Anna Tries DBT
DBT gave Anna something she desperately wanted: practical tools. But using a skill can be much harder when the brain trying to remember it is already overloaded.
Explore DBT Tools DBT & NeurodivergenceAnna arrived at DBT with a folder.
Of course she had a folder.
There were worksheets, coloured tabs, notes she had made at 2 am and several pages she was fairly sure had once made perfect sense.
Anna had come because her emotions could become enormous.
When something felt unfair, frightening or unresolved, she could sometimes go from coping to completely overwhelmed remarkably quickly.
things she could actually try.
The first useful idea: STOP
One of the DBT skills Anna learned was STOP.
Anna liked this.
There was only one problem.
TOO LATE.
That became an important lesson.
The skill wasn’t necessarily wrong. Anna sometimes needed to notice what was happening earlier.
Then Anna discovered capacity
Anna’s ability to use DBT skills changed dramatically from day to day.
On a reasonably good day she could pause, think and communicate.
On a day with poor sleep, pain, sensory overload, fatigue and three unresolved problems?
Her available thinking space could become tiny.
This helped Anna understand something important:
Skills require capacity too.
Explore Managing Energy & Capacity →Sometimes the answer was yes.
Sometimes Anna needed something simpler:
That wasn’t giving up.
It was recognising that problem-solving itself requires capacity.
Wise Mind — with body information
DBT introduced Anna to different ways the mind can respond.
Anna found this useful.
But she added something else: body information.
What is my body telling me?
Sometimes an enormous emotional problem became considerably smaller after food, quiet and twenty minutes without anybody asking Anna questions.
The problem hadn’t necessarily disappeared.
Anna simply had more brain available to deal with it.
Getting through the peak
DBT also taught Anna something surprisingly useful:
She didn’t have to resolve everything while she was distressed.
Depending on the situation, she could try paced breathing, grounding, distraction, self-soothing or changing the sensory environment.
For a brain that could treat unresolved problems like emergencies, this was surprisingly revolutionary.
See practical DBT tools →DBT meets neurodivergence
This was where things became more complicated.
Anna discovered that sometimes a standard skill needed adapting rather than abandoning.
“Sit with the discomfort” might sometimes help with an uncomfortable emotion.
It was less useful if Anna was exhausted, overloaded and sitting underneath a painfully bright light.
So she began asking different questions.
The DBT skills still mattered.
So did understanding the person using them.
Explore DBT & Neurodivergence →Anna’s Tiny DBT Plan
Eventually Anna stopped trying to remember an entire workbook while distressed. She made herself something much smaller.
What Anna kept from DBT
Anna didn’t become permanently calm.
She didn’t stop having strong feelings.
And she certainly didn’t throw away the folder.
DBT helped Anna create a gap between feeling and action.Understanding capacity helped her recognise when that gap was becoming harder to create.
Understanding neurodivergence helped her recognise that sometimes she needed a psychological skill — and sometimes she needed less load.
Explore the ideas behind Anna’s story
Anna’s story brings several ideas together. Explore whichever piece feels most useful right now.
DBT Tools
Simple DBT strategies for distress, strong emotions and difficult moments.
Explore DBT Tools →DBT & Neurodivergence
Explore why some DBT skills may need adapting for sensory needs, neurodivergence and different ways of processing.
Explore DBT & Neurodivergence →Managing Energy & Capacity
Explore fluctuating capacity, accumulated demand and why the same task can cost much more on some days.
Explore Energy & Capacity →Explore ALPIMS
Find practical tools for understanding symptoms, daily life, regulation, recovery, capacity and support.
Explore ALPIMS →