Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Episode Two. Click here to read the previous week/session of psychology (p)saturday
Let’s work on some distress tolerance skills. You might find that you have coped with stressors in unhealthy ways. This is not a flaw in yourself, this is just a symptom of not having been given tools to help. Let’s first begin by asking you a few questions:
What kind of self destructive coping strategies do you find yourself engaging in? Do you sit in your thoughts, rehashing painful mistakes and problems from the past or potential pain and problems of the future? Avoid dealing with the cause of them? Have you attempted suicide, engaged in risky behaviors, or self harm? Deprive yourself of or over-indulge in sustenance/food as a form of self-punishment? Do you feel unworthy of happiness and sabotage your relationships as a result or avoid positive social gatherings and interactions? Do you participate in problematic alcohol or substance consumption?
Using these coping methods as a way to avoid more stress and pain backfires on us immensely. These methods lead to deeper emotional turmoil instead of helping ourselves manage the stress or pain. Let’s work through some of these coping strategies. Using the journal that you created during the last session, write out the coping strategies that you find yourself using. I’ll write out a list below, including some that I have used in the past for you to use as an example to help your brainstorming along.
Sample List of Self-Destructive Coping Strategies
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Thinking about the past and how awful or painful pain mistakes were.
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Avoiding certain people out of fear of repercussions of something I perceive I did wrong.
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Remaining in bed for hours to avoid life.
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Worry about the future and potential pain or mistakes.
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Over-eating or under-eating purposefully as self punishment.
Now take a moment to work on your list. You can always add to it later if you think of other self-destructive coping methods that you use. There are no wrong answers — this is just between you and yourself right now and you are under no obligation to share it with anyone.
When we look at our lists, we can identify what these strategies are costing us or how they are contributing to even worse outcomes. Let’s look at the first strategy of my list as an example, “Thinking about the past and how awful or painful pain mistakes were.” This certainly costs happiness by not allowing the mind to think of less painful experiences. It focuses only on the negative or bad things that have happened in life. It might prevent learning about those experiences in a productive and helpful way. This costs us the ability to experience the moments that are happening now at this moment. This causes us lots of pain and encourages us to continue living with regrets about things that we cannot change. This contributes to depression.
Look at your self-destructive coping strategies list and try to identify as many “costs” as you can come up with. What negative outcomes are you contributing to when you use these strategies to cope with stress?
For the next week, I want you to take time to care for yourself by putting pen to paper and writing this list out. Really connect with yourself and your thoughts and come-to-know the intricacies of your current mind. Be thoughtfully critical of your thought processes, but try not to shame yourself. Identifying these thought processes is incredibly difficult and naming just one shows incredible insight into yourself, which is an amazing life skill!