I Fasted Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)

From the age of 4 I ran home from school every single day to sit in front of the television and watch America’s Next Top Model. At such a young age, I was convinced those bodies where the definition of prosperity. I’d have my sisters snap photos of me around the house in provocative poses because that’s what beautiful was. By the time I was eight years old, I’d gone on my first diet, which was the first of many more to come. When I was nine, I wouldn’t attend swimming parties because I thought the suit made me look fat, like the people in magazines always complained. In the 6th grade, I developed a severe eating disorder and was piling makeup on my face every morning after another girl told me, “You actually look pretty with makeup on.” I fasted …show more content…
There are four modules to DBT: Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotion Regulation, Mindfulness, and Distress Tolerance. Within each module is a set of skills to use when in need of the section. Emotion Regulation was the most important chapter for me when focusing on recovery from my eating disorder and other mental illnesses. This module includes skills such as “lemons to lemonade”- turning negatives in life into positives, “ride the way”- accepting you feel a way but not acting on it,. However, my favorite skill is love dandelions. There’s a story about a man who spends months pulling dandelions out of his yard, spraying weed killer, and even replanting all his grass to remove the dandelions because he’d rather have a beautiful garden than a yard of weeds. While he may not see the beauty in the dandelions, it’s easier to accept them as they are. In this case, dandelions are a metaphor for our flaws. When using love dandelions we must accept our characteristics and traits we don’t particularly enjoy. Along with the story about the weeds in the yard, I’ve noticed something else. A dandelion doesn’t know it’s unwanted, and quite frankly, if it did, it wouldn’t care. A rose and dandelion can blossom side by side, each for their own benefit. There is beauty in the weeds growing in between sidewalk cracks. Which brings me to my next …show more content…
I mentioned earlier, my family was there wanting me to get better, but when you have a mental illness you become, in a way, selfish. It was irrelevant what other people wanted of me. My eating disorder gave me a sense of power I’d never had, and I wasn’t about to let that go. However, I was all the wrong types of selfish. Something I’ve learned is that we as humans need to be selfish. Selfish in the way that we don’t let others impose on ourselves, yet we don’t take advantage of them either. It’s all about balance. Once a person realizes they are all they’ve, got a whole nother chapter of life begins. I spent years of life hating everything about myself. I became codependent on others to find my happiness, to become my happiness. But after losing everyone, I realized the only person always there for me- was me. Our bodies do everything for us. They fight off disease, heal paper-cuts, they’d do anything to keep us alive. Our bodies love us, it’s time we start loving them