Meeting Shari Manning

On a rainy evening in May, I was looking through YouTube videos about borderline personality disorder.  I found Carla Sharp's lecture at Menninger last November.  I was one of the first to sign up for the conference, but caught a cold and couldn't go.  Dr. Sharp's lecture is very research oriented and filled with data, statistical analyses, and references.  Be sure to check the video of her lecture at the link below.

Borderline Personality Disorder in Children and Adolescents by Carla Sharp, Ph.D.

After watching the lecture, a video with Shari Manning at the same conference popped up on my screen.  Excited, I clicked on the video.   

Loving Someone With Borderline Personality Disorder: A Model of Emotional Regulation by Shari Manning Ph.D.

The first words that came to mind were "she is intense," so I was a little nervous when I walked to the front table to introduce myself.  "Hello, Dr. Manning.  My name is Sarah Turner.  I am so glad to be here."

"Not Dr. Manning, Sarah, it's Shari.  So you're the student."  

"Yes.  Thank you for letting me come," I replied, as I looked around the room of the PhDs, MDs, LPCs, LMSWs, and me.  I felt out of place at first, like I wasn't ready for this, but Shari's bell for the call of attention for mindfulness brought "my mind where my feet are." 

As the week continued, I saw Shari's passion for dialectical behavior therapy and the need for further research.  I had so many questions about DBT research, yet I knew that it was time for lunch.  I asked Shari if she would have lunch with me.  She agreed that we would meet on the fourth day of the training, a Sunday in May.  

I had learned the hard way that it is essential to be prepared for meetings, so I started reading about other DBT researchers, including Shireen Rizvi and Linda Dimeff.  I sifted through the literature for the integration of technology in mental health.  I found great journal articles by Shireen Rizvi.  I poured my energy into getting ready for the meeting.  

One of my more helpful ways to cope with anxiety is to prepare for the meeting until it's almost time for bed, and then curl up with a fun book and my journal.  I did enjoy Calvin and Hobbes.

Shari and I were in line for lunch at Menninger.  Shari placed her order and said, "I'm paying for me and the girl behind me.  (Turns to me) You can pay for lunch when you are a professional.  Graduate students never pay for lunch with me."  I was so surprised and honored, a feeling that stays with me when I think of her.

As soon as lunch started, we were knee deep in concepts and applications of DBT research; it was like wading into a teeming river of ideas.  I was so excited to have an intellectual conversation about the skills and ways to teach others about DBT, a therapy we believe can change lives.  We have a common goal: to make DBT more accessible and available to more clinicians and clients.  

The DBT training in Houston is the first of many steps for me.  I will be pursuing mixed methodology studies in the upcoming years.  My current passion is qualitative research.  I will be learning more about quantitative methods soon, as much of the current DBT research is primarily quantitative.  

Shari has been so welcoming of new ideas throughout the training.  I will look forward to reading her book, Loving Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder: How to Keep Out-of-Control Emotions from Destroying Your Relationship

I asked her to sign my copy.  This is the note:

To Sarah- 

Best wishes in your career as a DBT researcher and thank you in advance!

- S. Manning

As we said goodbye next day, she gave me a warm hug and smiled.  Her encouragement has increased my confidence in my ideas and aided me in moving forward in my career as a researcher.

I will look forward to the online section of the training over the summer.

Fixed Mind and Choosing the Crown You Wear: 10 Days Remain!

The fixed mind is like a crown of thorns. Everybody who truly knows you can see its sharp spikes rammed into the sides of your skull and the trickles of blood flowing down into pools on your shoulders. This crown was woven piece by piece, just as each aspect of the fixed mind was and is accrued over time. The rigid rules are just as cutting and painful as the thorns.

But wait, there’s good news. Just as the crown of thorns came together one piece at a time, it can also be deconstructed one piece at a time.

Yes, there will be pain as the fixed mind is pulled apart. With the pain comes joy that rivals any I have ever known. I look forward to the day when the fixed mind reveals itself not as a crown of thorns, but as a fluid mind and a crown of laurels- with its signal of victory.

Recovery and Radical Acceptance- Day 11 of the Countdown to the DBT Training at Menninger Clinic

"My grace is sufficient.  My power is made perfect in your weakness."   The story of acceptance begins here.  We are fundamentally imperfect...and that's okay.  Perfection is an impossible goal, one that leads to frustration, recognition of inadequacy, and the pain that accompanies there realizations.  It is resolved in radical acceptance.  

Radical acceptance is essential.  Marsha Linehan describes radical acceptance as a continual process, one that rises with us in the morning in the choices and decisions we make.  Radical acceptance is not easy; to me, radical acceptance is the hardest skill to use in a tough, emotionally-charged situation.  People make decisions we don't like.  People treat us unfairly.  Even our decisions can backfire and block our paths toward a life worth living.  Our own actions may reflect our Rational Mind and Emotion Mind states.  Wise Mind helps us to find acceptance of self and others.

Recovery comes when application and action meet Wise Mind, radical acceptance, and chain-breaking freedom.  Acceptance is critical in recovery, whether the condition is open heart surgery or bipolar disorder.  Life can be classified as before, overwhelming struggles, moments of clarity, hope for change, and walking forward.  Like the scar, there are physical reminders of what happened.  

Acceptance fits in the process of knowing that there will be lifestyle changes and this process cannot be rushed.  You sit with acceptance.  You release the grip of what is holding you back from living a life worth living.  But life truly begins when you let go, opening your hands to receive grace and mercy.  Acceptance and owning this acceptance aren't especially different, except in degree and effect size.  

Owning acceptance is a path to freedom, moving the focus away from the pain of the past and into the uncertainty of the present and near future.


  

Living Behind the Wall: Longing for Connection and Dealing with the Fear of Uncertainty

The following journal is a snapshot of working through the barriers that hinder our connections with others.  We all have walls.  They are intended to protect us from difficult situations, people, and life events. 

When I am alone, give me the strength and courage to stand, to see, to reach out. Randy Pausch says brick walls are there to show us how badly we really want something- whether it's a relationship, an academic goal, or a childhood dream. But I'm talking about a different kind of brick wall. It's made of glass blocks that let in the light but distort the outside world. It was built piece by piece, each with promises that I would be safe and protected. What I didn't realize that in walling myself in, I shut others out. The walls promised safety in living behind them. 

Piece by piece, I'm starting to consider the pros and cons about staying within the realm of what is expected and predictable. So badly I want to connect with the people I see when I climb the ladder to the top of the wall. They laugh. They smile. They walk forward into a world where the only expected outcome is uncertainty, while the promise is to find peace, community, hope, and love from the One who gives and takes away.

I don't have to understand everything about the outside world to make a decision that living behind the wall is staying within the trap- one that doesn't allow me the chances to live and to be known. I don't know how or when the walls will not be quite so tall, but it gives me hope that true life is waiting and can't wait to see me.

"Brokenness is not the end of the story"

"Brokenness is not the end of the story.  Our pain is deep, but it is not all-encompassing; our loss is enormous, but it is not eternal; and death is our enemy but it does not have the final word."  - Ruth Padilla Eldrenkamp

For individuals with borderline personality disorder, belief in the idea that they are broken may be common...broken hearts, broken relationships, and perhaps a broken sense of self. "Getting fixed" may be a proposed treatment goal by the client, but it is a mistaken goal because healing, radically accepting yourself in the moment and recognizing the need and drive to change may be more helpful.

Defining and labeling yourself with the challenges you have experienced is counterproductive in strengthening your view of self.  Focusing on the brokenness and awfulness of illness takes the focus away from the steps of finding balance and realizations of what is going well.  

Marsha Linehan has described having BPD as lacking emotional skin.  Our emotional pain can be excruciating, with each touch as painful as a third degree burn.  Reacting to pain is understandable.  Emotional regulation and distress tolerance skills can help to ameliorate the pain and decrease suffering.  These skills can create adaptive changes that guide the process of building a "life worth living."  

"Brokenness is not the end of the story."  There is hope.  There is freedom.  There is recovery.  I have no doubt in these simple truths.