A cognitive distortion is an irrational thought caused by stress or anxiety that filters regular thoughts to exaggerate the negatives and minimize the positives. They can feel so true in the moment, but with some help, you can learn how to identify them and work to understand and work through them.

There are therapists trained specifically to teach DBT skills, actually! They may teach you one at a time and apply the skills to your life with you, or assign specific chapters to you. What works best for me (Bee) is a mixture of talk- and DBT- therapy, so I talk through how I’m feeling and then begin to look at what could be rethought.

There are SO MANY more skills! Those mentioned in the booklet are just some of the most common!

Haha! My name is Bee and I’m a freshman in college. I struggled with an eating disorder in high school as a result of the way social media made me feel about myself and my body, and learning about DBT skills and the dangers of social media has helped me immensely in my recovery!

My partner is Sam Kane-Gerard, a current graduate student of Counseling Psychology at the University of Baltimore and a member of the Mental Health Work Group at Fairplay’s Screen Time Action Network.

Together, we worked to create what we needed when we were younger— a way to understand social media and how it makes us feel!

Sam is an adult partner and Bee is a youth leader at NextGen Connect at FairPlay. We were supported every step of the way by NextGen. Not only did they provide funding, they offered endless advice and encouragement and introduced several guest speakers to educate us more on the issues caused by excessive screen use. Want to get involved as a youth leader or a mentor? Check them out! 

https://screentimenetwork.org/next-gen

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By checking out this link! 

https://fairplay.salsalabs.org/nextgenconnect/index.html 

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