My Mental Health Journey: BPD & OCD, The Steps I’m Taking To Heal
In the "Pursuit of Wellness" podcast, Mari Llewellyn reflects on her journey navigating mental health challenges, including borderline personality disorder (BPD) and obsessive-compulsive tendencies. She delves into her tumultuous childhood and the steps she took to manage her BPD diagnosis, combining therapy, medication, and self-help practices like dialectical behavior therapy skills and mindfulness.
Llewellyn also shares her current struggles with anxiety, rigid fitness routines, and the need for control. She discusses the strategies she employs to cope, such as hypnotherapy, optimal nutrition, exercise, and mindfulness practices involving animals. The episode offers insights into proactively managing mental health through tailored routines.
This is a preview of the Shortform summary of the Oct 17, 2024 episode of the Pursuit of Wellness
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1-Page Summary
The speaker's personal background and mental health challenges
Mari Llewellyn reflects on her turbulent childhood of global moves due to her father's UN job, leading to anxiety and emotional struggles from a young age. Llewellyn turned to partying and impulsive behaviors in college as her mental health issues escalated, culminating in a borderline personality disorder (BPD) diagnosis in her junior year.
Diagnosis and managing BPD
Llewellyn initially felt hopeless after her BPD diagnosis, but found hope in combining therapy, medication, and self-help measures like DBT skills and mindfulness. Working with a BPD specialist and addressing trauma's root causes proved pivotal. Today, after years of effort, she celebrates substantial improvement, no longer meeting BPD criteria.
Current challenges and coping strategies
Llewellyn now faces anxiety and OCD-like tendencies stemming from her rigid fitness routines and need for control. She uses hypnotherapy, the "Brain Lock" book, optimal nutrition, exercise like weight lifting and Pilates, and mindfulness practices like spending time with animals. Proactive management through tailored routines has increased her resilience.
1-Page Summary
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Actionables
- You can create a personal growth journal to track your emotional patterns and triggers, noting down daily experiences, feelings, and reactions to understand your mental health better. By regularly reviewing your entries, you might identify specific situations that consistently lead to stress or anxiety, allowing you to develop targeted coping strategies or seek professional help for those issues.
- Develop a personalized wellness routine by experimenting with different physical activities and relaxation techniques to find what best alleviates your stress. For instance, you might try a new exercise like dance cardio or tai chi each week, along with relaxation practices such as progressive muscle relaxation or aromatherapy, to discover a combination that resonates with your lifestyle and preferences.
- Engage in a community support group, either online or locally, where you can share experiences and strategies with others facing similar challenges. This could involve starting a book club focused on mental health and resilience literature, where members can discuss insights and support each other in applying new coping skills to their lives.
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The speaker's personal background and history with mental health challenges
Mari Llewellyn shares her journey through mental health challenges, from her tumultuous childhood to her diagnosis of borderline personality disorder in college.
Personal background and struggles with anxiety
Childhood instability and emotional challenges
Mari Llewellyn’s childhood was marked by frequent moves that took her from London to various cities across the globe due to her father’s work with the United Nations. This lifestyle, filled with travel and exposure to diverse cultures, lent her adaptability, but also a deep sense of instability and a feeling of not fitting in. She recounts nights filled with anxiety and emotional turmoil, often crying herself to sleep due to dark thoughts and fears about her loved ones passing away.
Llewellyn's home life was disruptive and lacked the conducive atmosphere necessary for constructive emotional conversations. As a result, she became an emotional and expressive child, grappling with anxiety and occasional depression—a struggle she initially misinterpreted as sensitivity or high maintenance.
Early therapy experiences
At a young age, Llewellyn was placed in therapy, initially due to her parents suspecting she had ADD because she struggled with school. However, she believes that her academic challenges were mostly attributed to issues at home. Therapy sessions became an opportunity for Llewellyn to discuss her home life, rath ...
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The speaker's personal background and history with mental health challenges
Additional Materials
Actionables
- Create a personal stability map by identifying and writing down elements that contribute to your sense of security, such as routines, relationships, and safe spaces, to counteract feelings of instability.
- By recognizing what makes you feel stable, you can actively work to increase these factors in your life. For example, if having a set morning routine helps, make it a priority to establish and stick to one.
- Start a nightly reflection practice where you write down three fears or negative thoughts and then counter them with three rational responses or positive affirmations.
- This can help manage anxiety and dark thoughts by training your mind to seek balance and reassurance. If you're worried about a loved one's health, follow up with a positive note about their current well-being or steps you can take to support them.
- Develop a 'coping toolbox' filled with small, immediate actions you ca ...
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The speaker's experience with a BPD diagnosis and the journey to managing it
Mari Llewellyn shares her personal experiences with being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and her path toward managing the condition effectively.
From Despair to Management
After receiving her BPD diagnosis, Llewellyn felt discouraged and hopeless. Online, she found distressing descriptions of BPD, suggesting that people with the disorder are seen as manipulative and difficult, and that many therapists even refuse to work with them. Moreover, the high rate of suicide among BPD patients left her questioning the point of seeking help. Despite these daunting impressions, Llewellyn states clearly that BPD is not a life sentence and that there is hope for those living with the condition.
Steps to Recovery
Llewellyn's journey to managing her BPD symptoms included a combination of therapy, medication, and self-help measures. Initially put on medication due to her regular self-harm and dangerous behaviors, she found group therapy especially beneficial. It provided a space where she felt validated and seen, as she could relate to the struggles of others with similar experiences.
In her aim to regulate her emotions, Llewellyn bought DBT workbooks and began practicing the skills it taught. Mindfulness and other tools helped her curb unhealthy behaviors. A pivotal change came when she started working with a therapist who specialized in BPD, conducting specific trauma work to address the root causes of her emotional pain.
Llewellyn underscores the timeframe and dedication required for this transformation; it took years from her initial diagnosis around 2014-2015 to reach a stable state.
A New Chapte ...
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The speaker's experience with a BPD diagnosis and the journey to managing it
Additional Materials
Actionables
- Create a personal progress journal to document your journey with BPD, focusing on small victories and positive changes to reinforce hope and dedication. Start by writing down any small improvements you notice in your behavior or mood, and celebrate these in your journal. This could be as simple as recognizing when you've successfully applied a coping strategy or when you've managed to avoid a trigger that would have previously upset you.
- Develop a personalized self-care plan that includes activities unrelated to BPD management, to foster a sense of identity beyond the disorder. This plan might include hobbies, exercise, social activities, or learning new skills that bring you joy and provide a sense of accomplishment. For example, you could schedule weekly dance classes, daily walks in nature, or time to read a book purely for pleasure.
- Engage in online forums or social media groups dedicated to positive BPD support, where yo ...
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The speaker's current mental health struggles and the tools/strategies she uses to cope
Mari Llewellyn shares her personal mental health journey, discussing the evolution of her struggles with a focus on her current issues with anxiety and OCD-like tendencies. She credits her rigid routines developed during her fitness journey with introducing her to the idea of control but admits this has led to an increased need for control in other aspects of her life.
The speaker's current mental health challenges include anxiety and OCD-like tendencies, which she believes may be related to her desire for control and rigid routines developed during her fitness journey.
Llewellyn notes a family history of anxiety and is in the early stages of addressing her obsessive-like tendencies after previously focusing on her borderline personality disorder (BPD). She acknowledges the difficulty of relaxing her rigid routine, associating control with safety. Working with her therapist, Llewellyn employs hypnotherapy, which she finds effective. Proactive in managing her mental health, she’s determined to prevent slipping into anxiety or depression.
The speaker is working with her therapist and using resources like the "Brain Lock" book to address her obsessive thought patterns and tendencies towards compulsive behaviors.
Llewellyn discusses her experience working with her therapist and her struggles with obsessive thoughts that recur every 30 seconds throughout the day. She has a compulsive need to immediately fix problems to the point of obsession. Utilizing the "Brain Lock" book, she learns new tools to manage her thoughts and behaviors effectively.
The speaker emphasizes the importance of various lifestyle factors, such as optimal nutrition, regular exercise, and activities that promote mindfulness and being present, in supporting her overall mental health.
Llewellyn underscores the positive impact that therapy, nutrition, and exercise have on mental health. Lifting weights or practicing Pilates keeps her present in the moment, and she finds emotional and energetic balance in consuming whole foods and engaging in physical activity.
The speaker finds great benefit in practices like red light therapy, list ...
Here’s what you’ll find in our full summary
The speaker's current mental health struggles and the tools/strategies she uses to cope
Additional Materials
Counterarguments
- While the speaker finds personal benefit in rigid routines, it's important to note that such strict regimens can sometimes exacerbate anxiety and OCD-like tendencies for some individuals, as they may feel increased stress when routines are disrupted.
- The use of the "Brain Lock" book and other self-help tools can be valuable, but it's crucial to remember that self-help resources are not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment, and their effectiveness can vary greatly from person to person.
- Emphasizing the importance of lifestyle factors is beneficial, but it's also necessary to acknowledge that mental health issues cannot always be managed by lifestyle changes alone and often require a combination of treatments, including medication and therapy.
- While the speaker benefits from practices like red light therapy and the Superhuman app, these are not universally accepted or evidence-based treatments for mental health issues, and their effectiveness may not be generalizable to the broader population.
- The therapeutic effect of spending time with animals and engaging in phone-free activities is subjective and may not resonate with or be practical for everyone, especially those who may not have access to animals or the time and resources to engage in such activities.
- The ...
Actionables
- You can create a 'control journal' to help manage anxiety by documenting areas in your life where you feel the need for control, then brainstorming flexible strategies for each. For example, if you notice a pattern of stress when your daily routine is disrupted, your journal could include a list of alternative activities that still contribute to your well-being, like a short walk or a new recipe to try, to introduce flexibility without losing the sense of control.
- Develop a 'mindfulness scavenger hunt' that encourages you to find and engage with simple pleasures throughout your day, which can help ground you and provide a sense of peace. This could involve looking for specific colors or objects on your daily walk, noticing the variety of sounds during your commute, or finding moments of kindness around you, all of which can redirect focus from obsessive thoughts to the present moment.
- Sta ...
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