no more spoons, only knives

You are enough today.

good christian girl: *is paired with withdrawn goth boy for assignment* ugh i hope i stay on this trouble maker’s good side :(

good christain girl: *spots a book poking out of withdrawn goth boy’s bag* hey what’s that?

withdrawn goth boy: *pulls out copy of romeo and juliet* oh yeah just some light reading i usually do in lunch.

good christian girl: you…….like Shakespeare?

withdrawn goth boy: [quotes some of the wherefore art thou romeo scene without looking at the book]

good christian girl: that’s incredible!

withdrawn goth boy: yeah, i’ve always felt i’ve had a connection to romeo- as well as the protagonist of [another 9-11th grade mandatory reading book]

good christian girl: yeah *slightly flustered* same here….

bell rings

good christian girl’s friend: Kelsey-Anne Sue come on!! were going home!

good christian girl: be there soon guys! *looks back at withdrawn goth boy* see you around then, i guess :)

withdrawn goth boy: *cracks a shy smile* y-yeah. see you around

Disclaimer: I have done years of DBT to get to where I am, where I can even do this with regular emotions. This is meant as an idea to practice when possible, which may be rare for you depending on severity of your symptoms and the situation at hand.

We all know paranoia is a bear to deal with. Using Opposite Action (OA) helps me to behave more normally so that I can maintain relationships and avoid reinforcing the paranoia while delusional.

Some months ago, prior to being diagnosed and treated, I was convinced I am actually a fake person and someone was pursuing me because I had figured it out. This meant everything was dangerous--food, my antidepressants, anything could be poisoned or set to destroy me somehow.

The basic premise of OA says, act oppositely so as to not reinforce the feeling. This means being kind when angry, and pushing yourself to be active when sad. Applied to paranoia, it means facing the fear head on.

Something very helpful to me was logging every time I used OA, so I could see I'd been poisoned zero out of X times I used it. This helped me use it more over time.

My fear of poisoned food was a serious social hindrance (not to mention physically dangerous) and to use OA, I had to mindfully accept that I could die. This was, of course, terrifying. Every dinner with family, every time I took my meds, I was just waiting to drop dead for the sake of not reinforcing this emotion. Again, logging it helped me feel more confident in the risk I was taking.

So why do it? Well, to be around loved ones. My support system. Food has always been the center of our gatherings, and I needed to be able to participate. I needed reason to carry on, things to live for, something to look forward to. I needed my meds.

Something I struggled with a lot before DBT was differentiating (or even knowing there was a difference!) between an emotion being valid and an emotion being justified.

All emotions are valid: you are allowed to feel how you feel in response to things in your life. Nobody can tell you your feelings are incorrect.

Not all emotions are JUSTIFIED, or they're justified but their intensity is not. For example, someone forgets to acknowledge you and it hurts. You can validate yourself and also at the same time recognize that no, being at 90/100 on the rejected/hurt scale is not justified in this interaction. You can then decide on your response accordingly.

This is part of the dialectic. Two seemingly opposite facts can be true at the same time.

I think I've gotten better at checking my own emotional responses, but they still get the better of me sometimes, particularly guilt and shame.