Learning Center - DBT Therapy Training

Crisis Survival Strategies DBT Addiction Treatment

Life can be cruel to all of us at times.  We define what a crisis is for ourselves, and that differs from person to person.  As an example, I've always enjoyed public speaking.  I remember, while attending a university class, the professor told us all that we'd have to present our final paper to the entire class.  If we chose not to, we'd lose an entire letter grade.  This was a huge class with about 60 or so students, held in a lecture hall.  I had no issues with it, but for many in the class, having to give a presentation was a crisis.  In fact, about a quarter of the class took the lower grade just to avoid standing up in front of the class and presenting.

I know people who have gone through some significant crises in their lives including physical pain, abandonment, violence and a wide range of other things.  I recall one friend in particular who's father abandoned her and her mother leaving them homeless.  Her mother began dating a man, and soon the two of them moved from the shelter to his home.  Soon after, her mother left without a word, leaving her, then five years old, with the boyfriend.  That man raised her and eventually was able to adopt her.  When she shared that with me, what struck me was she talked about it with pride.  She said she barely remembers her birth father, but did miss her mom a bit.  Overall, though, she called it "no biggie."  I think, had that happened to me, it would have been a major crisis in my life.  To her, though, it was just part of life; just part of growing up.  Regardless of what the specifics are, if it's overwhelming and painful to you it's a crisis.  We define it for ourselves, nobody else.

The key is, how well can we handle the crises in our life?  Personally, I used to believe I handled stress really well.  When things got too big to handle, I'd go take a walk and cool down.  Sometimes, if that didn't work, I'd do something else fun and entertaining to help me get my mind off my troubles.   Eventually, I started reaching more and more for those fun and exciting things, and started completely ignoring the stressful issues.  There are two fundamental problems with this approach to stress management.  First, I wasn't resolving the issue.  Sure, sometimes it wound up being much ado about nothing.  A few of those situations that I ignored and avoided just passed with time.  Most of them, though, only got worse.  I learned the hard way that ignoring the IRS only lasts so long.  The second issue is that those fun and entertaining things became a very costly obsession.  It cost me so much in money, self-esteem, relationships and so much more.  Those things I turned to, to help me feel better about myself wound up hurting me far more than the issues I thought I couldn't deal with in the first place.