Emotion regulation | Borderline Personality BPD Part 3

Foreign. Hey everybody. And welcome to today's presentation of pacers Integrative Behavioral Health. We are continuing to do our series on Borderline Personality disorder and today we are going to focus on emotion regulation. As always, I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. Yesterday we talked about creating safe and validating environments as well as vulnerability prevention. And when we react to a situation, when we react strongly to a situation, it's important to examine, you know, what was going on in the moment, but also do what Linehan referred to and behaviorists refer to as backward chaining to identify all of the things that kind of led up to the point that you reacted the way you did. You know, sometimes things will happen on one day and it won't feel like it's that big of a deal. And other days it happens and it was just like more than you can possibly take. And that's where backward chaining comes in. Helpful. Helpful because it encourages you to reflect on all of the things that you encountered that day that may have added stress to your life which ended up resulting in a, an extreme reaction. So emotion regulation is another tool that you can use that goes along with distress tolerance. And when we regulate our emotions, these are things that we are doing when we feel dysregulated, when we feel out of control, these are techniques that we can use to help bring ourselves back down a little bit. We can re regulate ourselves and it's important to acknowledge our feelings, to accept them non judgmentally. But emotion regulation helps us get into our wise mind so we can then stop and observe what's going on and then make a plan for what to do next. So with emotion regulation I break it down. Linehan has the mnemonics accept and improves. I break it down more simply because I find sometimes it's hard to remember all of those different things in those mnemonics to two tags. The first one is thoughts. Examining the thoughts that you're having and looking for extreme language, looking for what they call cognitive distortions, but also keeping a list of thoughts or mantras that can help you feel safe and empowered. And it's going to differ for each person. But I find that having positive thoughts and positive mantras can be helpful. Another thought oriented thing that you can do is focus your thoughts on something else completely different. Think about something you're looking forward to this evening. Think about something that's going well right now, so turn your attention completely to, to thinking about something else that is less distressful until you can re regulate and be able to effectively observe and plan for how to address the current situation. The second part of Activities of Tags is activities including breathing. And breathing's obviously an activity. If you engage in activities that can help you slow your breathing and that can include just breathing in for four, holding for four and exhaling for four. That can include meditation. That can include doing things that you enjoy. Maybe you're having a really bad day and you just want to get out and take a walk. Or, or maybe it's not something you enjoy. You want to do some sit ups or something. Things that distract you. I find for me, gardening works really well because it gives me just enough to focus my thoughts. And it's an activity that gets me moving so I'm not thinking about what it is that I am distressed about. Helps me get into a more regulated frame of mind. And then once I feel more regulated, then I can re approach or re examine the situation that was causing my distress. Keep a list of activities handy that are helpful when you are experiencing distress to either distract you or to elicit the opposite emotion. I have a whole list of happiness nuggets on the YouTube channel. There's a playlist and those are things that just bring a smile to my face. And I've shared them with, you know, everybody because I want to give you resources that might help bring a smile to your face too. You can make YouTube lists, you can make playlists on, you know, Amazon music or whatever you use to get your music of comedians or things that make you happy. But activities are things that you can do that either distract you, help you slow your breathing, or, and, or make you feel, actually feel the opposite emotion. Reading a book is another one that comes up a lot. Number 3G is guided imagery. And you can use guided imagery in a lot of different ways. I encourage you whenever you're using guided imagery though, to, to use as many senses as possible. What does it smell like? What does it feel like? What does it look like? And you can use guided imagery to imagine yourself re regulating or calming down. Sometimes clients find it helpful when they get upset. They imagine themselves being all red. And we've all seen those coffee cups that turn one color when it's hot and as it cools down, it turns another color. Well, I have them imagine doing the same thing for themselves when they're feeling dysregulated. They see themselves all red and then they imagine that color changing. And whether it's from the top to the bottom or from the bottom to the top, or it just fades into from red to, to purple. To blue, whatever works for them. But I encourage them to use that imagery. I have another client, when she gets upset, the imagery she likes to use, she envisions herself being surrounded by angels that are there to help her and take care of her. I've had other clients that envision a force field around them that are protecting them from, from the chaos that is in the world. Whatever guided imagery works for you that helps you feel safe and empowered can be helpful. Or you can just use guided imagery to take a break, to take a little mental vacation. And I do have a couple of meditations on the YouTube channel that will provide guided imagery walking you through a scene. And this again, it's really important to use as many senses as possible because that makes your brain really work in a lot of different, you know, ways to try to create this multi dimensional vision. What is it? What are four things that you smell, what are four things that you see, what are four things that you hear as you walk down the wooded path or down the beach or wherever it is that you happen to be. But really immersing yourself in that experience as much as possible can be really helpful because it occupies your brain so your brain's not thinking about whatever that is that's causing you distress. It also encourages the release of serotonin and GABA and dopamine because you're thinking of a situation that is relaxing, that is peaceful, that is calm. And when you're doing this, another side benefit is the fact that generally, even without thinking about it, your breathing starts to slow down. So the guided imagery doesn't have to last for long, but, and obviously make sure you're visit in a safe place before you do it. But when you engage in guided imagery, even if it's for, you know, just two or three minutes, it can give your body the, the cue that, hey, you know, we can downregulate some of this. Maybe there's, you know, there is not the immediate threat that maybe I initially thought. And then the last thing is, is sensations. And sensations is something that Linan talks about, but it's also very useful because when we engage in anything with intense sensations, it attracts our attention. So holding ice cubes can be one of them. Doing 100 squats can be another one. You know, the first five or 10, you're not thinking, you're still thinking about other stuff, but by the time you get to 50, you're not thinking about much. Going on a run, doing push ups, snapping a rubber band against your wrist, splashing cold water on your face. Listening to loud music or even smelling or tasting something. And it can be amazing. It doesn't have to be something that is unpleasant. Anything that can be so potent that it attracts your, you know, your full attention. And ideally, with sensations you can, like I said, you can also do things, find sensations that are extremely pleasant. You know, smelling roses or lavender. Those are my two that can occupy your mind. And also because they're pleasurable, because they're pleasant, will prompt the release of dopamine, endorphins and serotonin. So emotion regulation is really a process that you can use a bunch of different tools for, but the goal is to help you re regulate your emotions when you are feeling like you are out of control, like your emotions are dysregulated. This is a way of getting everything re regulated. And I try to avoid using the word control because our emotions are normal. Our emotions are natural reactions. It's how we react to those emotions that can sometimes feel out of control or can sometimes feel overwhelming. Is there a correlation between chronic gaslighting and the development of borderline traits? Certainly gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse. And one of the reactions to or one of the ways that some people survive abuse is by developing some behaviors to protect them. And that can be all or nothing thinking. That can be regularly feeling like you are not good enough sometimes, but then good enough other times. And that also when, when you feel gaslighted, a lot of times people start feeling the need to be chameleon like because the other person or persons are making you feel incompetent and inept. And, and so borderline traits can develop as a protective response to gaslighting. Emotion regulation is not the same as emotional intellect. Emotional intellect is being aware of emotions and being sensitive and being able to interpret emotions, whereas emotion regulation is actually being able to re regulate your emotions when you feel like you're spiraling. It's also important to remember that borderline personality characteristics and narcissistic personality characteristics are often behaviors that have developed over time as a result of exposure to trauma or unsafe environments or both. And they are a way that the person has developed to survive. So there is often a lot of. It's not uncommon for people with personality disorders to be attracted to one another because a lot of times they have gone through very similar situations and, and they have developed their own strategies to survive. Likewise, the. There is a theory in psychology that sometimes we will recreate our family of origin because even if it was dysfunctional, because that's what we know and Sometimes being in a situation that is known feels a whole lot less scary, even if it's dysfunctional, than being in a situation that is unknown. So we do want to look at the ways that we potentially recreate our the dysfunction of our family of origin, both in our new future relationships, intimate relationships, but also even things with our friends and at work. Explore ways that we might be replaying unhelpful patterns, and then start trying to address those. Are there any other questions about emotion regulation? And I actually do have a video on gaslighting on the YouTube channel. I did it, golly, about three maybe. It's been a month ago now. So that's another thing that if you're interested in learning more about gaslighting, you can watch that video. Everybody have a fabulous day, and I will see you tomorrow.