Good afternoon everybody,

As many of you are aware, there was a VERY big storm that swept across Forum Land last night. It started out on the ocean, but being such an extra giant storm, it rolled on quite a way inland too. Indeed, methinks the storm was so big, a tsunami may have crashed into the coast of Forum Land.

However, for the six billion four hundred and fifty five thousand nine hundred and seventy-first time, I have discovered that all storms pass. Even very very VERY big ones. There is going to be some cleaning up to do after this storm, and that might take a little while. But that's ok. The cleaning up can wait until the final remnants of this storm have passed.

Can I just say, the absolute height of a storm is a super good time to practice some DBT skills. It is HARD. It is so so SO hard. But it works. I am living proof that it works. Things got a little dodgy last night, but I still have a 100% success rate of surviving each day living with BPD. I have been on this adventure for more than twenty years now. I know how hard it is. I know how very very VERY hard it is. But with a great big toolkit of different skills and one or two amazing human beings (or carebears or butterflies) in your corner, it is survivable.

Today is still very tricky in my world because of all the debris floating around after the storm. The clean-up won't start happening today. It may not even happen tomorrow, or the next day, or even the day after that. And that's ok. There's no rush. Step 1 is to stay alive. Step 2 is to avoid doing anything that will complicate an already very complicated situation. That is all you have to do during the storm. Everything else will follow in time.

All is well - even when it isn't. I'm super glad I have my DBT skills toolkit. If you want to build your DBT skills toolkit, you might like to come and visit here: Let's do DBT How's THAT for shameless advertising.

I am Phoenix_Rising. Yesterday was hard, today is hard, tomorrow is likely to be hard, and there's a very good chance that the day after that will be hard too. But it won't be hard forever, and all I need to deal with right now, is right now. I can do this, I've got this - and so do you fellow storm-beaten Forumite!

@CheerBear @Zoe7 @Former-Member @Former-Member @Former-Member @Faith-and-Hope @Former-Member @Former-Member