#schema modes

[bpd-aware]

[theautisticdoctor]

Entry #008

Flashcards

To deal with all the information that I find out on this journey of unmasking, I create flashcards. They help me remember what triggers I’ve got, how I get overwhelmed and what I can do to make it better. I have several structures.

Trigger flashcard

These flashcards are based on creating specific distressing behavioural plans (in advance) for certain situations, not as much for acknowledging and challenging the feelings and thoughts that accompany those triggers. Because sometimes it’s easier to acknowledge that you got triggered, than the emotions or thoughts that accompany these moments. The focus is therefore solely on calming your nervous system down. These trigger flashcards can change a bit per situation, they are really personally designed for each situation.

Right now I got triggered by (trigger / situation), which makes me feel (uncomfortable emotion).

It’s okay I got triggered by (trigger / situation) and feel (uncomfortable emotion). Because my ((list of) sensory system) gets also (overstimulated/understimulated) by the (trigger/situation).

To help me feel (comfortable emotion), I could ((list of) distressing behaviour). This has supported me in the past to feel (comfortable emotion).

Mode flashcard

They help identify the mode involved, how it was originated and how it distorted my experience or understanding of the world. When the schemata are too abstract for the moment I can use these. They test the reality and help follow the alternative behaviour through. I made two types, because sometimes I can recognise the mode more easier than the emotion that lead to the mode and one emotion is not exclusive to one mode.

Right now I feel (emotions / feelings), because (trigger / situation).

However, I know that this is my (mode). Which I learned through (origin). This leads me to exaggerate the degree to which (behaviour distortion).

So, even though I believe (negative core-believe). The reality is that (healthy view). This is supported by (life examples).

Therefore, even though I feel like (negative behaviour). Instead I could (alternative healthy behaviour).

Or

Right now I am in (mode), which makes me feel (emotion / feelings).

However, this (mode), which I learned through (origin). Got triggered by (trigger / situation) and leads me to exaggerate the degree to which (behaviour / cognitive distortion).

So, even though I believe (negative core-believe). The reality is that (healthy view). This is supported by (life examples).

Therefore, even though I feel like (negative behaviour). Instead I could (alternative healthy behaviour).

Schema Flashcards

They are based on validation and acknowledgement of the current feelings and trigger / situation, they help identify the main schema involved, how it was originated and how it distorted my experience or understanding of the world. They test the reality and help follow the alternative behaviour through.

Right now I feel (emotions / feelings), because (trigger / situation).

However, I know that this is my (early maladaptive schema). Which I learned through (origin). This leads me to exaggerate the degree to which (schema distortion).

So, even though I believe (negative core-believe). The reality is that (healthy view). This is supported by (life examples).

Therefore, even though I feel like (negative behaviour). Instead I could (alternative healthy behaviour).

Or

Right now my (early maladaptive schema) got triggered by (trigger / situation). This makes me feel (emotions / feelings).

However, I know that I learned this schema through (origin). This leads me to exaggerate the degree to which (schema distortion).

So, even though I believe (negative core-believe). The reality is that (healthy view). This is supported by (life examples).

Therefore, even though I feel like (negative behaviour). Instead I could (alternative healthy behaviour).

Integration

In another post I will create an example of how I use the trigger schema and the flashcards. I will also probably edit this post sometime later on, but for now it is just a start. Because I have also combined a few flashcards with a mode flashcard structure and a trigger flashcard structure, as well as a schema flashcard structure with trigger flashcard structure. It’s just not one clear structure for both combinations yet. So as soon as I’ve figured that out I’ll include it as well.

[you-hate-time-travel]

OH SHIT OH FUCK HALLOWED WEEN I GOTTA DRAW TRICKSTER MODE AND OR GAMBIT SCHEMA SHIT

[abimee]

i love doing this oc draw thing instead of artfight because the number 1 stress-out factor for me with artfight is the concept of people drawing my ocs because i dont have the wide interconnected friend circles everyone else has so when i see people getting like 12 attacks from friends and then i get none i literally feel like im about to rip the floorboards to hell off but not in a ''ii deserve to be attacked!!!!!'' way but in a delusional ''everybody is laughing at me singing up for artfight and intentionally planning coordinated efforts to not attack me so that id look silly singing up and not getting anything so itd be better if i never would have signed up at all''

and that ladies and gentleman is why bipolar disorder is a very good thing to screen for

[0scill4te]

salad fingers episodes feel very calming to me

[strohller27]

.

[oceangemstone]

therapy resources / schema therapy / dbt/dialectical behaviour therapy / internal family systems / meditation / c-ptsd etc. resources

this is a link to my personal google drive, it has lots of dbt stuff, some random other resources that either i or my friends have found helpful incl. DID/OSDD/dissociation resources, & some handouts from a personality disorder program i did (was aimed at pplwbpd officially but the staff all refer to it as the "personality disorder clinic", fwiw)

bunch of other stuff under the cut including video content if that's more your thing

DBT stuff

this subreddit is a wonderful community, usually helpful with questions & has some resources linked also:

https://www.reddit.com/r/dbtselfhelp/ https://dbtselfhelp.com/

TIPP skills (from dbt/distress tolerance unit but deserves distinction. biochemical benefit > psychological benefit. at least for me)

https://manhattancbt.com/dbt-tipp-skills/ https://in.nau.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/202/TIP-Skills.pdf

also emotional freedom tapping / eft (not a tipp skill iirc but it should be, one of the few things that kinda works for me)

https://www.health.com/emotional-freedom-technique-8399985

SCHEMA THERAPY

"client's guide to schema therapy"

https://disarmingthenarcissist.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/clientsguideSchemaTherapy.pdf

(the website name is very questionable but i can't find the pdf for free anywhere else orz. this is a good starting point for schema therapy tho. sorry y'all. i will steal it for my google drive when i have time)

https://www.psychologytools.com/professional/therapies/schema-therapy

^THAT LINK stuff is not free!!! BUT you can find a lot of them with this google search:

[title of worksheet/handout] -site:psychologytools.*

ex. i search the following: "unhelpful thinking styles" -site:positivepsychology.* ...and this pops up, tadaaaa:

https://talkheart2heart.org/resources/unhelpful-thinking-styles/

(i'm just linking the paid site because i cant find them gathered like that anywhere else… dont have time to search each one individually rn lol. maybe another day)

free stuff:

https://positive.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Schemas-Needs-and-Modes-Reference-Sheet.pdf (overview) https://bmcpsychology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40359-020-0392-y/tables/1 (more detailed info on each schema) http://www.schematherapy.com/id72.htm (more info on modes) https://positivepsychology.com/schema-therapy-worksheets/ (a few worksheets linked on that page)

if video content is more your thing:

DBT UNITS:

interpersonal effectiveness extras: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwPrhSDQ0V_tBg36U3wWZpLopxJBurSsq

"middle path" skills: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwPrhSDQ0V_uB2e7Y570ihYBEYd7dK9Sv

"radically open" skills: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwPrhSDQ0V_udTjVVHhz5e1wzOSDyVeN2

DBT expanded edition: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwPrhSDQ0V_vjlYkkflUDRmfhw_hM13M-

more DBT, videos by Dr. Thomas R. Lynch: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkKKzTWUSjRhnRr5Pe2GMA7VDg_E8wBcm

DBT skills animations:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4Qw4-tlRJe-T2l5MtFOsLkTIkfZqjobY

--

FAMILY SYSTEMS + ATTACHMENT

Patrick Teahan channel:

(great channel run by a mental health practitioner who has experienced childhood trauma, he gets it. check out the playlists tab. he also has some free resources/worksheets on his website which is linked on his channel iirc)

attachment styles playlist by Jennifer May, Ph.D: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwPrhSDQ0V_smHuEjj2CxW4u7J_FozLlS

Crappy Childhood Fairy channel: https://www.youtube.com/@CrappyChildhoodFairy/playlists

(cptsd content mostly, haven't watched much of her stuff but i liked what i did see. she isn't certified but she is someone who experienced childhood trauma as well).

healing cptsd (small channel, few videos but good info iirc): https://www.youtube.com/@healingfromcomplexptsd2767

MEDITATION

(i cannot recommend her channel enough… i don't watch her longer videos/seminar(?) stuff but her meditation videos are like. actually helpful lol? i find a lot of that stuff not helpful at all but something about her is very calming and open and grounding. love her)

--

MISC

Rachel Richards massage channel:

https://www.youtube.com/@rachelrichardsmassage9660/playlists

(she has some great videos for somatic symptoms... some playlists focus on anxiety relief, breathing/relaxation, posture/mobility, sleep, etc.)

-

Dr Daniel Fox channel:

https://www.youtube.com/@DrDanielFox/videos

(cw: ableism/ableist language toward cluster b's is present on this channel, he just has a LOT of videos so i include the link... like if youre looking for something specific to do with pd traits, there's a good chance you can find SOMETHING here. *i have mixed cluster b traits incl. the more demonized ones disclaimer*. but yeah steer clear if that bothers you)

-

Struthless channel:

(mostly adhd/exec dysfunction/motivational advice stuff but i find his videos like actually kinda inspiring/motivating so i'm including it here since not a lot of stuff... feels motivating to me at all ever. but i never regret clicking on his vids! good motivational speaker lol)

-

that's all i can think of rn please lmk if any of the links are broken or like... if you have a question u think i can help w ^-^

[smartmouthhh]

slasher headcanon posting

i think that charles lee ray has bpd. every single time someone he cares about has left him or hurt him in some perceived way, he lashes out. his limerence for people very quickly turns into putting people on a pedestal while also not even having the relationship skills to make it work. when they do wrong it’s the worst, and he’ll make them understand just how hurt he is about it.

he also seems to have a very fractured sense of self, especially considering he continued to split his soul into several different vessels, showing the deterioration of the self this way symbolically. there were all sorts of chucky’s, with ranges of age, roles, and even personality. good chucky is an incredible example… they could honestly either be seen as schema modes or perhaps even parts of a system.

of course people with bpd don’t inherently murder people! i just think he’s a murderer who happens to be very bpd coded

[girl-debord]

"The plain facts of history, however, are that the 'Asiatic mode of production' (as Marx himself acknowledged elsewhere) maintained its immobility despite all its class conflicts; that no serf uprising ever overthrew the feudal lords; and that none of the slave revolts in the ancient world ended the rule of the freemen. The linear schema loses sight of the fact that the bourgeoisie is the only revolutionary class that has ever won; and that it is also the only class for which the development of the economy was both the cause and the consequence of its taking control of society."

- Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle

[moodyseal]

I got too deep into the Schema Theory while writing the paper for one of my exams and it got me thinking about Apollo's coping mechanisms yk

Basically the gist of this theory is that, in the eventuality that their primary needs are not satisfied during their formative years, a child might develop a bunch of different behavioural schemes in their adult life (which are too many to be listed here oh my god) that are a direct reflection of how the parent failed them during childhood

For example, one of these schemes is emotional deprivation, which is a person's tendency to emotionally distance themselves from other people due to the fact that they believe they won't be able to comfort them, and it's a scheme that's formed due to the guardian not satisfying the child's emotional needs. Basically it's formed through a "If my parent couldn't do it, then how could others?" sort of mentality

Another one, which I believe is very relevant here, is the sense of failure, which originates due to the guardian's immensely overbearing nature and the continuous dissatisfaction with the child's efforts. As an adult, the child in question believes that they're inept at everything, even if evidence points to the contrary, because of the fundamental belief that they hold that they're a failure

(Does it remind you of anyone?)

Now, these schemes tend to go hand in hand with modes, which are essentially coping mechanisms that the person uses to deal with whatever life throws at them and whatever negative emotion these schemes bring on. One of these modes is the *squints* scheme overcompensation? Anyway what it says on the article I got the info from is that basically people who use this coping mechanism tend to do the opposite of what their behavioural scheme tells them to do. If they're ashamed, they put down others. If they feel like a failure, they boast. (Again. Who does this sound like.)

AT FIRST it seems like a good coping mechanism but it's actually not, because the overcompensation leads to this vicious cycle where the more a person overcompensates, the more the scheme worsens. In Apollo's case, the scheme we're examining here is his sense of failure; in his overcompensation mode, to avoid feeling incompetent he tries to constantly put himself in the spotlight, drawing attention to his talents. However, he does it in such a ridiculous way (perhaps actually in some form of self-sabotage?) that the people around him insult those talents, call him a failure, and thus worsen his feeling of worthlessness.

(This might be tied to the punitive scheme as well, maybe? Considering how keen Zeus was on punishment, Apollo might've developed this scheme as a result, though over the centuries it could've shifted its focus from everyone to just him idk. The change between "I'm punishing everything and everyone for being so stupid, even my own son + this Ptolemaic god who breathed wrong in my direction" to "Actually I'm chill" seems pretty suspicious to me tbh)

ANYWAY all of this is to say that everything he does is so intrinsically tied to the damage Zeus did to him that it hurts. All his behaviours all his coping mechanisms. Everything

The arrogance is not just a façade he built over the years to hide his feeling of unhappiness and guilt!! It's quite literally an abuse response!!!!

And yeah maybe Leto was the one who spent the most time with him and Artemis and who took the most care of them so technically she should be considered his figure of attachment instead of Zeus but then again. How much time did Apollo spend beside her compared to the time he spent at Zeus' side, after the twins became Olympians? What do a few moments with her in a year do against entire centuries with him?

Leto's influence never really mattered. He was doomed since the beginning

[transmutationisms]

" relying on a presentist understanding of sex as a simple biological observation rather than an immanently created schema of social meaning—so, paradoxically, using the effect to try to explain the cause, as far as the creation of sexed classes of labourers goes. "

i feel like im not fully understanding this point how is she using the effect only do you know of any writing similar to caliban and the witch that doesnt make this mistake or more generally writing about the process of creating sex as social idea

i mean that federici presumes "male" and "female" are biological categories that exist pre-discursively (prior to the process of describing, naming, identifying them) and treats the gendered division of labour as occurring on the basis of such a biological fact. this mode of explanation fails to account for the fact that sex/gender is not a self-evident, obvious, or uncontested binary. rather, these categories are made and maintained by processes of social organising and discourse, including the very economic order whose genesis federici seeks to explain, characterised by the emergence of a distinct class of people whose reproductive and domestic labour is rhetorically positioned as 'external' to 'the market' despite being materially crucial for its functioning. thus, the effect (sex/gender) is in federici's writing treated as the cause (the division of labour that creates 'employment' as a distinct activity from 'homemaking').

although not flawless by any means, i think that jules gill-peterson's work is useful in understanding this general point and what we gain from treating materially and socially the process of creating gender, rather than taking bio-ideologies at face value and trying to theorise systems of social oppression as following from them. what gill-peterson brings to the table here is in large part related to her disciplinary perspective as a historian, and her consequent attunement to sex/gender as the outcome of social and discursive processes that are both contingent and immanently (continuously) enforced.

[theautisticdoctor]

Entry #009

Trigger Schema and Flashcard Examples

Today I had the trigger of coming too late, so I created a Trigger Schema (entry #005) for this with some flashcard examples down below.

Trigger Schema

"Coming too late"

Situation

I overslept, because I was so tired from working a double shift yesterday. My partner was at his parents house for repairs on the car so he called me 10 minutes before I had to catch the bus to see why I hadn’t texted him yet.

Emotion

Happiness: 0/100; Sadness: 20/100; Fear / Anxiety: 80/100; Angriness: 60/100; Shame: 75/100; Disgust: 40/100

Feelings

Sensory System

Vestibular: overstimulated by having to rush, which makes me feel unstable on my feet

Proprioceptive: overstimulated by having tension in muscles and having tendon pains in my hips and legs

Interoceptive: nauseous, tired, stomach ache, heart rate increase, itchy eyes, toilet urge, throat ache

Auditory: understimulated by quietness in the house, which gives me a ringing sound in my ears (tinnitus) and makes me hypersensitive for the littlest of noises

Visual: understimulated, which gives me object permanence blindness and makes me trip over my cat

Tactile: overstimulated by dry skin

Olfactory: overstimulated by congestion

Gustatory: overstimulated by taking medication and forgetting to brush teeth

Thoughts

Shit, I’m not going to make it in time. I’m forgetting everything. I can’t take the time to do my things I need to do. I totally messed up. I'm so tired. Why am I so tired? I’m not able to function today. Everybody is going to be so angry and disappointed with me. I'm letting everybody down.

Behaviour

I immediately panicked and haste everything I think of that is necessary to do. I feed my cat and pack my back. I get on the bus just in time.

Effect – Outcome

I sit in the bus and train anxious about all the things I might have forgotten to do and didn’t do. I am extremely self-conscious and have the feeling everyone can see how much I failed this morning and that I forgot crucial things.

Early Maladaptive Schema

Defectiveness and shame. Dependence and incompetence. Failure. Negativity and pessimism. Unrelenting standards and hypercriticalness. Punitiveness.

Modi

Vulnerable mode. Angry mode. Demanding mode. Punitive mode. Guilt-inducing mode. Worrying overcontroller mode. Surrenderer mode. Avoidant protecter mode.

Healthy View

My parents were very punitive and unforgiving about oversleeping and making mistakes because of it, it is therefore understandable where my anxiety comes from. However, everybody oversleeps sometimes and nobody likes to do it. Oversleeping doesn’t make me a lesser person. It’s okay I wasn’t able to do everything I usually do in the mornings, because I still managed to get on the bus on time and I did the most necessary things. I went over my window of tolerance the day before and strained my energy levels, so my body needed it.

External Factors

My partner called 10 minutes beforehand, which helped me to get on the bus on time, but didn’t leave me much time to prepare.

Overreaction

I don’t have to be so punitive to myself, because in the end I managed to make it. So even the doom thinking wasn’t entirely justified. I don’t want to be worrying the entire trip that I might’ve done something wrong or forgot something crucial.

Involved schema to overreaction

Punitiveness

Wanted behaviour / reaction

I want to be able to calm down and not keep on worrying after I managed to get on the bus. I don’t want to forget everything in the moment I’m hastening.

Helpful thoughts

Everybody oversleeps sometimes. Oversleeping doesn’t make me a lesser person. It’s okay I won’t be able to do everything I usually do in the mornings. It will turn out alright. I don’t have to be afraid.

Helpful behaviour

Doing relaxation breathing exercises. Taking eye drops. Taking a mint to suck on. Putting on music. Following a list of what I need to do in the morning to get ready. Putting on moisturising cream. Taking my nose salts. Drinking water. Saying affirmations.

Flashcards

After creating a trigger schema I create one or more flashcards, depending on the situation and what I need. I will try to give you some examples of the flashcard structures (entry #008) based on this trigger schema.

Schema Flashcards

Right now I feel anxious, because I overslept and had to haste.

However, I know that this is my punitiveness schema. Which I learned through my youth, because my parents were very punitive and unforgiving about oversleeping, coming too late and making mistakes in general. This lead me to exaggerate the degree to which I'm worrying I did something wrong.

So, even though I believe that because I overslept I can't make it right, I did everything wrong to a degree it's unfixable and it makes me a bad person. The reality is that everybody oversleeps sometimes and it doesn't make a lesser person. This is supported by the way other people reacted in the past to when I overslept and I wasn’t able to follow through with my routine in the morning.

Therefore, even though I feel like I can’t stop worrying and ruminating about what I did wrong and what I didn't do. Instead I could do relaxation breathing exercises, ask for help or support, take a mint to suck on, put on music, use essential oils, follow a list of what I need to do to get ready, put on moisturising hand cream, or say affirmations.

Mode flashcard

Right now I am in worrying overcontroller mode, which makes me feel anxious.

However, this worrying overcontroller mode, which I learned through my youth, because my parents were very punitive and unforgiving about oversleeping, coming too late and making mistakes in general. Got triggered by oversleeping and having to haste and leads me to exaggerate the degree to which I'm worrying I did something wrong.

So, even though I believe that because I overslept I can't make it right, I did everything wrong to a degree it's unfixable and it makes me a bad person. The reality is that everybody oversleeps sometimes and it doesn't make a lesser person. This is supported by the way other people reacted in the past to when I overslept and I wasn’t able to follow through with my routine in the morning.

Therefore, even though I feel like I can’t stop worrying and ruminating about what I did wrong and what I didn't do. Instead I could do relaxation breathing exercises, ask for help or support, take a mint to suck on, put on music, use essential oils, follow a list of what I need to do to get ready, put on moisturising hand cream, or say affirmations.

Trigger flashcard

Right now I got triggered by oversleeping and having to haste, which makes me feel anxious.

It’s okay I got triggered by oversleeping and having to haste and that it makes me feel anxious. Because my vestibular system, proprioceptive system and interoceptive system gets overstimulated and my visual system gets understimulated by the situation.

To help me feel relaxed, I could do relaxation breathing exercises, take a mint to suck on, put on music, use essential oils, follow a list of what I need to do to get ready, put on moisturising hand cream, or say affirmations. This has supported me in the past to feel more at ease and comfortable.

[ycoil]

this is a really bad headache, one of them gordamn splitters of all time legend has it that a young hero with doll jointed limbs would ascend the mountain and slay the beast mode baby im going beast mode, what that means is a type of modality where you embody a beast, a schema or lens for approaching the platform now please stand by while the train comes to a complete the task why do you ignore that why do you let that fester in the back of your mind, take it out of the box, assemble, and enjoy, its that easy

[fantomette22]

I forgot to post it yesterday but IT IS DONE!!!! I finally got all the chaos emeralds endings and finished the last story of Shadow The Hedgehog!!!! ⚫️🔴🦔

Been vibing to the last story credit song « Never turn back » since too. Why is it so good?!

Sadly I won’t be able to do expert mode bc I need all the A-ranks of all the missions. Another time perhaps. And i definitely won’t have time for Sonic Heroes too. Still I will probably redo last story!

I really had fun with the game! It’s very different from a « classic/3d » sonic games as well but I like different genre of action rpg so I got use to it pretty quickly. I think the harder thing was to learn the controls on a GameCube controler and learn & memories the levels themselves. (Especially the very long and complex one! And dash on the walls without falling 🤦‍♀️). Look at this schema I had to made

So yeah that was a nice surprise and I really had fun! I guess I will just redo sonic & shadow generations with the other games i still need to finish!

[cherami-chat]

Why was the site migrated when cherami is so unfinished? Why were all tags deleted, forcing all my prompts into draft mode because there's now zero information in them? Why was the site migrated at all, cherp worked just fine to my knowledge. Cherami is, from a user experience standpoint, a sitewide downgrade. It is worse in every way.

Hello,

The site was migrated due to the fact that we were - genuinely - threatened with being DCMA'd and having the site taken down by Thell / Insolent. Having a DCMA means it would have been a legal battle we would have to fight, keeping the site down indefinitely until we had any level of a replacement, while at the same time spending money that none of the team had. While we couldn't be sure that it ever was truly coming, the sword had been hanging for years - we would rather be out from under the thread and have to deal with some growing pains rather than live under the uncertainty any longer than necessary.

Tags were all deleted because our previous developer, the aforementioned Thell / Insolent, coded the tags in an extremely strange way - we will be posting a post-mortem on the Cherp schema and codebase soon - that meant that migrating them was essentially impossible no matter how long we spent on it. We spent several months just attempting to get the conversion to work correctly and couldn't get it to play nice, so we polled the userbase and they overwhelmingly voted to clear the tags out just to get things moving.

While Cherp 'worked' fine, it wasn't sustainable or functional in the long run. We had no dev environment / sandbox, a lot of the code was frankly horrific (i.e. users could create the same account name as someone else, and we ended up with over two accounts under the same username "cal") and had limitations (such as account recovery) that we wanted to improve upon. The fact that we had no ability to safely bugfix the site also meant that as time went on, the site would become more and more unstable under changing code, web, and security standards, and, like the old version of Cherp built on top of Cherubplay, eventually collapse entirely.

And, lastly, we also had no ability to add new features - even trying to add something simple like dice-rolling broke the site several ways from sunday - nor did we have a way to fix IP bans (an important security tool that was entirely nonfunctional) or group chats (an advertised feature of the site that straight up did not work most of its lifetime). Both of those things are already implemented and functional on CherAmi.

We understand that a transitionary period is hard, but this is not the final state of CherAmi and we are dedicated to improving it through constructive criticism and thoughtful input, until it is as smooth and intuitive to use as the best days of Cherp. If you would like to provide that, we encourage you to reach out to us so we can collaborate effectively.

Thanks, -CherAmi Staff