Episode #127

Are CBT Tools Worth The Effort?

The stigma of mental health has improved over time, but we all know it still exists. This reality, combined with the effort involved with therapy, may make you feel discouraged from learning CBT tools.

Is it worth the effort to learn CBT tools? Why?

How can these tools help you prepare for and deal with unexpected events in the future?

Join me, Dr Julie Osborn, as we talk about the state of mental health today and how CBT tools can make a real difference in your life.

Click to listen now!

Full Episode Transcript

Hi, this is Dr. Julie. Welcome to My CBT Podcast. I'm a Doctor of Psychology and a licensed clinical social worker specializing in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I'm here to help you bring the power of CBT into your own life.

So thanks for joining me, and I hope everyone's doing well. I want to start off with a really great email I received from a listener.

It says,

“Dear Dr. Osborn,

Hello, my name is Seth. I recently discovered your podcast on Spotify. I've been applying your CBT techniques to my daily life to much success. I've been seeking a good CB therapist literally for years. The worst one wanted to focus more on my sexual orientation than my struggles with major depressive disorder. The best one sent me a friend request on Facebook after our third session, which brought our work to a breaching halt! Your podcast is exactly what I've been looking for all these years. So thank you. You may not know how many lives your podcast has positively influenced, but mine is one of what I suspect are many. Thanks again for all you do. All my best.”

So thank you, Seth. I'm really grateful for that. And he emailed me with the question, and we went back and forth with some responses, giving him some direction.

And like I said, I love hearing from you guys, and I respond to my emails. So any ideas or questions or suggestions, please send them my way. And I love sharing that with all you guys. So today, I just wanted to talk about mental health. I wanted to do this because I just received some emails recently with some new studies that came out for people's mental health, some substance abuse issues. I wanted to share because I know just from working with my clients, there's still so much stigma out there about mental health, about taking medications, about not wanting to share, people not understanding, being judged, feeling judged, feeling ashamed for struggling with some things in your lives. I want to tell you, we all have something. We all know someone that's doing better than us. We know someone's doing worse than us. The more we share with each other, the more you'll see our similarities versus our differences. I thought, You know what? I'm going to do a podcast just to remind everybody, why are we here together? Why do we take the time to learn cognitive behavioral therapy tools? Because it's good for our mental health.

Even if we're doing, quote, well, whatever that may look like for you, we always need new tools. We're always going to be dealing with situations in our lives that we didn't expect, or one day we know will happen, losing maybe a parent. One day that will happen in your lives. If it hasn't happened already, how do I deal with that grief? How do I explain that to my kids? Where do I get support? Illnesses that may come unexpectedly. I've been there myself. Things just happen, sometimes overnight, that we didn't expect, we didn't know was going to be part of our lives and part of our journey. So I hope that you're here spending time with me to learn these tools so that they can help you now and today, and also in the future, and give you that confidence that whatever does come your way, you're going to be able to handle it. And there's many, many, many times working with my clients that they just feel so overwhelmed that they don't think they can get through this time in their life. And I started asking them questions like, Well, what are some other difficult things you've gone through in your life?

And they start sharing in They're like, Yeah, that was really tough. I didn't think I was going to get through that. Or, Yeah, that was difficult. Or, I really shouldn't minimize. And I should see the strength I had because if I got through those things in the past that were difficult and challenging, I can get through what I'm going through now. And I can just see their eyes light up a little bit and their shoulders relax and start creating some confidence and saying, You know what? I am stronger than I get myself credit for. And using these tools and changing my thoughts and having more balanced thoughts doing some problem solving, learning to communicate in a more assertive way, having healthy boundaries. All of these things can be really helpful. And that's what you're going to learn with learning CBT tools and what you're going to get from the podcast. So we just want to always stay grounded and remember what's going on with ourselves and what's going on around others and around the world, and that a lot of people are struggling, a lot of people can get better. Everybody has to pick their time and their place when they're ready to do the work and not to judge anybody when they're not, because we all probably can think back to times we really didn't feel like doing things or we maybe have said, Oh, I wish I got sober sooner, or I wish I started therapy sooner, or I wish I did whatever it is sooner, but you weren't ready.

When I meet people that say, Oh, I should have came in 20 years ago, I say, Well, you probably weren't ready 20 years ago. But now you are, and now you're going to get the most out of it because you're willing to do the work and be honest with yourself. So I just want to give credit where I get my information from. There's an online source called MyLift. It's M-Y-N-D-L-I-F-T. If you want to look it up and read a little more. But it shared that according to this year's report, released by the Mental Health of America, 21% of US adults are navigating at least one mental illness, which is about About 50 million people, 50 million people in the United States. Also, 12.1 million adults are struggling with serious thoughts of suicide. The mental health statistics for teens is similarly disheartening. Let's talk about some of the statistics of 2023 regarding mental health. That really illustrates the diagnosis is on the rise, particularly for adults aged 35 to 44. In fact, the prevalence of mental health diagnosis rose from 31% in 2019 to 45% in 2023. I'm not here to I don't want to bore you with numbers, but I just really want to talk about what is going on, and we really need to be aware of how common this is.

I'm hoping by you hearing this and understanding and even sharing this with others, that we can all talk about, Hey, what are your struggles? What have you been going through? Do you have family members you're struggling with that they might have mental health issues? How can we support each other? Because they said one in five US adults struggle with the mental health condition. One in five. So most likely we got somebody in our family if it's not us, or definitely a relative. And they say that 8.3% of US adults struggle with substance use disorder. 25% of people identify as being two or more races live with a mental illness, and 8% of US adults live with major depression. And then listen to this, 42.5 million US adults live with an anxiety disorder. So remember, I've talked to you guys about anxiety disorders. It's very broad. You can listen to my other podcast on anxiety. There's many different types of anxiety disorders, but that is a lot of people struggling. And also, suicide is the second leading cause of death in 10 to 14-year-olds. I'm like, How does a 10-year-old even know how to commit suicide?

Ten to 14-year-olds. I mean, it's just devastating news that we all really got to pay attention to and not just think, Oh, it's someone else or someone I don't know, or that's a sad story. This is way close to home, way close to home. And regarding with suicide, they also talk about that depression and suicidal thoughts are way more prevalent, and it's been on the rise in adults and teens. So the latest stats of that say that US adults with current depression rose from 13.8 to 17.8. In 2023. So that means about 20 million US adults experienced one or more major depressed this episode in 2023, and they average across men and women. These statistics are higher for women than for men. They also talked about the mental health stats in teens, about 16% of youth. They report having at least one major depressive episode over the past year, compared to only 9.7% in 2021. Then there's also an increase in the suicidal thoughts, as I mentioned, in teens, but also in adults in 2023, with nearly 2 million more people struggling with this, compared in 2021. Why are things getting worse? There's probably many, many, many, many, many reasons.

But I think the world's a pretty stressful place. I'm talking about these numbers from the US, but also globally. A lot more pressure, I'd say, at least not just with teens, but adults. I work with mostly adults. All the social media, wanting the likes, wondering why did they like What does that mean? What's behind that? Assuming that everybody has these wonderful lives that you see when they post these great pictures on social media. Some people post what's really going on, but most people it's just fun and vacations and laughing. For someone who's depressed or isolated or lonely, or doesn't feel like they're connected with other people, don't feel like they have friends or family, they look at this and the assumption is that that's what those people's lives are like all the time. They don't have it. What's wrong with them? And it's never going to get better. Those are all those hot thoughts that can happen just from social media, right? So things are much more out there. I know when I was growing up, there wasn't social media. I didn't have to know what everybody was doing every second of the day, which I'm glad.

But It's a reality in our lives today, and we need to be really mindful of that no matter what age you are, because I see people get sucked into it all the time. I see couples that have fought over jealousy with who's this, who's that. I've had to tell them, Go off your social media. This is ridiculousness. Let's have a relationship. Let's talk. Let's not just be on our phones or saying, Who's that person that liked your photo? Is that an old girlfriend? Is somebody you're seeing? I mean, this stuff, I hear you guys. Stress, anxiety, insecurity. There's so many reasons why the numbers have gone up. Covid did a lot to our society for sure. And a lot of people are still coming out of A lot of people ended up changing friends over dealing with that. We were more political about stuff. People are more angry with each other. Like I said, I can go on and on and on. I think school is harder nowadays in high school for kids than when I went to school, I mean, I'm just talking off top of my head right here with you guys, but there's so many more reasons.

Old traumas that come up, things get triggered. So what's going on, I think there's a lot more pressure and stress in the world as well. And People are having a really hard time coping with it. People don't want to talk about it. Again, people are ashamed, and people are now managing it with the best way for them, so they end up really just getting worse. So what they talk about in this article, again, from MyLift, that I share the name with you guys, but it says they talked about why is this getting worse? And as they were saying, as I just said, it's really hard to pinpoint just a single cause for why severe depression, suicidal thoughts, is rising. But there are some factors that the research has been able to show some responsibility for with the shift. I wanted to talk about those because I thought it was really interesting. So the first one they talk about is poverty. They said that their studies show that depression is more prevalent in people with low socioeconomic status. And even though the stats for 2023 still haven't emerged, there was an increase of 1.5 million people living below the poverty line from 2019 to 2022.

I know I don't have the number in front of me, but I have looked it up before in the poverty line. I don't even know how people survive on a daily basis if you actually looked at what that number is and just the cost of things all across the United States. It's not just certain cities that are more expensive. It seems like everywhere is expensive. That's a major issue, poverty. Second, which this did not surprise me at all, was loneliness. There was a report that came out recently by the US Surgeon General that found that social connection is declining over time, causing the prevalence of loneliness to increase. And the trend was already present before COVID. But as people were increasingly cut off from their support systems and their loved ones during the pandemic, loneliness and isolation just intensified. That can be very depressing as well. And I would listen to someone speak years and years and years and years ago. And I can tell you, his name was Patch Adams. It was a movie about him. He was this doctor with a clown nose. Maybe some of you guys remember. Probably 20 years ago, I saw him speak somewhere.

Back then, he said, The biggest problem in our world is loneliness. People not connected to each other. I always remembered that. I always remember when he said that. And it's so true. I can share a story that my mom was alive. She lived in a senior apartment, and it was great. It was a really nice place. They had an activities director, and we would spend a lot of time there. We would meet her neighbors. And at least once a week, they would have something downstairs in the lobby. You could get together. And it was always the same, maybe, I don't know, eight or 10 people. So many people didn't come out of their apartments. They were just so isolated. But the thing about the loneliness, I remember, is the people that lived there would always just talk about how great it was that me and my sister were always visiting my mom, and my My sister is even better than me, but we would sometimes take my mom to lunch, invite a neighbor, or my mom would keep her door open, and we would just kibba's with people coming by. I found out there were people living there that had kids in the next city never visited.

Never took the time to visit or were really impatient with them. As our parents get older, the dementia starts to set in. It can be frustrating, I understand, and you need more patience. But I remember thinking, these people are so lonely, these senior citizens. They're just in their home with the TV on and the door closed. I don't know why they didn't come out, but I also know people were not visiting. I remember thinking about it. It's so lonely and it's just so sad. It's not just with seniors, but that was my experience. There is a real loneliness. There's a real disconnection. Don't think loneliness is just being by yourself. People can live together and be lonely. People can live in the same house and no one feels connected. That's lonely as well. We've all been to a restaurant, we saw two people out together, and they're both on their phone not even talking, or they're just sitting there waiting for their food and not talking. People have lost that connection, or it's been so surfaced. They're not willing to really be authentic and share things they're struggling with, that people have lost things to just talk about.

That's lonely. We are wired. Our DNA is wired to connect with each other. If you don't feel like you're connecting with who you're with, go find, try, see if the person will respond, saying, Hey, I want to connect a little more. Can we about more personal things or things that are important to us, or let's go do stuff and get out of the house and do things that we both find that are fun, or what we used to do when we first started hanging out together. If that doesn't happen, go find some friends, go find a support group, go do something that brings you joy and connect with other people. But you need to be open to talk and introduce yourself. I think, especially if you haven't had that, you'll realize it's really been missing in your life and you don't have to be alone. But that's a real major issue when it comes to depression. Another reason is chronic diseases. They share that there's definitely an increase in chronic diseases within our population, and why this is partially due to more people living to old age. Certain risk factors are also partly responsible, meaning poor nutrition, lack of exercise, smoking, and chronic diseases are associated with having more depression symptoms, potentially due to the additional challenges and stress, having a medical condition that brings.

So that is definitely another reason why depression and suicides rising. There's two other things they talked about. One is sedentary lifestyles. So this is interesting to talk about because the research talked about that movement is vital for our physical and mental health. So we all know like, Oh, yeah, it's good. I should exercise, right? All these shoulds, right? Shoulda, woulda, coulda. But really moving and not being so sedentary, especially with COVID-19, a lot of people didn't get out as much because we had to isolate, people became more sedentary. And it definitely creates an increased risk of depression and anxiety. So I've talked about this in other podcasts, that don't go join the gym. Don't go tell yourself you're going to work out for an hour every day if you're not doing anything right now. Just go walk to the stop sign at the end of the corner. Then go maybe walk around the block. If you got a dog, Take your dog for a walk. See if there's anybody in the neighborhood you can meet up with and go walking with your friend. It doesn't have to be, quote, this exercise of the gym. Tons of people play pickleball.

Lots of people like to play soccer at all different ages. There's adult baseball teams. People like to ride their bikes outside in groups. Find something that brings you some joy. If it's just like, Oh, I got to go ride the bike at the gym. It's so boring. Or, I hate lifting weights or whatever. Go join a class instead. Zumba is super fun if you like to dance. You can make it creative and fun. It doesn't have to just be this drag, because if it's a drag, you're not going to stick with it. But it is so important to take care of your mental health, your physical health. We got to get moving and get grooving. When we sit around too much, we also think too much, and we all know what that's going to do to us. We're going to have all those 80 or 90,000 thoughts a day, most of them hot, just make us feel terrible, make us feel more depressed, more anxious. And then what's our behavior is to avoid and not do anything. So think about if you're not moving, what can you do to get moving? And then the other issue they talked about was low self-esteem in youth.

They say Today, more young people feel more pressure, as I was talking about earlier, because of social media, where constant comparisons can lead to low self-esteem and a higher risk of depression. So these are just some of the reasons. There's There's others, of course, that are causing possibly you or people you know or love to be more depressed and suicidal as well. I want to just share, if you do know someone that's suicidal or you're assuming, don't be afraid to just ask them directly. Do you feel suicidal? Do you want to kill yourself? Do you have an intent? How would you do it? People are scared, I understand, to go there, and they think, I don't want to give the person the idea, but you're not going to give them the idea. You want to be very direct, and you want to get them as much help as you can as soon as possible. I always tell everybody, all of us as mental health professionals, we're like, If you're suicidal or someone else, just go to the nearest emergency room and you can get some help and some direction there. But don't be afraid to ask.

If you're feeling that way, be honest with yourself, be honest with someone, and get yourself the help that you need because you can get better. They also talk about the increase in adults experience mental health conditions like major depression, and substance abuse can have a knock-on effect on their children, creating a web of mental health struggles and substance abuse from generation to generation. There is hope as always, regarding mental health treatment. They said in 2023, significantly more teens with major depression receive consistent care, which is excellent. It went from 40% to where it was only 27%, so that was really good. They said that they also saw slight decrease, or decrease, I'm sorry, slight decrease in the percentage of adults who didn't receive treatment for a diagnosis. Just went down a little bit. They said that that suggests that they were starting to acknowledge the true impact of mental health difficulties, and people were actively getting support for the struggles that they were going through. So that's really good. And people can get better. And again, there's so many resources. If therapy isn't something you're willing to do, something you can afford, if it's not a resource where you live, some people are in very rural areas where it's not even a resource.

You can always find someone online now through Telehealth. There's support groups. All the 12-step groups are free. There's lots of resources out there. It's not always easy to find them, but you can find them. If you can't find them, send me an email and I'll find them for you. I'd be more than happy to do that research to help you get connected. I connect people all the time in my emails to therapists all around the world. If they're looking for a CBT therapist, and just to give you guys some ideas that you do not have to be alone whatsoever. The other thing I mentioned early on when we started talking today was substance abuse, and I wanted to address that before we finished up today because that just causes everything to get worse, right? With the same study, MindLift, they were saying that in 2021, substance Since abuse rates in the US with adults range from about seven and a half to eight and a half %. Today, they've doubled, reaching 15 %. And if this wasn't obscane enough, about 93.5 %, 93.5 % of these people are receiving no treatment to support them. That was disturbing.

When I first read it, I was like, What? What is going on? They said that a lot of experts feel that the uncertainty and stress of COVID-19 and the confinement of lockdown may have caused the increase in substance use. Even though the long-term influence And so the pandemic is something that's going to still be determined through the years and research, that the study showed that they discovered 13% of Americans started or increased substance use as a result of their emotions because of COVID-19. So people didn't even have that issue before the pandemic. But being isolated and lonely, like I talked a few minutes ago, can really affect us greatly. And of course, there was a lot of anxiety with COVID. It was the unknown for everybody. We didn't know what was going to happen. When was it going to end? That was tough, right? When is it going to end? When can we get back to our lives? That just caused a lot of anxiety and uncertainty for a lot of people. They also talk in the study about drug use in youth, in particular, is seen as a really major concern, stating that a minimum of one in eight teenagers are using a form of illicit substances in 2023.

Here's some numbers. It says, 50% of teenagers have misused a drug on one or more occasions. Let me read that again, sorry. 50% of teenagers have misused a drug on one or more occasions. Misused, I believe, is drinking too much, overdoses, right? Here's a disturbing number two. 4,722 US youth aged 15 to 24 have died from an overdose in the past year. 4,722 youth have died from ages 15 to 24. Now, is that heartbreaking and devastating. And it's not just that they lost their lives, but the trickle effect of how that affects family members, parents, siblings, grandparents, relatives, friends. They're all grieving. They're all depressed. They're all trying to cope with that. It's a trickle down. It's just so sad that that many kids, which I'm guessing most of them, that was not their intent, but because of misuse, not understanding, not even knowing what they're taking, that they end up dying. To break it down a little more, they say about 65% of 12th graders and 25.6% of eighth graders have abused alcohol at least once. So the numbers are high. You think of an eighth grader, you're talking someone who's only 14 years old.

If you're 14 or older and listening to me, you might be like, Well, she's just a fuddy daddy. We We all party. We all do this. We all do that. You know what? I was your age, too, and sure, I partied. But now, looking back, you can see where sometimes I probably drink too much. Drugs are different today, too, than when I was younger. Marijuana, there's a lot more stuff in, and it's way more potent. People tell me all the time it's not the same. Fentanyl, we don't even know where that's in. How many people have died because they thought they were taking something in the fentanyl? Was it in their dead? I mean, it's just a scary, scary world right now regarding that. You may think you know how to handle drugs and alcohol, whatever you're doing, because we all think that when we're doing it. But I'm giving you some big numbers of people that have literally lost their lives. Why are more young people using drugs and alcohol? One of the main reasons is a coping mechanism. Drugs, alcohol, are usually seen as a form of escape and self-medicating. So young people might be substituting professional support for anxiety, stress, depression, other uncomfortable feelings by using drugs.

It's quick, they feel it works. It's a bandaid. Also another issue is social conformity. The research talks about saying that drugs can provide this short term reprieve, which is true from insecurities and self-esteem that a lot of youth today experience wanting to fit in, social pressure, right? And they start to experiment with substances, and some people get hooked. Not everybody does, but you don't know if that's going to be you. And that was not your intention when you just started. Nobody's plan is to be a drug addict or an alcoholic. I've never met anybody that their plan was. And when they got there, they were like, How did this happen? So we need to be really careful, really careful. I do have a piece of good news. It's not all stress. The research did show that anxiety that grew exponentially during COVID is actually going down a little bit. They were saying that during COVID, approximately 374 million people were struggling with anxiety disorders, and now it's 298 million, which is way too many still, right? But it has gone down a little bit. A lot of experts thought that the anxiety would stay high afterwards, but it's good to know that it is starting to come down a little bit now that the pandemic is a little behind us.

So from all this information, we can see that currently The statistics for mental health issues in the United States are still really challenging for many individuals, which affects them personally, but us, too, in our society, right? And it's super important for us to recognize the impact of social issues, issues with family, with work, financial, and for all of us to work together to create more of a supportive environment, more of an open environment where we can talk to each other and share our concerns and just share what we're going through. I can't tell you how many clients that I have taking medication through a psychiatrist, and they didn't want to tell anybody, and they decided to share, and they come back to the next session. They're like, I told my neighbor, I told my friend, I told my coworker, I'm taking, I don't know, maybe Zoloft, and they're like, They're taking the same thing. And I just... We have a laugh together because I say, I know there's so many people that are on medications. Just look at the numbers of descriptions out there. You're going to meet other people that are taking it. You don't have to be ashamed.

It's something you're taking now. It might be temporary, it might be forever if you decide to, and that's okay. But if that's That's what you need right now, that's what you need right now. And give yourself permission and be okay with that and don't be ashamed. Actually, be proud of yourself that you're doing whatever you can to be the best you can and to work through whatever issues you're working on. Let's get rid of this stigma. One thing I can tell you as a social work I get so frustrated whenever I hear the government making budget cuts, what's usually one of the first things that goes is social services. And I sit there and I scream at the television and I'm like, Why can't anyone understand the foundation for our society is social services, is making sure people have a roof over their head and food on their plate, and they're warm in the winter, and they can get the education they need. Just your basic needs, your basic rights. When people are doing well mentally, people will be more successful, people will be able to hold down their jobs, be able to pay their bills.

It's a trickle effect. And it's always the first thing that goes. They're thinking, Well, they can do with less. Well, they don't really need that. They'll figure it out. We all need to be there for each other and to not add more issues. People, like I mentioned earlier with the poverty level, if you're taking away social services, people are going into poverty. People are living paycheck to paycheck. That is stressful. That's anxiety-provoking, especially for parents knowing, I want to feed my kids. I want to have a roof over their head. I don't want to sleep in a car with them or go to the shelter. It's the foundation, the foundation of people being well is getting your basic needs met first. So if you have the opportunity to vote on legislation or speak to someone or write a letter, when you hear things are getting cut, it will affect all of us because we all affect each other, right? When we are working with people that are struggling, our friends are struggling, it affects We're struggling. We feel bad. We want to look at the world as this bigger society, not just me, me, me, and what am I going through and what do I need, right?

The better all of us are doing, the better we each do. And as a social a social worker. I know that in my heart, and that's why I came a social worker, because I just had that feeling, that connection, that understanding of the more I can help people, the better it's going to be for everybody. Let's I'll give people some humanity and some humility and help them with their basic needs. Because when you don't, you end up going through all the things I talked about today. I know working together, we can make a difference. It's not just a cliché. So think about your life. If you're doing pretty well or if you've gotten support in the past, how can you give back? And volunteering, maybe somewhere where you got help, Any volunteer work and being there for others, donating certain things, like a food bank or whatever, whatever you find where you can give back on some level, that is a great place to start. I think that's an important part of our mental health is we all need to feel like we can give back on some level and make a difference. Because it is true that when people give, they get a lot more than when they receive.

And giving also gets us outside of ourselves. When we're struggling with depression, anxiety, I know it's very normal to get stuck in that me, me, me mode and thinking about our problems and feeling like we can't go forward. And when people volunteer and they come back and share what they did, it really makes a big difference, a really big difference. So think Think about, if you're not already, what can you do? If you're already involved in something, share that with friends and invite people to come with you one day and see how you can give back and start to feel that joy. That's what it means about doing it together, not just hoping things will get better because hope is not a plan. But what can you do? How can you feel empowered that, yeah, I've had my struggles or I am struggling, but I'm still going to give back a little bit because that's actually going to help me feel better? Right? And if it's hard to get moving, just remember my mantra, you guys. Make decisions based on what's best for you, not how you feel. And that's the first step to get going.

And use your CBT tools. What are you thinking? What are your hot thoughts that are getting in the way of going and getting help for yourself, or reaching out, or being honest with somebody? If you're having issues with drugs or alcohol, instead of reaching next time for that drink or that drug, whatever it looks like for you, reach out to somebody and say, I think this might be a problem. I want to just talk about it. Why am I relying on other things instead of addressing my anxiety? Am I drinking so I feel calmer? It takes the edge off. Am I smoking marijuana on a daily basis just to help me sleep and feel calmer. So I don't have to think about my world or my life, my depression. What's the reason that you're using other substances? Because it's a huge problem, and it's just growing, and I don't think it's a place anybody really wants to be. So thanks for being with me today. This is a topic I could talk and talk and talk about, but I I just wanted to have us all stop and think about, we are all in this together.

Mental health is a real issue. It's still a stigma, sadly enough, and we're the only ones that can make those changes so that it isn't a stigma. It's seen as any other medical issue that people talk about freely all the time.

You know how you can find me. My website is mycognitivebehavioraltherapy.com.

You can find me on Instagram at My CBT Podcast and under Dr. Julie Osborn on Facebook.

Please keep sharing your thoughts, your concerns, your questions. I love hearing from you. Please pass this along to others who may find me on Instagram at www.mycognitivebehavioraltherapy.com.

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And I will repeat myself by saying, make decisions based on what's best for you, not how you feel.