone."
I guess we still share a brain on occasion!
LOL! I love that one too. "pimple popper M.D."
T-Bone! That one is funny too. There is a "Seinfeld" for every moment in life. It's amazing how often people say "It's just like that Seinfeld . . ." or "Remember that Seinfeld when . . ." Ok, now I can stop thinking about the T-Bone episode and I can't remember what they called him instead, it was after the gorilla that did sign language . . .was it Koko??
yep. Koko. Perfect for George.
I know... even though that show LOOKS really dated now, it's still amazing how often episodes come up!
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