Really Real Mental Health Post

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

I guess that’s every day, but today is a capital ‘B’ Big day and I’m really kind of nervous.

I start DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) skills group today.

I’ve been trying to find, and get into a DBT group for more than a couple of years, but I haven’t been able to find one locally that I could get to, that was covered by insurance.  This one isn’t in the immediate area, but i can get to it and it isn’t covered by insurance but they have a sliding scale rate.

It’s a cross between group therapy and skills training, with an emphasis on the skills training.  Lots of mindfulness, emotion regulation, distress tollerance and also interpersonal effectiveness.

Basically, I’ll be able to stay in the moment while I calm my crazy ass down and cope with whatever crazy I can’t calm down . . . and I’ll be able to effectively and nicely tell you I can’t help with your crazy request at the moment.

Maybe not?

I’m super nervous about today.  There have been lots of things that I’ve built myself up about, things that were going to work to make me feel better, or even just take the edge off of this thing that is my life.  And then last minute they all come crashing down.  I’m so used to the medical and mental health community letting me down that I’m afraid to put any hope in this.

But at the same time, partial hospitalization was such a good program for me, so I know that some psych programs work really well for me, and I have a lot of friends and psych professionals who have been recommending DBT for a long time.

There’s also the unknown.  I’m about to walk into a room of people who I get to dump my guts to for 42 weeks.  I’m nervous about everything.  What are the chairs going to be like, what is the room going to be like.  Who are the other people, what is this notebook they are making me buy, what’s the layout of the class.

I know I’ll be fine once I’m there, but anxiety is a thing.  I guess that’s why I’m taking this group in the first place.

On another note.

My therapist asked me to find a mood tracker, we’re pretty sure I’m cycling every month and things are regulated enough now that tracking it through an app would be helpful.  Similar to how PHP tracked it when I was there, i’m hoping to find something that tracks on a few different scales (sleep, anxiety, mood, etc.).  If anyone knows of a good one.  Let me know!