“Huh?” was my initial reaction. From the first day until about two months later I could not get the gist of it. I joined the DBT group at Distress Tolerance, the fourth module.

Radical Acceptance caught my eye. I used to radically accept everything eventually, by leaving claw marks before letting go. Sometimes I left claw marks followed up by another turn on the pain merry-go-round. That was radical.

The concept of surviving crises situations without making them worse evoked no memories of past behavior. Crisis could only be kept at bay by keeping people at a distance. Do not love too much. Do not trust. And when crises arrived my mind ran rampant with my emotions. Things always got worse. I often presented myself at crisis centers, psych wards, emergency rooms to say that I was out of my depth and afraid.

12 hospital stays and dozens of therapists later I sat down among strangers and held my mind open against all instinct to protect myself from a crisis of hope. I presented a blank page in my mind and allowed to be written on it vague concepts, platitudes, and the thoughts of the group.

I was desperate. DBT had to work, and I had to be the one to work it. Emotional breakdowns had to be my past, not my future.