Dialectical Behaviour Skills for quirky queers and cultural renegades

Coping with intense emotions is hard. It is even harder when you didn’t learn effective coping skills as a kid, and many of us didn’t. As a kid I learned from watching my Mum that intense emotions were scary, unpredictable and bad. Watching my Dad taught me that minimising and dismissing emotions was the best way to deal with them. I really bought that until I realised that my emotions actually give me important information and that I can’t make the best decisions for myself without consulting them. That realisation led me on a journey to learn how to engage with my emotions without getting swept away or pulled under by them. I needed to learn a LOT of new skills. Skills I really didn’t learn as a young person. Skills that helped me to trust myself to cope with emotional experiences and to know that I could soothe myself and find comfort and regulation with other people too.

Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) skills were central to my feeling able to allow myself to get closer to my emotions. I’d always pushed them away because I was afraid that they would overwhelm me, and sometimes they did. But these skills gave me options - things I could do that could reduce my activation even if it was only by a little bit.

The long and the short of it is: DBT skills have changed my life and relationships for the better. That is why I want to share them!

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