For new people:

*I had all the usual terror of being alone vs. terror of being controlled anxiety, depression and mania for years. As a small child, I had been regularly neglected, ignored, abandoned, discounted, disclaimed, rejected, invalidated, confused, betrayed, insulted, criticized, judged, blamed, embarrassed, humiliated, ridiculed, denigrated, derogated, victimized, demonized, persecuted, picked on, dumped on, bullied, scapegoated, and/or otherwise abused. As an adolescent and young adult, I did likewise to anyone who turned up on my interpersonal firing range. (How was I supposed to do other things I didn't know about?)* 

1) Substance Abuse: I was abusing alcohol and drugs. Alcoholics Anonymous, Marijuana Anonymous and/or Narcotics Anonymous dug me out of that. All three have extensive websites with meeting locators. I didn't need to go to a rehab, but one can use the SAMHSA facility locator online to find one if they need it. 

2) Lab Work. I got lab work to determine if I had hormonal (e.g.: thyroid) or metabolic (e.g.: low Vitamin D3) imbalances. One can find a competent MD, DO, PA or NP by using the clinician locators mentioned below or get a referral from your GP/PC doc.

3) Medications: I found a board certified psychopharmacologist in my area by using the physician locators below. I discovered the hard way that getting psych meds from a GP or primary care doc can be useless or even risky. Psych diagnoses, meds and med interactions are just too complex now for most GPs and primary care docs.

4) Support Groups: Adult Children of Alcoholics / Dysfunctional Families (ACA), Emotions Anonymous (EA), and Codependents Anonymous (CoDA)... where I found others in similar boats who had found explanations, answers and solutions. All of their websites have meeting locators.

5) Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: I came to understand BPD as just a collection of coping mechanisms for C-PTSD. And once I began treatment for *that*, I began to improve more rapidly. (Look for "Treat Autonomic AND Cognitive Conditions in Psychopathology?" online.) 

6) Published Materials: I found books, peer-reviewed articles and academic, *professional* websites including Mayo Clinic, WebMD, NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health), NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness), and even Wikipedia (when everything asserted is solidly documented with citations). I found most (not all) blogs and mass-market websites to be much less trustworthy and useful. Some of the best stuff: 

. . . a) [Understand the Drama Triangle. Understand BPD.](http://pairadocks.blogspot.com/2017/03/understand-drama-triangle-understand-bpd.html);

. . . b) Alexander Chapman &amp; Kimberly Gratz's *The Borderline Personality Disorder Survival Guide: Everything You Need to Know About Living with BPD*;  

. . . c) THE experts on the complex PTSD: Bessel van der Kolk, Peter Levine, Patricia Ogden, John Briere, Ronald Kurtz, Laurence Heller, Bruce McEwen, Sonya Lupien and Robert Sapolsky. 

7) I currently use Ogden's Sensorimotor Processing for Trauma (SP4T) as the "interoceptive" 9th of The 10 StEPs of Emotion Processing (a combination of "insight meditation" with the principles of "general semantics"; you can find both online) to manage any time bombs that turn up, but had good results over the years with several of the 

. . . a) cognitive behavioral therapies (CBTs), including Rational-Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT), collegiate critical thinking,  and Schema Therapy; the 

. . . b) "super" (or mindfulness-based) CBTs like Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT, the long-time gold standard for BPD symptom management), Acceptance &amp; Commitment Therapy (ACT), Mind-Body Bridging Therapy (MBBT), and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR); and the 

. . . c) "deep cleaners" like Eye-Movement Desensitization &amp; Reprocessing (EMDR), Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFST), Hakomi Body Centered Psychotherapy (HBCP), Somatic Experiencing Psychotherapy (SEPt), Sensorimotor Processing for Trauma (SP4T), and the Neuro-Affective Relational Model (NARM).

The CBTs deconstruct one's inaccurate beliefs, values, ideals, principles, convictions, rules, codes, regulations and requirements about how we or they (or the world) should / must / ought / have to be.  DBT, MBCT, ACT, MBBT and MBSR are terrific for emotional symptom management. EMDR, IFST, HBCT, SEPt, SP4T and NARM are first-rate for memory-reprocessing, sense-making and detachment from the conditioning, programming, etc. 

To find the clinicians who know how to use these psychotherapies, look on the "therapists" and "psychiatrists" sections of the *Psychology Today*.com clinician locator, or the "find-a-doctor/specialty/psychiatry" section of the WebMD website; the SAMHSA's treatment facility locator, and -- for DBT specialists in particular -- on the Behavioraltech.org website. If you dig a little on each page, you will be able to see which therapies they use. Then interview *them* as though they were applying for a job with *your* company. Most psychiatrists, btw, are *not* therapists themselves (they are medication specialists), but can refer you to those who are, and are often excellent sources of referral.

8) Mindfulness Meditation: The Vipassana meditation style has been *hugely* helpful. (Many of the modern "mindfulness"-based psychotherapies are actually based on these now.) The article "The Feeling is Always Temporary" at pairadocks.blogspot.com provides a nice summation of it. 

9) Therapy Workbooks: I got a lot of lift-off by using inexpensive workbooks built on CBT, ACT, DBT, MBBT and MBCT. They are easily found online. The very best of the DBT workbooks include:

Chapman, A.; Gratz, K.; Tull, M.: *The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Anxiety: Breaking Free from Worry, Panic, PTSD &amp; Other Anxiety Symptoms*, Oakland CA: New Harbinger, 2011. 

Chapman, A.; Gratz, K.; Tull, M.: *The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Anger: Using DBT Mindfulness &amp; Emotion Regulation Skills to Manage Anger*, Oakland CA: New Harbinger, 2015.

Marra, T.: *Depressed &amp; Anxious: The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Workbook for Overcoming Depression &amp; Anxiety*, Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2004. 

McKay, M.; Wood, J.; Brantley, J.: *The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook*, Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2007.  

McKay, M.; Fanning, P.; Ona, P. Z.: *Mind and Emotions: A Universal Treatment for Emotional Disorders*, Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2011.  

Pederson, L.; Pederson, C. S.: *The Expanded Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Training Manual*, Eau Claire WI: Premier Publishing, 2012. 

Van Dijk, S.: *The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Bipolar Disorder: Using DBT to Regain Control of Your Emotions and Your Life*, Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2009.  

Van Dijk, S.: *Calming the Emotional Storm*, Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2012.  

Van Dijk, S.: *DBT Made Simple: A Step-by-Step Guide to Dialectical Behavior Therapy*, Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2013.  

10) Moderate Exercise: I learned over time to get some in every day, but not to *over*-exercise. If nothing else, the distraction was helpful. But it also got my body chemistry to work *for* -- instead  of against -- me. 

11) Diet: Like many people with depression, mania and/or anxiety, I ate *very* poorly. Junk food -- not to mention too *little* nutritious food -- made my symptoms worse. High-quality frozen meals proved to be better than McFood of almost any kind, but HQ *fresh* (especially Mediterranean -- though not *pizza* -- and Asian) food appears to be best. *Healthy* fats (e.g.: avocado) in moderation, btw, are known to be good for depression. I added a daily 1000 IU soft gel of Vitamin D3, too.

Of the ten, #3 and #7 are the only ones that cost much, and several are totally free.