There have been a couple of things that people have mentioned, with regards to my last blog post about MBT, so I’d like to address these here – ’cause, most likely, if someone has a particular experience, others will as well. I’m not an expert on these subjects, but I’m just going to share what I know, and hopefully point you in the right direction for more information. In this blog post, I’ll talk about issues people can have when trying to identify their own thoughts and feelings (this is related to one of the Four Dimensions of MBT).

On identifying your thoughts and feelings

You may be at the stage in your recovery where you need to focus on this completely, before taking on anything else – and that is totally, 100% okay. There are many people who have BPD, or have been through trauma (which a lot of people with BPD have), that struggle even to identify what they are currently feeling, or thinking. I sometimes struggle with this too, as do other people who are going through the MBT programme – but there are ways you can improve your ability to recognise your thoughts and feelings. So I’m going to go through a few methods that can help you more easily identify what it is you’re actually feeling.

Identifying feelings

Blunted affect

If you’re struggling to identify your emotions because your reactions to those emotions are minimal, you could be suffering from a “blunted affect”, which refers to a reduction in the intensity of an individual’s emotional response. If you’re suffering from a blunted affect, you may feel numb all the time.

This video – “Why do I feel numb?” from Trauma Recovery University by Athena Moberg and Bobbi Parish – talks about a blunted affect in detail; there’s a lot of information in there which is really, really helpful.

Trauma Recovery University (TRU) is a super helpful resource for anyone who’s been through trauma – it usually focuses on childhood sexual abuse, but it’s really for anyone who’s been through any kind of abuse during their formative years. When trauma happens in childhood, it can leave the survivor with a whole host of psychological or emotional issues, and the videos on TRU break a lot of those issues down, and gives loads of helpful information on a wide range of different topics. I’d really suggest, if you’ve been through any kind of trauma in your formative years, that you check out TRU.

Each YouTube video has a live chat where you can engage with survivors of all stripes. It’s a really lovely community, which calls itself a framily – or “friendly family” – which is the family you choose (’cause, for a lot of survivors of childhood trauma, their family of origin isn’t often a safe one to be around – so we try to counteract that by creating a community that can ease the pain that comes with not being able to have contact with one’s family.)

The videos are linked to a hashtag on Twitter called #NoMoreShame, where you can leave comments/questions to whoever’s running the video – it’s usually done by Athena Moberg, at the moment, but a lot of the videos include a lady called Bobbi Parish as well, who’ll be returning to TRU soon, I think.

TRU takes place on:

In the USA: Mondays 6:00 p.m. PST/ 9:00 p.m. EST

In the UK: Tuesdays at 2:00 a.m. GMT

In Australia: Tuesdays 1:00 p.m.

The video breaks down the component parts of what we commonly call our “feelings”. In terms of psychology, we have:

an emotion, which is fleeting, and may only last for a few seconds, a feeling, which is usually fuelled by a mix of fleeting emotions, and a mood, which is more generalised, and not tied to a specific incidence in our lives.

When your mood is very low, it can be difficult to recognise your emotional responses to everyday life. This typically happens when a person has depression, for example. But it is possible to get in touch with our emotional responses, and to learn to recognise them more easily.

Recognising emotions in the body

Another really helpful thing to be aware of, when we’re working on identifying our emotions, is that our emotions are felt in the body. You may not have the words to express what you are feeling, for many different reasons – you might have been through a trauma where your feelings were always invalidated, or used against you, so you never learned how to trust your own feelings, in order to identify what those feelings are.

If this has been your experience, please remember that this is not your fault. It is not a reflection on who you are as a person. Some people in this situation might be frustrated that they can’t do something that seems to come so easily to others – but please remember that anyone, anyone, who had lived your experience, would have had the same, or a similar, reaction to that experience.

As well, you might’ve had a pretty okay childhood, and aren’t sure as to why you’re struggling to identify your emotions with words. Again, this is nothing to be ashamed of. It may be that you haven’t had the input you needed, or that that input didn’t make enough sense to you for it to resonate with you. Identifying your emotions is a skill that everyone has to learn (even people who routinely do this effectively), and some people have had more – or better – input than others.

However, despite this, your body is still a really good way to measure what it is you’re feeling, even if, psychologically, you don’t have access to the words to describe those feelings.

This resource – “Bodily maps of emotions” – is a really useful resource, which might help you to identify what emotions you’re currently feeling, if you are struggling to find the words.

Some exercises you could try

Have a list of emotions, feelings and moods to hand. Have a bodily map of emotions to hand. Watch an emotionally-charged film, and write down any emotional reactions you have. The TRU video recommends doing this watching Tom Hanks films – films like The Green Mile, Castaway or even Captain Phillips. You should write down: your emotional response (even if it’s a few seconds), what’s made you feel that emotion (if you can identify this) and what your bodily response was (if any). Set alarms/reminders on your phone that ask you how you’re currently feeling (change the name of the alarm/reminder to something like, “How am I feeling right now?”). You can also keep a diary of your responses, on your phone, in some kind of note app. It is completely okay to say, “I don’t know how I’m currently feeling.” Getting into the routine of checking in on your emotions should help you to think about your emotions more, even if you can’t always recognise them. Keep an emotions diary – when you’re at the point where you can begin to identify some of your emotions without prompting. You might want to do this on your phone also. Try to write down what you’re feeling in a non-native language. (Now, some people have more than one native language – so if you grew up in a bilingual or trilingual household, I’m not really talking about those languages – unless you find that your fluency in those languages is not the same as your preferred language. It basically has to be a language that you really need to think about.) Scientists have done studies that show it’s easier for some people to express themselves more authentically in a non-native language – which I think has something to do with the fact that you have to choose the words very carefully, and it’s a lot harder to minimise your thoughts and feelings when you only have a certain amount of vocabulary at your disposal. This might work for you; it might not. (It works for me!) Practise mindfulness and meditation. This is best done as part of your routine, and there many apps that can help you to do this – Headspace is a good one, and Mindfulness is another. NOTE: mindfulness and meditation is not always a good thing for survivors, particularly when you are triggered. Please discuss this with your GP or therapist (ideally a therapist) before attempting mindfulness and meditation.

Identifying thoughts

When you lose track of your own thoughts

I’d describe having BPD as like having a mind that never, ever stops – it’ll keep going, run itself into knots, no matter how trivial or significant the content of those thoughts. Sometimes we can get ourselves into a real muddle, and end up going down some kind of existential hole, or get ourselves into a place where we can no longer engage with others or even ourselves.

However, even when we can’t identify all of our thoughts, we can, sometimes, with practice, identify whether or not we are focusing too much on those thoughts – as in, whether we’re focusing too much on a muddle of not easily identified thoughts.

It’s okay not to be able to identify all of your thoughts all the time. Sometimes thoughts are abstract, conceptual, and not easily explained, and that’s okay. The aim of the Four Dimensions of MBT is to identify whether or not we’re focusing too much on what we think, or on what we feel, so it’s not always necessary to understand what it is we’re thinking straight away – but, instead, the aim is to recognise if our thoughts are stopping us, in some way, from engaging with how we are feeling, or with how others might be feeling.

So, when we’re in a thought muddle, I’d suggest trying grounding techniques – to bring you back to the present moment, or to what you can feel, or sense. Here’s one example, and I’ll give more details of grounding techniques below, where I’ll list activities you can try.

When you’re too emotional

Have you ever been in the situation where your rational brain totally shuts down, and it’s like your mind has gone blank – particularly when you’re angry or scared? This can be one of those situations where it’s really difficult to identify our thoughts. But, when this happens, we know we’re more focused on emotions, rather than thoughts.

So, in terms of mentalising, when you can’t recognise your own thoughts ’cause you’re too emotional, you can recognise that you’re unable to focus on your thoughts, and are too focused on the “emotions” end of the thoughts and feelings dimension. I hope this makes sense.

Again, grounding techniques can help with this – although these aren’t always helpful for people who are very emotionally aroused. Breathing techniques can also help.

Voices

My voices tend to be whispers, which rarely say anything concrete. I developed voices very recently, and I can best describe the experience as like being in a crowded train station, as I walk through – I can hear snippets of conversations, which are echoey (the acoustics sound like that of a tiled train station), as well as noises like alarms going off, machinery, etc. My voices usually happen at night, but I get aural hallucinations of other noises – like alarms and things – during the day, if I’m stressed. When my voices do say anything concrete, it can be an incredibly distressing experience.

I’d imagine, it must be difficult, when you have recurrent, concrete voices, to recognise which are your own thoughts, and what’s being manifested as a voice (I’m really pontificating here, ’cause I don’t have that experience). So I’d suggest looking for perhaps a forum on hearing voices/psychosis, or to ask your therapist about how to distinguish between your thoughts and your voices.

Some resources:

Identifying unhealthy thought processes

Now this is something that’s going to be harder for those of us who struggle to identify any aspect of our own thoughts, but having an idea of what unhealthy or unhelpful thinking styles are will hopefully give us all some valuable information that might help us in the future.

For example, if you’re feeling low, and becoming frustrated with your thoughts, you might want to have a look at this chart, and see if your thought process might fit into one of these categories. I’d suggest making a diary of these – something like the blow image. There’s a whole host of CBT-related resources online that can really help you with unhealthy thinking patterns like these.

Some exercises you could try

Write a handwritten diary, when your thoughts become too fast, or too overwhelming, and therefore much harder to identify. I can type a lot faster than I can write with a pen or a pencil – so when I’m forced to write something by hand, I find that my thoughts will (eventually) slow down to a writing pace, which makes my thoughts a lot easier to process and understand. You also have the added benefit of being able to read what you’ve just written, in case you lose track of your thoughts. Having said that, you might find that typing out your thoughts can slow them down to a manageable pace. Keep a thought diary. When your thoughts are clear, write down what you’re thinking about. Also write down what you’re feeling, if you know, and what you’ve done that day to take care of yourself. I’m saying this ’cause perhaps your thoughts are clearer if you’ve had enough sleep, eaten enough, had a shower, etc. Write down your thoughts in a non-native language. See #6 on the list above for more information. Set reminders on your phone to check in with your thoughts – ones which ask you, for example, “What am I thinking about right now?”. This might help you to catch one of those thought rollercoasters, mid-ride, and perhaps allow you to connect to the moment more easily. Practise mindfulness and meditation. This is best done as part of your routine, and there many apps that can help you to do this – Headspace is a good one, and Mindfulness is another. NOTE: mindfulness and meditation is not always a good thing for survivors, particularly when you are triggered. Please discuss this with your GP or therapist (ideally a therapist) before attempting mindfulness and meditation. Practise grounding techniques. When we’re lost in our own world of confusing thoughts, we forget about the present moment, and sometimes, the best way to bring us out of that confusing thought muddle is to reconnect with the present moment.

*

If there’s anything else you’d like me to explain either to you directly, or on this blog, please feel free to message me. I’m available on Twitter, or through my Contact page on here. I won’t mention your name unless you specifically want me to.

Thank you so much for reading. Good luck on your recovery journey.