Do you feel that your emotions are very intense, painful, and sometimes totally out of control? Do you feel that your emotions are steering your life and future in multiple directions without knowing where this might lead you? Do you need intensity and strong sensations to feel totally alive? Do you feel sometimes unworthy, depressed, anxious, and empty? Are your emotions impacting your interpersonal and intimate relationships? Do you sometimes wish you had no emotions at all?
First of all, it is good to know that you are not alone living such emotional roller-coaster and that you are not “crazy” if you feel things very intensely and react strongly to external events and internal emotional sates. You might have been described by some of your friends and acquaintances as unstable, volatile, emotional, and even unpredictable at times. From your perspective, you want to feel close to others and be happy in their company, but things don’t seem to turn out the way you expect because of events beyond your control.
You don’t have to live with these feelings for the rest of your life. Emotions—like thoughts and behaviours—are subject to continuous change and self-regulation. Unregulated emotions can lead to severe feelings of depression and anxiety, as well as to destructive behaviours including high impulsivity, aggression, self-harm (for example self-cutting), and even suicide. However, once regulated, emotions can be a source of power and wisdom rather than a source of pain, destruction, and continuous suffering. All of us have both rational and emotional sides and balancing both sides leads to a more fulfilling and flourishing life and helps you attain your objectives, goals, and a state of mental peace.
Are you hesitant about borderline personality disorder treatment ?
It is normal to be hesitant at first to embrace a psychotherapeutic process as it involves talking about things that you might feel better putting aside and forgetting. However, you experienced running away from your emotions and, as you know, it doesn’t work well. You might also feel afraid and uncomfortable to open up to a total stranger about your personal and emotional struggles. Nevertheless, opening up is a first step in the healing process. It can provide you with a window to master your emotions and therefore to direct your life. You might also be wondering whether psychotherapy can help you. This is a very common and legitimate concern. Please read the following paragraph to learn more how psychotherapy can help you and don’t hesitate to contact me for any question about your needs and/or about borderline personality disorder treatment.
How borderline personality disorder treatment can help you?
Psychotherapy is a process, meaning it requires time, energy, and resources. In addition, psychotherapy is a collaborative work between you and your therapist aiming toward common objectives, set by you. Borderline personality disorder treatment such as Dialectical Behavior Therapy can allow you to perceive and relate to internal states and external events differently. It can give you the gift of understanding, identifying, describing, experiencing, and relating to your emotions in the present moment differently, with a sense of peace, ease, and mastery. You can gain self-confidence and self-control, so you can deal with challenging situations and negative, painful emotions.
Many approaches were developed and tested with severe emotional suffering; data from research show that cognitive-behaviour approaches in conjunction with mindfulness and compassion-focused therapy, are effective .
It is important here to note that despite the established effectiveness of empirically validated approaches—namely among others, cognitive-behaviour in conjunction with mindfulness, and compassion focused treatments—the qualities of the therapist remain central to the success of the process. It is crucial that the therapist is at ease working with individuals facing intense emotional struggle. He or she must be able to contain your emotional pain and make sense of your experience, without reacting to it or judging it, but with understanding, validation, and compassion.
If you feel that therapy can help you in successfully managing (regulating) your emotions in order to free yourself from the emotional roller-coaster you experience at times and that I can be a humble source of such help, please contact me regarding any question bout borderline personality disorder treatment or my practice in general for a free 15-minute phone consultation at: 514-632-7133.