Distress (In)tolerance

I haven't ever had any actual DBT, but my wife did bring me a DBT skills workbook of which I read and worked through a few chapters while I was in the hospital.  I know that I NEED DBT, and I'm hoping that's where I'll end up after I finish this partial hospital program.  Anywho, the first couple of chapters in the book were on Distress Tolerance, where they give you a bunch of suggestions on how to relax and be present in the moment and tolerate distressing situations when you'd normally get über stressed out.  Then you make your silly little emergency distress tolerance plan with nice ideas like deep breathing, bubble baths, burning scented candles, guided imagery....etc.

Then you get home from the hospital and encounter a distressing situation and freak out like the BPD you are.  Or, at least, that's what I do.  My lovely wife and I were going through boxes of old pictures today, and I picked a few that I wanted to scan and send to an old friend (aww, how sweet).  Well, my beautiful, expensive printer/copier/scanner decided to be a huge douche and not work right.  I tried to take a few deep breaths and troubleshoot the printer as well as I could, but my distress level rapidly, rapidly escalated.  Then, I realized that my cute little emergency distress tolerance plan is bullshit and all I want to do is SI and scream and cry and throw a tantrum and hate the world.

Looking back, I think I've always had a very low level of distress tolerance.  I would always get angry, stomping around, slamming doors, crying and screaming.  I am completely unable to tolerate when things aren't right to me (wow, I sound like such a brat!).  Things that annoy me or frustrate me quickly become unbearable.  Freshman year of college I went completely Office Space on my printer that would never work properly, ending up beating the crap out of it in my dorm room and then laying crumpled on the floor hysterical crying.  This is not normal.

I hate when things (or people) don't work the way they should or do things the way they should.  It drives me completely and totally insane.  And, I hate myself, so generally I take this out on myself, by cutting or berating myself, etc. and then completely crumble, freak out, and cry like it's the end of the world.  So...maybe those silly little emergency distress tolerance plans aren't actually so "silly."  Maybe I should add blogging to mine...