What are some good coping strategies for someone with borderline personality disorder

One of the primary features of Borderline Personality Disorder includes emotionally overwhelming feelings that can feel like a big powerful wave in which you have very little or no control. A common reaction to this is to respond with destructive and out-of-control behaviors. Typically, the first order of business is to work on regulating emotion. Learning to recognize what you feel and creating some space between your feelings and behaviors. In other words, learning how to observe each feeling without getting overwhelmed by it. To do this there a number of exercises that can help you stay grounded at the moment and not "overreact". The goal with this is to keep your emotions in balance. As you learn to regulate emotion, you also will need to work on managing stress; looking at how you currently respond, and then figuring out how to do something different, but the goal is to increase your ability to tolerate stress without losing control and shifting into negative behaviors. Using mindfulness exercises can also help you stay focused on the present moment, which also helps to avoid feeling overwhelmed. This takes practice and it's important to intentionally set aside time to practice mindfulness, even when you don't think you need to. By doing this, you begin to build muscle memory so that when you get in the moment, your more easily able to access the skill. A beginning exercise is to focus on a single minute. Use a watch or timer and sit quietly with your eyes closed. Pay close attention to what you hear and feel. You may hear sounds that you've never paid any attention to. You may notice how your back feels against the chair or other sensations in your body. You might wiggle your toes and really pay attention to what that feels like. The idea is to totally focus on the present moment and that includes our thoughts. Letting any thought that comes to mind be noticed and then float away. By practicing this skill, you are beginning to teach your body and mind to stay present and grounded so that when you get into a situation in which emotions begin to overwhelm you, you will want to use this strategy to remain present and calm. As you master this skill, the next step is to notice your emotions, judgments, and thoughts. You can do this same exercise for a 5 minute period and instead of focusing on the physical aspects, focus on your thoughts and feelings. Observe your emotions without judgment and without reacting. Notice if they change over the course of the 5 minutes. As mentioned, engaging in these exercises regularly throughout the day will help you master the skill so that you can use it when you truly need it. One more strategy to help with interpersonal reactions is called the REST strategy in Dialectical Behavior Therapy. It stands for Relax, Evaluate, Set an intention, and Take action. The idea is that instead of reacting, this helps you to remember to pause, think, decide and act mindfully and intentionally. Learning this can be very helpful to someone with Borderline Personality Disorder because of the high level of overwhelm and great tendency to react without thinking. The first step of the process is to RELAX. Stop what you are doing. Take a breath…and pause. Step away from the situation for long enough that you do not act impulsively. Do your best to remind yourself that this is an opportunity to behave differently. It could be helpful even to say “Stop” or “Relax” out loud to remind yourself to not react quickly. This is the opportunity to take a few deep breaths to help yourself calm down before evaluating other options. Next, to EVALUATE, you can ask yourself what are the facts of the situation. It is a quick evaluation; reminding yourself that you do not have to have it all figured out and you do not have to conduct an in-depth analysis of yourself. You do not even have to solve the problem! Just do your best to have a general sense of what is happening physically and emotionally. Some questions to ask yourself can be “How do I feel?”, “What is happening?”. The next step is to SET AN INTENTION to take action. An intention is a goal or plan that you can set for yourself. Often, this is a self-soothing activity that helps you to relax and recenter. The intention may also have a larger goal such as improving communication or problem-solving strategies. Finally, TAKE ACTION and put your plan in motion. Moving slowly and with awareness helps the intention to be more effective and decreases the likelihood of impulsive reactions taking over. This may seem like a lot to do but with practice, these steps can be completed in a few seconds and become a newly developed habit. You can find these skills and many others by researching DBT skills that are very helpful in understanding what drives your behavior and learning to do something different. I can't stress enough the importance of daily practice. Without practice and consistency, these strategies will become vague ideas instead of real choices. No one becomes proficient at anything without practice. Setting aside time each day and actually scheduling it is critical. I recommend scheduling 15 minutes, 4 times a day to practice an exercise. Scheduling it at the same time daily helps it to become a habit. Incorporating the daily practice will change your life and help you develop new responses to old struggles and negative patterns of behaviors. I highly recommend The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook by McKay, Wood, and Brantley. This workbook gives a great overview of all the skills that you need to learn. It includes structured exercises and tools to help support your journey. Most people with Borderline Personality Disorder will find this resource highly relatable and easy to implement, especially with the guidance of a good therapist.