I’m 22(f), just graduated college (not sure how). My BPD first started to show when I was around ~11, however as I get older the more I start to think back to my childhood and see symptoms starting sooner. I’ve done a bunch of group therapy for a few years, not too helpful but made some friends and I just started individual DBT, almost on week 4, and I like this new therapist. 

I don’t have a job, I don’t have a savings, I don’t know what I want to do, my plan is to go to grad school not this fall but the next (hopefully a PhD or program I don’t have to pay for to give me more time to figure out what job I even want). My parents provide a roof, food, money for therapy, but also provide the emotional abuse &amp; invalidation &amp; their own problems that created the BPD monster in me to begin with.

If I wasn’t home (like ex when I was away at college) it would be interpersonal problems with peers. So when people ask why don’t you move out, on one hand that’s the obvious, but on the other, home is where my BPD is the worst so if I do DBT here in this environment won’t that be most beneficial in the future? 

On the other hand it’s awful here, but I don’t have money or a savings or a job (can’t really go anywhere bc of covid &amp; high risk) or friends to stay with and every time crisis happens in my house (ie: the emotionally abusive/ invalidating environment that this is constantly leads to crisis) it feels like it’s only harder and harder each time to stand back up and I feel myself reverting to unhealthy coping mechanisms I used in adolescence.


So far in DBT, we’ve only done the orientation, where I only had to do a pros &amp; cons list, and then a small small bit of mindfulness where he also wants me to do a pros and cons list for next session, and the diary card. The first week he taught some distress tolerance skills (changing temp, etc) but they’re so unhelpful atm because I don’t know the skills yet to follow them up.

I know I can’t expect DBT to work over night and I’m not. 

But I’m wondering if anyone else has gone through something similar/ done DBT in this kind of environment &amp; has things that helped them. 

/ also wondering, should my next step be getting out of this house ASAP before grad school, which just feels like an anxiety attack in itself bc I don’t have money to do anything like move anywhere so it’s like where do I even go from here?