Recovery In Action | Summer 2019

I had heard that relapse is often apart of recovery I never imagined that I, however, would relapse. I had survived sexual, emotional, and physical abuse. I made it through major bouts of depression, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts. I grieved many losses including the death of my youngest sister. I made it through many parenting trials of medical issues, autism, and violent outbursts with my sons. I had worked hard to find my worth. Through faith, support, and therapy, I found the light in the darkness and my world became full of light and joy. I was strong. Then, my world was shattered again and I found myself back in the darkness.

Moving Towards

by Jill Davis

Do you remember ‘super balls’? These small, concentrated spheres of rubber zigzagged erratically when they hit something, and catching them was a comedic effort. This is how the emotional dance I engaged in with anxiety and depression looked. This dance, however, didn’t happen right away. Before, it was a chaotic dance, which spun randomly with every bounce.

This book offers a detailed overview of CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy, which helps people cope with a variety of disorders and problems. Most of us believe that circumstances and feelings create our thoughts, but CBT says that it’s the other way around – our thoughts lead to our feelings and behaviors. The great thing about CBT is that it gives us power – not always a lot, but some, because we can choose the way we think.

CBT can help with anxiety, including obsessions, phobias, post-traumatic stress, and panic. It also helps with addictions, body-image problems, depression, low self-esteem, and even anger. A person learns to identify what negative feeling they are experiencing, and then look back and identify what thought led to that feeling. Then they can change that thought to a more helpful, rational one. If they do that enough, the new thought will bring about a new, more pleasant feeling.

But it’s not always easy, and sometimes it takes awhile, so don’t give up! The book has many helpful worksheets to guide the person through their journey through therapy. The book gives detailed descriptions of how CBT works with various situations. It introduces
the ABC’s:

• A is the activating event
• B is the belief about the activating event
• C is the consequence
• D is the dispute (or how a person changes their thinking)
• E is the effect (how well it worked)

The ABC’s have helped me with my schizophrenia as I have used them with the voices and false beliefs.

I really liked this book and I highly recommend it to nearly everybody. We all have negative thoughts and what another book I have read calls “misbeliefs,” and we all have painful feelings at times. CBT helps us overcome these things and be more rational in our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.