In thinking about classic BPD symptoms like emotion dysregulation, I felt it might be a good time to once again touch on a tool that was crucial to my teen years and early 20s, crisis after crisis. The DBT TIPP skills are tried and true in-the-moment de-escalation coping. Of course, different ones work for different folks. So, allow me to share one way that these skills have genuinely worked for me.

A little backstory to set the scene…

When I was in high school, I started having panic attacks in class. I’d had them before (hello, emetophobia), but never this public and never without a known cause. I didn’t know why they were happening to me or how to make them stop. It all reached a tipping point when I was sitting in legal studies one day and I started having yet another panic attack that appeared totally out of the blue. Suddenly, I couldn’t catch my breath, my head was spinning, and I could feel my heart rate reverberating between the walls of my chest cavity. Energy was building up inside my body with nowhere for it to go. Desperate for it to end, I shot up out of my seat without saying a word and immediately left the classroom to go find help. 

Once at the student guidance office, the front desk staff let me know my counselor—a term I use loosely in this context seeing as these were not mental health professionals—wasn’t available, so I met with someone else in the department whom I was not at all familiar with. I wasn’t expecting much, to be honest. Historically, these visits were typically pretty futile, if not harmful. But it was all that was available to me. 

By the time I was finally in Mr. Rosa’s office, I had calmed down enough to sit in a chair and answer some basic questions, but I was in no state to return to my studies. I don’t remember much of anything he said, but at some point he asked me what I needed. Maybe you’re thinking, “uh huh…and?” I guess what I’m saying is, that was far more than I was used to. So I took my chance and made what I felt would probably be viewed as an impossible request. 

I asked if I could go outside and get on the track. I needed more space and less walls. 

I needed to run. 

I didn’t know it then, but short periods of intense exercise are an incredibly effective way to quickly reduce sudden and intense emotional loads that rev up your system and require a satisfactory release to dissipate. At the time, I was still melting down and there was a ticking clock on how long I was going to be able to keep it together. My high school wasn’t a prison by any means, but it was no open campus. So his response in agreement was a huge surprise, to say the least. Shortly after, we left the building and traveled down to the football field. I hopped on the track, was given the go-ahead, and took off running. 

By the time I made it around the first bend, I’d found both my shoes had left my feet.

By the second, I sensed the tiny capillaries bursting in my lungs as hints of iron came across my tastebuds.

And by the third, I could finally feel myself settle into my body once again.

Just like that, the energy I couldn’t bear to hold was gone.

I had never felt more free.

About the Author: Jennifer is a recent MSW graduate and licensed social worker with lived experience of borderline personality disorder. She donates her time to the Lived Experience Committee because through advocacy we find that representation matters, human connection saves lives, and recovery is possible.