DBT Week 2 doing my head in!

[Chris]

Good grief I cant even type this out in a logical order.Take two----My brain is going "not going there, switch off".Looking at the notes is like looking at blank paper.No matter how much I will myself to read this and make some sense of it. BLANK! I know this is the hardest for me in dbt, and I am pointing myself willingly at it .The brain is blank.Emotions, my experience, painful.Even the pleasant ones have always lead to pain.I switched off a very long time ago

Now on Monday we pick up my 16yr old granddaughter from the airport. Shes been in America for three weeks. Now you would think I would be excited and happy - no, I don't feel anything. I don't even know what to say about that.Let me say I really believe in dbt, I know it works.But I really don't know how much headway I can make. In group I mentioned that the week before I was feeling angry and frustrated.One facilitator was shocked she said she had no idea I felt like that,neither did any one else.The other facilitator said Chris doesn't do anger! Guess that says it all.Its rare anything shows through. If it does I'm in crisis

Still I will continue to try and do my homework. I have two weeks to get it done.

[Ellie]

Great that you were able to get into a DBT course Chris. I really do believe it will help you. Hang in there. Work hard. There's life at the end of it all.

Ellie.

[kato]

@Chris 

I did a course last year i think it was or maybe the year before.... i have no time/ space differentials currently..... the course was about holistic side of things to do with being a man. errm it was run by a holistic councillar, who was really good, now i am extremely closed off emotionally, i know how to portray the right emotions on my face, like i can look happy i can look sad, i can look angry etc, except i think i know what you mean about not having the feeling behind it, i know on here i seem pretty all over the shop with emotions, but if you were to walk past me typing, my face would be blank expression......

And i know the feeling of all this information and trying to wrap your head around it, but the paper is blank, i found while doing this course and the subject matter involved, i had to walk away, when i was having those difficulties, come back to it 30mins later quick glance write a couple of lines, quick glance again, write some more, whenever it got too much i had to walk away again.

the course i did was 8 sessions i think.... i opened up the most to the group on the eigth session, 12 other males were like, ahhhh so this is you. it was a little overwhelming, i barely spoke except for my inner dialogue that ran rampant, and i had sessions where i thought they were all being idiots and i wanted to scream at them, now none of them knew this except for the guy running it, i was seeing him for 1 on 1 sessions as well, he asked me, why i didn't participate more, i told him cos i go blank, it's like my brain forgets how to speak......  which i think is similar to what you get???

Anyway i am going on a tangent, i found, what helped me was prepping myself before the session, i would write down, what i would have said or would say to certain things from the prior session.....

i am a much better writer then talker, but just a few notes written, i slowly started speaking more, it might help you maybe

but you are not alone with this, so don't feel that you are

[Alessandra1992]

@Chris, you may not "do anger" but maybe anger "does you". So for some folk, we internalise everything.. And feel nothing coz we already beat ourselves up daily with our internal narratives of how crap we ate, how useless, worthless no goodniks we are..
Also, learning anything new us pretty hard whether it is sewing, embroidery, cooking, mindfulness, yoga or operating a new TV..so please give yourself a break..you will learn new skills, it will happen but you can't rush learning..it is gradual and needs repeated practice. Heck I am so poor at remembering techniques for my back health that my osteo allowed me to film him, so I can look at to make sure I have the right stance etc..as did my sewing teacher..and you might be able to google dbt on youtube?
The main thing us you are open to learning..

Why should you feel excited about your grand daughter returning? For all we k ow she might be a right pain in the backside, full of adolescent attitude and knowing everything? She may also be lovely, kind, caring and wonderful..and she isn't expecting you to be feel anything.. More likely she will be so excited to see you that you will hear all her news, energy and excitement..

Be kind to you @Chris, you have had an extremelt busy Christmas with some freeloaders if I am not mistaken so just keep on attending and see what happens..
Gosh..bossy little britches aren't I? Sorry if I sound hectoring...

[Chris]

. Kato I think I need to write things down as they come up. I also think well I know emotions scare the crap out of me. Fear of running out of control whatever the emotion. None of it feels like a normal response, just running out of control.

Light bulb moment     I feel these emotions internally, but I keep them under wraps and pushed down

                                   I don't show emotion. I have to keep them under control at all times

As a child it was dangerous to show any emotion. Any response was the wrong response. I quickly became afraid of people which is with me to this day.

I have only recently realised that I suffer from performance anxiety. After being in a job for a short while I would start to doubting my ability to do the job, and compare myself to colleagues, and how much more capable they were. This is quite a revelation for me It explains why I could not keep a job.

[kato]

hey chris

i am the same, if i don't write it down when i think of it it's gone.... i keep a notebook next to my bed, and it gets everything written in it, thoughts/poems/stories/realities/false hoods/ posts for here, which never make it here...... i forget what i have written sometimes and i flick back through it, and realise that i should have looked in to that thing that so and so suggested......

that is quite the light bulb moment you have had!

i too internalize all my emotions, i show surface emotion so to speak, but bottle everything else up, i have always done it, and i don't know why, i don't have a reason for doing it either tho, i see you were quite repressed as a child, that certainly covers the fear of people you describe, it is good that you have noticed this point, and written it down..... job anxiety is also a big thing, for me i found myself, on the opposite spectrum, but i was having some quite manic moments, in the last year or two, i believed that i was ten times better then everyone else, and that i was untouchable, couldn't get fired because i was too good at what i did, whereas you find yourself feeling less then colleagues, which possibly also stems back to the emotion blocking

It looks like you have made a couple of really good insights,

keep it up, your doing great

[Rick]

@Chris 

Hi Chris,

You certainly have taken on a bugbear. And good on you for the courage to do so.

Just try and remember these things have been with you for a long time. This will be a nonvolitional resistance as you mind fights a rearguard action to hold on to what it knows. This is normal and surmountable.

Any therapy takes time. So let it. At least try to reduce that situational anxiety by acknowledging to yourself that you'vee taken the big step the other srteps will follow.

I admire you greatly for doing this new thing. You desire change and you are willing to work for it.

That is immeasurably cool.

Hope as ever endures

Rick