It is twenty past eleven and the third consecutive message is already typed out. Two sentences, both true, neither kind, and your thumb hovering near send.
Nothing about tonight will be improved by pressing send. You know that. The pull is winning anyway, because the urge to act is strongest exactly when acting impulsively costs the most, and the cost arrives later rather than immediately.
Distress tolerance is the set of skills built for that gap: the stretch of time between a problem starting to feel panicky and a problem becoming solvable.
Let’s see what these skills are for and where they stop being the right tool, how to recognise the moment they were built for, and one skill, called STOP, to tolerate distress.
What Distress Tolerance Is For
The distress tolerance skills we talk about here come from dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT).
The first goal is survival: getting through a crisis without making it worse. Feeling better matters too, but it is a separate thing, and it usually comes later. The aim is to arrive on the other side without more concerns added to the first.
It is the same logic as a punctured tyre. Driving on can turn an easy repair into a dangerous accident, so stopping comes first, even before actually changing the tyre.
The second goal is accepting reality, replacing intense suffering and the state of being stuck with ordinary pain and the possibility of moving forward. Relief may come later, but first is emotion management, with smaller and more bearable pain, and a direction to walk in.
The third goal is becoming free of having to satisfy every demand your desires, urges and intense emotions make of you. It sits beside acceptance, which keeps it realistic. The urge still makes itself heard. Its grip loosens, so it stops being the only thing in the room.
These distress tolerance skills are not for everyday problems. They aren’t designed to solve all your life problems. They’re designed to help you manage an immediate emotional crisis.
How to Recognise a Crisis Moment
Three things mark a crisis in this sense.
- It is highly stressful.
- It is short-term, in that it will not last long.
- It creates intense emotional pressure to resolve it right now.
This is the state of distress where you are in intense emotional pain that cannot be eased quickly. You want to act on your emotions, and acting would only make things worse. You are overwhelmed, and the demands keep arriving anyway. Everything in you is keyed up and the problem cannot be solved immediately.
There is also what is called “emotion mind” — a state where feeling rather than judgement is making the decisions. When it threatens to overwhelm you and you still need to stay skilful, distress tolerance skills are helpful.
Distress tolerance skills are for urges that would make things worse, not for urges as a category. Plenty of what rises in a difficult moment is accurate and protective, and separating the two is part of the skill.
A crisis here is defined by the pressure and the clock rather than the size of the event, which is why an event can still qualify as a crisis even if it looks small from outside.
The STOP Skill, Step by Step
Being told to stop can feel invalidating like being told to calm down, or like doing nothing while something is clearly happening. Which is why the STOP skill doesn’t stop there.
Stop Is a Refusal to Move
Do not react. Pause. Do not move a muscle.
You’ll be tempted. Your emotions may be pushing you to act without thinking, and the first step is to stay in control while they do. You don’t have to resolve anything, you only have to not move first.
The Step Back Buys the Seconds
Step back from the situation. Take a break. Let go. Breathe.
The point is not to force yourself to stay calm, which may not be possible for you at that moment. The goal is to create more distance, even a few seconds of it. Feelings will get a vote in your response, but they don’t get the deciding vote.
Observing Is Where the Work Happens
This is a crucial, often overlooked step.
Notice what is going on inside you and outside you. What the situation actually is. What your thoughts are, and separately, what your feelings are. What other people are saying and doing.
That separation matters more than it sounds. “He hasn’t responded to my message” is a situation. “He is ignoring me” is a thought, and your reading of the situation. “I am frightened that he is ignoring me” names the fear sitting underneath the thought.
Pausing and stepping back slow you down. But they don’t tell you whether you’re reacting to the situation or to your reading of it. That is what observing is for.
Proceeding Mindfully Means Choosing
Act with awareness.
In deciding what to do, take account of your thoughts and feelings, the situation itself, and other people’s thoughts and feelings. Think about your goals, including the ones that stretch past tonight.
Then the final question this distress tolerance skill asks is this: which action will make this better, and which will make it worse?
The morning after, maybe nothing looks obviously solved. The situation is still waiting for you, what was difficult last night is difficult still.
That is the point. The initial moment passed without a second problem added to the first, and working from a clearer perspective is now available to you.
Distress tolerance carries you through the hour. If you want help with the deeper questions underneath a moment like that, we’re always just a call away!