Writings by me

This may sound like the understatement of the century but parenting is an emotional rollercoaster. In fact it’s a normal part of parenting to feel a bit emotionally spent. Most parents are likely to have reactions to their children’s actions that they regret.

If, like me, you live with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) (and 1 in 100 people in the UK do), it can go much deeper than that. For those that have never heard of it, the official NHS definition is here:

‘Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a disorder of mood and how a person interacts with others. It’s the most commonly recognised personality disorder.’

Its main symptoms include ‘emotional instability, disturbed patterns of thinking and perception, impulsive behaviour and intense but unstable relationships with others.’ I was diagnosed with BPD last year after a long history of engagement with mental health services and different diagnoses. It’s been a relief to finally feel like there’s a reason for my emotional highs and lows, my impulsive behaviours and my tendencies for conflict in relationships.

It has made parenting and family life extremely difficult at times. For those with BPD, everything in normal life can be triggering. Throw in parenting and all its minor annoyances, and it can feel like navigating a minefield. An exhausting minefield on the most twisty-turny rollercoaster you can possibly imagine.

There is hope though; now I know what it is, I can really begin to tackle it with treatment that works. This treatment takes the form of emotional skills training and can be given by the NHS. Though I’m at the start of treatment, it struck me that the skills I’ve already learned could easily help parents in general. So I thought I’d share them here. As you’re probably aware if you’ve had therapy, mental health services love a good acronym so bear with me.

The STOP skill

This skill is particularly for those moments where you may be at boiling point. Imagine the scene: your kid has just done something SO naughty and SO unlike them, that you are considering some sort of child swap/life swap. Equally, it may be nothing to do with what they’ve done, and just them repeating that word one more time is enough to make you snap.

Either way, reacting rashly is just not going to end well. Which is where the STOP skill comes in:

S – Stop. as in stop. don’t do anything. in particular, don’t react. (I know right? HOW?)

T – Take a breath, take a break, step back from the situation.

O – Observe – what is going on around you? what can you hear, see, touch, smell etc.

And only once you can trust your reaction,

P – Proceed, with caution.

The point of the skill is to put space between the thing that happened and your reaction. And depending on how reactive you are, mental health professionals would even break it down further than this and say first, just practice stopping. This is the point I’m still at. I haven’t moved beyond it yet – you could say I’m on the extreme end of the reactivity scale.

But it’s effective in that it does give you the option that you don’t have to react to absolutely everything. That’s quite liberating in itself.

The PLEASE skill

This one is excellent for anyone, regardless of your mental health status. It’s particularly good if you are known to neglect yourself and your basic needs, like many parents probably reading this. It comes highly recommended as well if you are going through a tough time (bereavement, new baby, house move, just generally struggling with all the demands of family life).

PL – stands for Physical Illness and recommends that before you do anything else to take care of yourself, you should treat any physical illness you’re also currently dealing with.

E – balanced Eating. Making sure you get your three balanced meals a day.

A – Avoid mood-altering substances. (Although I won’t tell anyone about all that coffee)

S – Sleep; how much sleep are you getting? What could help you get more? Are you getting too much?

E – Exercise….you get it.
You know I’m yawning at the end of this. I won’t be offended if you are too – it’s obvious and it’s repetitive. But the point of this skill is it shows you the absolute bare minimum of what you should be doing each day to take care of your basic needs. And during tough times, it can be so liberating to understand that actually all you need to do is follow the above. If you have BPD, or think you might have, go to the doctors and ask them for help. It is a specific set of symptoms which requires a specific focus on learning effective tools for emotional regulation. If nothing else, reach out to me to chat.