Real 'Bold Type' Abbe Dembowitz Fought Anxiety And Learned To Love Herself

Abbe Dembowitz overcame debilitating anxiety to help herself and others, by encouraging people to replace negative thoughts with positive affirmations.  

“I think all throughout my life, I had had that tape playing and it was just sort of this really uncomfortable thing in the back of my mind, but I didn’t really do anything about it,” she explained. “Professors and, you know, parents, and parents’ friends telling you have so much potential you could be so great. I never believed it within myself. And I was never able to finish a project, finish a paper, get through anything.”

Dembowitz took a break from college to seek treatment and said a therapist told her, “you’ll never be able to change you first thought but you have the opportunity to change the second and third.” She became eager to carry that philosophy everywhere she went. Now she is a student at Georgetown Law School and has taken her positive project to 20 schools and organizations. Along the way Dembowitz has helped hundreds of people tackle pervasive negative thoughts.  

“I think it’s really unfortunate that we have to have people that are no longer here be the mouthpiece for mental health,” she explained. “And what I think our goal and our mission is, is to help people before it gets to that point.”