It’s time to get a little serious now as we are now at week 16 already, so it’s time to confront a few things. What we need to do this week is to try and get to the bottom of your problems so we can then set out a path to fixing them. We will call this the ‘Fix-Me Tick Sheet’ and we will deal with one thing at a time. This week you will probably need a pen and paper to jot things down as we go along, or a virtual word page open and ready…
The first step in any problem solving is to identify the issues we need to solve. simply saying ” I want to cure my BPD” is not going to work here as everyone suffers from different things when it comes to BPD symptoms. If possible single word answers are the key, so here is an example list…
The next part is a little trickier. What we need to do is to take each thing on that list and break it down to its core problem. So in this case, we put ‘Depression’ at the top of the list. You will often find the thing you suffer from the most will indeed be the first thing you write down. So what we need to do is to work out what your ‘Depression’ is all about.
So, the question we need to answer here is “I suffer from depression because?” Maybe it’s because you have not money, maybe it is because you keep getting flashbacks from past trauma, or maybe you feel a little lonely. If you feel you don’t know the answer to “why?” that is fine as well, simply move onto the next issue and try the same process. If you have thought of something causing your depression we can then put a “problem solved” mark next to it. Sure, your depression is not solved but you know the real reason you are suffering from it as we can work on that instead, so we then add the reason you are depressed to the real list of problems, like this…
Once we have got to the bottom of the list you then need to do the same thing you just did to the newer things you then added, thus breaking them down again to their core. Just note here that you don’t have to do all of them in one go, try breaking just one problem down to its core until you can’t do it any more. So your end ‘Fix-Me Tick Sheet’ might look like this…
You are probably wondering why you are doing this! It’s because small issues are a LOT easier to deal with than the bigger ones. When someone feels depressed that is a big issue to solve! But knowing that they are depressed because they have no money, they have past trauma or they just feel lonely is something you can work on with them and indeed yourself. Once you know the core of the problem you can start to solve anything. Even when it comes to BPD there are core reasons you are reading these self-help pages in the first place, so try and work out why and what it is you really need to solve. This inwards looking is not easy at all, but the more you do it, the better you will understand yourself. Do try and find your own core issues and let me know about them in the comments below.
This Week’s Homework: You’ll be please to know that there is no homework today as I suspect this week has been a tough session anyway. Just know that there are harder sessions ahead, but also light at the end of the tunnel now we are at the bottom of your issues as the only way forward is upwards.
