Speaker 1: You just broke up with your partner, you had an argument with your best friend, you got let go from your job, a loved one gets sick. At some point in everyone's life they may feel sad or gloomy. For most people it's a fleeting feeling like a passing storm. Maybe the rain clouds clear, the sadness fades away. For me though, the sadness didn't go away, it went on for weeks. I felt awful and I didn't know what to do. My symptoms felt like I was being knocked down over and over again. I felt hopeless. I lost interest in things I normally enjoyed and I really didn't have much of an appetite anymore. I finally talked to my doctor and he encouraged me to see a mental health professional, you know like a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist talked to me about my symptoms, how long they had been going on and how they were impacting my life. She ended up prescribing me medication to help with my symptoms and talked about the potential side effects. She also explained that it's important to approach treatment for mental illness using a wide variety of tools and resources. So in addition to my medication treatment, I also started meeting with a therapist. My therapist introduced me to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or CBT. CBT is another treatment option for people with mental illness. CBT is an evidence-based treatment which means it is based on scientific research and clinical expertise. CBT focuses on relationship between thoughts, feelings, beliefs and behaviours. Negative or inaccurate thoughts are challenged and restated in logical, positive terms. When my psychiatrist explained my diagnosis, I felt hopeless, like I couldn't find a solution to help put the pieces of my life back together. As I continued to learn about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, it became clear that I was having a lot of negative and irrational thoughts that did not match up to facts. I would say things such as, my boss hates me, she's always giving me more work, I'll never get that raise. I'd like to hang out with my friends, but I'll just bum everyone out, I don't want them to get mad at me. I used to see things as one big mess, I'd look at my house and get overwhelmed, I'd say to myself, I'm such a slob, I can't handle this. I was quick to call myself names, believe the worst of myself, and downplay any positive parts of my life. I'd get discouraged and avoid dealing with my problems. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy helped me learn how to rethink and re-evaluate how I saw the world. CBT taught me how my negative thoughts would team up with strong emotions and shut me down to further depress me. I can see clearly now that I was regularly interpreting most things in my life in a very negative manner. By learning to recognise extreme negative thinking, I was able to change my thoughts into positive statements such as, my boss gives me the important tasks because she believes in me, I know I can handle things. Taking this approach gave me the confidence to talk to my boss about getting a raise. We had a great discussion and she told me the steps I could take to advance my career. Little by little my therapist helped me realise the unproductive thoughts and behaviours I was creating. CBT also refocused me towards problem solving techniques. I began facing my fears using positive reinforcement techniques and in time I started to calm myself on my own. They're my friends, they love me, being myself is all they've ever wanted. Cognitive behavioural therapy helped me learn how to stop attacking myself and instead think more productively. By changing my thoughts and setting logical goals, things started to get easier to manage. I learned to see things as individual parts that I dealt with one at a time. Just start with the clothes, and when that's done, move on to the dishes, just a little at a time and you'll get it done. By taking ownership of my feelings and thoughts, my behaviours changed for the better. At times, I didn't think my symptoms would get better, but I kept going, I fought back. I stopped allowing myself to use negative thinking about myself to go unchecked. I've taken a fearless inventory of myself and through hard work I've been clearer in my thoughts and feelings. I'm proud to say that I am on the road to taking my life back. The cognitive behavioural therapy skills I learned, along with my medication, have helped me to put the pieces together. It's not always easy, but I now know that I can take the steps to handle problems when they come along. By learning more about CBT and how it can help me, I feel more put together and healthy. That's something to feel good about.