Whenever I hear Marsha Linehan's name mentioned, two things come to mind - borderline personality disorder, and DBT, or Dialectical Behavior Therapy. I am familiar with the mindfulness, distress tolerance and emotional regulation skills, as they have been helpful tools to me in treating my depression.  What I was not familiar with was the story about her personal experience, until one day I stumbled upon an article in The New York Times, "<a title="Expert on Mental Illness Reveals Her Own Fight" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/health/23lives.html?_r=2&amp;adxnnl=1&amp;pagewanted=1&amp;adxnnlx=1314644412-fnSpyu2suXGPZncBUWjSHA" target="_blank">Expert on Mental Illness Reveals Her Own Fight</a>" by Benedict Carey, where Linehan "comes out" in June of this year as someone who has struggled with her own mental health challenges.

It was sobering to read that she started her recovery journey as a 17 year old who was locked in seclusion because of her major self-injury issues and the strong desire to die. Her family was at a loss as to what to do, and eventually she ended up at the Institute of Living.  At the time, her treatment was basically grasping at straws - the doctors, not knowing what she had, diagnosed her with schizophrenia, medicated her with powerful drugs, picked her brain with Freudian therapy and shocked the poor girl thirty times.  Twenty-six months later, she came out, traumatized, but with the desire to get out of her personal hell, and to one day be able to help others escape their own personal hell.  She eventually was able to find her own way out, go on to study psychology, earn her Ph.D.  and help others to move forward in their own recovery.

One of the most empowering things I read about her journey was a quote from Linehan, “I honestly didn’t realize at the time that I was dealing with myself,” she said. “But I suppose it’s true that I developed a therapy that provides the things I needed for so many years and never got.”  I realize that in using my Wellness Recovery Action Plan, or WRAP, the DBT tools and the therapy I have received, I am doing the same thing - to provide for myself the things I need that in the past I never got.  Now I have these tools, and I am grateful.

In the past, when one of Marsha's patients would ask, while looking at the faded scars of Marsha's own wounds, "Are you one of us?", she would usually answer, "You mean, have I suffered?" and that would be the end of it.  Last spring, she was confronted with the same question, and the person asking pressed further. “No, Marsha,” the patient replied, “I mean one of us. Like us. Because if you were, it would give all of us so much hope.”

I would like to think she said, "Yes, I am, and I'm here to walk with you."

Thanks Marsha Linehan, for helping others to realize that they can choose to live.

Mary B.

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