Tomorrow (Friday) I’m being discharged from my day therapy program. I feel like I’m ready, I’ve learned a couple coping skills and expanded my knowledge of DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) and CBT (Cognitive Behavior Therapy) and I think those two things combined will help me.
I’ve learned a ton about being mindful and how to do mindfulness meditation. Every morning we have a guided meditation where we focus on our breathing and being in the moment. Really paying attention to your breathing. Feeling it’s texture, its temperature and where you feel it in your body. When our mind wonders into thought, which it will, we just gently and non-judgmentally bring ourselves back to our breathing. It just helps you bring yourself back into the moment and it helps with anxiety, stress, ruminating and being in distress. We live in and worry too much about the past and the future and we forget to live in the moment.
This morning during our meditation our clinician said, “you can always find the moment in your breath.” I thought about that for the rest of the day. It’s so profound.
I’m starting to get sad that tomorrow is my last day. I’ve been with these people for 6hrs a day, 5 days a week now for a couple months and I adore (almost) everyone. I’ve gotten phone numbers of a couple of them and I’ve been hanging out online with one of them playing world of warcraft. I’m going to miss having structure and being in a group setting. I love the clinicians and everyone who is on staff, they are all wonderful, caring people. Just like here at heart support.
I feel like all this is being taken from me and it’s hurting my heart. I know this is what needs to happen and I feel ready, it’s just really hard to say goodbye. I guess the good part is that I know I can go back if I need to. Some people come right back after a couple weeks. I’m not sure if that will happen, but at least I have options. The ONLY bad part was the transportation was a nightmare because I live a half hour drive away, so that really sucked big time and caused a lot of distress for me.
We learned about Radical Acceptance which basically means accepting reality as it is, all the way and completely in your mind, your heart and your body. Today, I was on the bus on my way to group and I was going to be late. Normally, I would fume and probably say something not very nice to the driver (I have a few times already). Instead, I just said to myself that there was nothing I could do about it and that it was ok to be a little bit late because other people do it all the time and no one gets in trouble. Later in the day, with the help of my clinician, I realized I had practiced Radical Acceptance. I was pretty proud of myself and so was everyone else.
I went into this thinking I would be cured of BPD, but that was unrealistic for sure. I’m leaving with a better understanding of myself and although I am far from being “cured” this program was something very positive for me and I think there will be more healing for me in the future if I keep up with my therapy.
Anyway, thought I’d give a little update. Thank you to all who supported me thru this. 
