Episode #75 

Genetic Testing & Mental Health

In this special episode, I share some really important information I recently learned about cancer.

Genetic testing has opened up a whole new world of predictive possibilities.

How does that fit into mental health?

Can you predict certain personality disorders?

And how can you positively reframe mental illness?

I also discuss these fascinating questions in this episode.

Click to listen now!

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Full Episode Transcript

Hi, my name is Dr. Julie Osborn. 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 and learn the tools that will help you be happy and feel like you can manage things that come your way. So I first want to start off by sharing in a really nice email I received from one of my listeners.

I appreciate you guys taking the time to email me, give me good feedback, your questions, your ideas. I really appreciate you sharing with others. As always, my intention is to get CBT tools out to as many people as possible. So you're helping me do that as well. So this was an email that I got on my Instagram where you can find and follow me at My CBT Podcast.

So this is Gail, listening from Dublin, Ireland:

“Your podcast is fantastic and I've enjoyed listening to all episodes and now repeats. I'm completely inspired by your words and just wanted to let you know how much they've helped me. My sister is a brilliant social worker, completely burned out by her job.

She was hospitalized by an illness and overall had a very bad year. She is now on the mend and I have her listening to your podcast also. She too, agrees. You're a very wise woman. We're both massive fans.

I just want to say thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We'll continue to share your podcast and hope you have a wonderful holiday. All my best, Gail.”

So thank you, Gail. And thank you to your sister.

And I'm glad she's on the mend. And again, I hope that you can all find some podcasts that touch you or give you some tools that maybe you've been looking for can shift how you're thinking about yourself, others, or the world. I mean, that's what CBT does for all of us. So I'm really grateful for that. So today I wanted to give you a little bit of update on me and kind of share some news I have regarding my recovery with my ovarian cancer diagnosis.

And hopefully it might be helpful to you and give you some different ideas on how to think about yourself in the world. So let me first say I'm tapping this in like the middle of January. So as of now, it's been two months that I finished my chemotherapy. I'm really feeling great. I'm just really got good energy.

I swim as one of my main exercises, and I'm back full throttle doing that, which is wonderful. I feel so grateful on days if I don't want to go, I remind myself that I get to swim. I don't have to swim, right? And all my tests look good. And my leg, if you recall, if you listen to any of my podcasts regarding my journey, they pinched a nerve after surgery, but I'm about 85% back and I'm still doing PT, and I believe that it's going to get back 100%.

My doctors originally said when I was in the house for about six months, which at the time was a little too much to take in, but they're probably right on track because it's been five months now since I had my surgery. So I'm just doing my exercises religiously and everything I can to get my leg back 100%. So I can tell you that all of your prayers and your well wishes and your good energy, I know made a huge difference in my recovery, and I'm really grateful for that. That's my update regarding that. But what I wanted to share with you, which I thought was really interesting and I thought it's just really good information to get out, is that I went and got genetic testing, which Dr.

Castanet of my gynecological oncologist really wanted me to get after my surgery. And I didn't exactly understand the whole realm of it because he said it could really be helpful in the future. But now I do understand and that's what I want to share with you guys. So basically your cancer can be genetic or it can be environmental. Those are the two things my geneticist explained to me.

It's very interesting about how our DNA works, and I won't get into all that because that's not my scope of practice. But you can read about with genetics and how different cells work to really fight off cancer throughout our lives. And when they aren't working right, if it's a genetic issue or even environmental, our body just isn't fighting off the cancer as well. And that's when things can kind of fall apart. So I got my genetic testing and Lo and behold, I do have, I guess you might call it a genetic mutation.

So what I have is called Lynch Syndrome, Lynch. And because of that is why I had ovarian cancer, because when I got diagnosed, not that it has to be in your family, but I was kind of surprised. I don't have a lot of cancer in my family, more like heart issues. But I just was kind of baffled, like why did I get ovarian cancer? So now I understand why.

Because of the genetics and why it's important going forward, which I understand now is that when you have something like this, it increases your risk of other cancers. So the main cancers for Lynch Syndrome are female cancers, colon cancer, and if you're a man, it would be increased risk for prostate cancer as well as obviously colon. So there's a few other cancers I have to be careful and get scanned for as well, but their risks are much lower. My main things were female cancers, which I don't have to worry about now because I had a full hysterectomy and there's nothing there anymore. And the colon cancer goes up 60%.

So for the rest of my life, I have to get colonoscopies one for every two years and obviously getting scans. And then all the cancers seem to be like GI and down so prostate, bladder, those kinds of cancer. So I will be seeing other specialists to find out how often it gets scanned. But the other important thing to know, having the syndrome, which my doctor explained was and again, I shared this in my other podcast, but they kept saying for my kind of cancer, I was going to have between three and six chemo sessions. And I kept not understanding fully, like, what's three to six?

How do you make that decision? What's going on? So for me, I had the three. One reason was I have my blood work done, and my numbers are really as low as they could possibly be, which is a good sign. And because I was stage one and my doctor felt like three was enough to address my issues, and that more isn't always enough.

I had a lot of people that have had cancer in the past, and I really respect their opinion, but they were like, do all the Chemos, do all the Chemos? We want to make sure this never comes back. And I'm a very holistic person. And I was looking at the whole picture like chemo, really. As my one friend said, it's like a blow torch in your body really affects you in many different ways.

So my bone marrow, which I knew ahead of time, was going to get knocked down pretty hard from the chemo. And that was another concern that my doctor had. You don't want to keep damaging your bone marrow because that can cause other complications. And now that I know I have this lynch syndrome, he said, God forbid you ever have cancer again. The chemo may not work if we keep going because we're damaging the bone marrow.

So because you have a higher risk of serving cancers, you want to make sure you can do the treatments that you may need in the future. Hopefully, that's not an issue I'll ever have to deal with. But just in case, I'm like, oh, that makes sense. That's why they're talking about the future. My other thing I thought of was like, wow, if I had this information 510 years ago and I realized that there was such a higher risk for female cancers, I always just said, I'll have hysterectomy.

Now, why would I wait? Right? So I was talking to my doctor about that. I said, the amount of money my insurance spent on me with surgery, eight days in the hospital, my recovery, my PT, everything that goes along with this, there's no way we'll compare to whatever this genetic test costs. I don't know what it costs.

I do know it's expensive. I know insurance companies don't just let you go get a blood test. You have to talk to a geneticist. They need to get your family history. They really need to know, like, there's a reason we're doing this.

But I thought, if everybody had this information, you can make decisions based on what will be best for you and talking with your doctor. And I'm thinking all the cancers that might be avoided because we know this is higher risk for this or for that, right? So I'm grateful. I know it's kind of a catch 22. I wish I didn't have this, but I'm glad I know I have this and then this goes along also with my family, right?

So I have daughters, so they need to go get tested. Hopefully they didn't get it. Hopefully it's 50 50, right? So they need to find out if they have it. I shared it with my cousins.

I personally not sure if it's on my mom or my dad's side. So I told both sides of the family, I say, hey, it's up to you if you want to get tested. But if you do and you find out, you can go forward and make decisions. And because mine was a full genetic test, everyone else doesn't have to do that. They just need to get tested for what I have.

So I'm just wanting to share this information because this is the kind of stuff I like to know about. I like people sharing information that really does affect my life. So if you want to get genetic testing, you can always talk to your doctor. If they feel there's enough history, maybe your insurance company will cover it again. I don't know what it would be out of pocket, but it's just kind of good information to have, I think.

So I wanted to pass that along. When Dr. Keston met with me, he said, are you going to do a podcast on this? And I'm like, yes, I am. I want to share this because it's really enlightening and it's going to maybe save my kids lives down the road if they have this because they can get scanned early on and watch for different cancers.

And a lot of God forbid I ever had colon cancer. It's a very treatable cancer when you catch it early. So all of that being said, I'm glad I had the test. I'm glad I know. And then I can make my own personal choices that are best for me.

So I never had this information. People get genetic testing. I really didn't know and understand everything that I understand now. So I hope this is helpful. If you're someone who has had cancer or maybe a parent, go to your doctor and tell them I want to get my genetic testing done because there is family history and I want to know if it was genetic or if it's environmental.

So I'll leave you with that information to do it as you will. But it's good for you to know. It's good to share with others. We all just need to get more educated. Most of us obviously are not doctors, right?

And we don't want to make assumptions that we know because we don't. But this is really black and white information in concrete and go find out. I know my dad had prostate cancer, but he never had genetic testing. I don't know if it said it wasn't done back then. I don't really know when genetic testing started.

I have not looked that up. But I thought if he had it done and it was on his side, I would have known. And again, I could have made earlier choices and I would have had to go through what I went through. So it is important. Speaking of genetics, I thought I would kind of weave this into mental health.

When I meet with new clients, I always ask family history with mental health. Right. It's one of my questions. Anybody else? Aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, siblings, parents that had any mental health issues?

Because a lot of times you can see connections for sure. There's not always an exact connection. But if you have more severe, like schizophrenia, bipolar, those can definitely be connected through your genetics. Not always depression, not always anxiety. Some people have that just because of circumstances in their lives or not.

Right. So there's a lot of science behind it. There's a lot we don't know when it comes to psychology regarding the brain, they're always learning new things. But again, things aren't just black and white. Some people will have certain mental health in their family illnesses.

Right. Or diagnoses, I should say. And nobody else may have it. Right. Or they might.

So it's important. We don't want to get stuck on is it genetic? Right. Because a lot of people are like, where did it come from? Why did I get it?

And you can make some assumptions. You can look at a family tree and say, yeah, there's a possibility. Sometimes things pass, skip generations. And I really always share with my clients. Also in the same scope is not to get too attached to your diagnosis.

I know I've talked about this in other podcasts, but if you have anxiety, if you have depression, you're not a depressed person. You're not an anxious person. You're a person who has depression. You're a person who has anxiety. Right.

You don't want to get too attached because then it's a very negative label. It's a very negative stigma you're kind of giving yourself. And what does that mean if I'm a depressed person? I mean, where do I have room for happiness? Right?

How am I going to get better if that's like my label and I've compared it in the past. I know if someone says you're diabetic, you'll say, oh, Hello, I'm a diabetic person. You say, oh, yes, I have diabetes. And then you manage your diabetes, hopefully, right. Just like you want to manage your mental health issues.

So when it comes to mental health, genetics, it's hard to really pinpoint it. You can look at history and say maybe, but even if it's in your family, what are you going to do for yourself? And that's where I want your focus to be. Right? The way I'm going to think about this, my CBT tools is, okay, you know what?

I am depressed. I am anxious. I'm overly worried. I have insomnia. Whatever my symptoms are, whatever I'm struggling with, what can I do to get better, even if it is from some of my family genetics?

Right. And that only takes you so far. It's just like when I tell people if they're going to go on medicine, medicine definitely has its place. But psychiatric medicine is not a cure. Sometimes they can get you out of that black hole to be able to do therapy and to be able to do things that are good for yourself, but it's not a cure.

So even if you know that, oh, yeah, I got this from my mom. Okay, now we know what am I going to do so I can be the best I can be? What are some choices I'm going to make? Whatever might be holistic choices. It could be with diet, maybe you choose not to drink, you know, certain things you want to eat that could be part of it.

And then what am I going to do about, say, therapy or learning CBT tools that I know based on research can help me get better, and then I need to start practicing that. So again, regardless of where it came from, you have control over creating the life that you choose to have and to be as healthy as you choose to be. And it definitely takes some discipline. I talk to a lot of my clients about when we finish up therapy because CBT is really considered a short term therapy. It's not supposed to be forever.

You want to get well and move on with your life, right? That's what therapy is about. So I tell my clients, once you're done with therapy, don't go put your mind over mood book on the bookshelf and just say, okay, I'm done with that. It's maintenance, right? We got to work on ourselves every single day.

And even if you're not conscious of it, hopefully by making good choices, by exercising, by getting enough sleep, by having healthy people in your life, you are working on your mental health every day, even if you're not really labeling it that. So the maintenance is really important. Again, this goes back to me making choices for myself. So I'm going to go invest time and do the therapy, and I'm going to do the homework. I'm going to practice the tools.

I'm going to maybe listen to Dr. Julie CBT podcast. Right. And Hone things in and ask questions and send emails and understand more. And listen to the podcast over and over if you want to.

Right. There's support groups out there. There's so much stuff for mental health nowadays. So I'm going to decide what's going to be best for me. And then I'm going to create a daily routine, that I'm taking care of myself well, and I'm checking in with myself.

And that just because I know that I'll records really well in my head and I can do them automatically. Maybe sometimes I'll take time to write them down, or maybe I'll start writing my gratitude list that I've been wanting to do. So lots and lots of different things. So regardless of why you may have mental health issues, the question is what are you going to do about it? And what kind of life do you want to create?

I believe that when you get to a good place in your life, you can say, I have the life I have because this is what I've created. Nobody just dropped good things at your doorstep. You have worked on the life that you have. And if you don't like the life that you have, then you can change that because you also have that control to make that decision. So when it comes to the way we think about ourselves, our lives, our futures, right?

We need to have clear thoughts, balanced thoughts on what's best for me, what works for me. If I don't know what works for me, I'm going to try some different stuff out. Maybe if you have people in your life that have overcome their mental health issues or manage them well, you know, go talk to and say, what did you do? What was helpful for you? Let them be your role models, maybe even your mentor.

So I'm attracted to the life that you have, and I know that you used to struggle with anxiety where I'm at, and I want to get past it. And Doctor Julie said I can, so I want to make that happen. So I hope this was helpful. It's kind of a quick podcast. I want to share about the medical genetics stuff that I learned about myself with my cancer diagnosis.

And then I thought, this is a good thing to talk about regarding mental health, because again, a lot of people get caught up in, Why me? Where did I get it? I'm pissed off. I got it from my mom, I'm pissed off. I got it from my dad or my grandfather, whoever.

Don't get stuck, you know, let's take action and let's go forward and let's create the life that you're desiring because it's out there for you if you choose to do the work.

So thanks for being here with me today. Again, I hope this was helpful. You can take something from it if you're struggling with getting started. Just listening to the podcast is a good start. Go get the Mind Over Mood If you look at my podcast, you click them down on you scroll down a little bit, you will actually see a link for the Mind Over Mood book.

So you don't have to worry about whether you're getting the right one. And just get started with reading the chapters, doing the exercises and you will start feeling some relief by using the tools to help get rid of the symptoms you may be struggling with. That's just the place to get started. Reach out for therapy if you're having a hard time finding a CBT therapist, you can write to me. I can give you some direction regarding that as well.

You can follow me on Facebook and Dr. Julie Osborne. My website is MyCognitiveBehaviouralTherapy.com.

As I mentioned earlier, you can follow me on Instagram at My CBT Podcast. Lots of ways to reach out and contact me with lots of resources.

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Take good care of yourself and remember my mantra: to make decisions based on what's best for you, not how you feel.

Take care, bye.