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Name that distorted cognition (thought/perception)

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Well my head lies to me so much. My thoughts, feelings, perceptions keep giving me faulty information, given to me by my abusers, so I struggle with feelings of intense shame, humiliation etc that I can't quite tap into but are the underlying basis for a lot of my dysfunctional behaviours and maladaptive coping mechanisms. Darn it! I am going to have to feel feelings. I am so not a fan!
 
Well my head lies to me so much. My thoughts, feelings, perceptions keep giving me faulty information, g...

Ms Spock- I never saw my actions/feelings as faulty information but the way you described it was perfect. It sheds a whole new light on how I see things and how I relate to myself. From now on I'm going to just call myself out on my own shit and ask myself "is this faulty information talking?" I never contextualise myself and this is my biggest problem.

Sorry for the random post but I wanted to say thanks, this has genuinely helped me. Thank you for sharing.
 
Ms Spock- I never saw my actions/feelings as faulty information but the way you described it was perfect. It sheds a whole new light on how I see things and how I relate to myself. From now on I'm going to just call myself out on my own shit and ask myself "is this faulty information talking?" I never contextualise myself and this is my biggest problem.
You are SO not alone!

Sorry for the random post but I wanted to say thanks, this has genuinely helped me. Thank you for sharing.
My posts are wildly random at times, come by every day and note your distorted cognitions, how you did and did not call your self on your own shit. The more the merrier, really, that is what the thread is here for - so people can join in, if they feel like it.
 
  1. All or nothing thinking -- You see things in black and white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.
  2. Over-generalization -- You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
  3. Mental filter -- You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it so exclusively that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that colors the entire beaker of water.
  4. Disqualifying the positive -- You reject positive experiences by insisting they "don't count" for some reason or other. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.
  5. Jumping to conclusions -- You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion. (Involves mind-reading and fortune-telling.)
  6. Magnification and minimization -- You exaggerate the importance of things, or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny.
  7. Emotional reasoning -- You assume that your emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are, as in "I feel it, therefore it must be true."
  8. Should statements -- You try to motivate yourself with "should" and "should not," as if you have to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything.
  9. Labeling and mislabeling -- This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself.
  10. Personalization -- You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event which, in fact, you were not primarily responsible for.
Going for 10 out of 10. My distractability is just out there.
 
@Ms Spock I love the phrase ruminative rabbit hole.

I was there and was pretty much hitting all of those.

I recently visited someone close to me with severe mental health issues and it really scared me into sorting myself out. I feel a little bad for saying that but it's true. I've been doing ok since.
 
Any wake up call that we listen to is really good @I am not Spider Man

I am having to do the disputing of my distorted cognitions - the thoughts, the perceptions and the feelings hour in and hour out at this time. I realise now what they mean when they say about how a passing sad thought can lead to a cascade of depressive thinking and feeling. I am only just getting that.
 
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  1. All or nothing thinking -- You see things in black and white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.
  2. Over-generalization -- You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
  3. Mental filter -- You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it so exclusively that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that colors the entire beaker of water.
  4. Disqualifying the positive -- You reject positive experiences by insisting they "don't count" for some reason or other. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.
  5. Jumping to conclusions -- You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion. (Involves mind-reading and fortune-telling.)
  6. Magnification and minimization -- You exaggerate the importance of things, or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny.
  7. Emotional reasoning -- You assume that your emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are, as in "I feel it, therefore it must be true."
  8. Should statements -- You try to motivate yourself with "should" and "should not," as if you have to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything.
  9. Labeling and mislabeling -- This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself.
  10. Personalization -- You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event which, in fact, you were not primarily responsible for.
I am responsible for my brother's suicide. He was a good person who was suffering and I told him he had to leave. If I had let him stay he would be alive. Nobody cares about him dying but me.

Ok I see personalization, jumping to conclusions, should statements, and overgeneralization. I loved my brother, but he was drinking and being abusive to my son and I. If I had let him stay, it wouldn't have helped anyone. He was determined to kill himself, with 2 serious attempts in the last 8 months. I can understand why he would chose that, but I found the body and added another trauma. He wasn't a good and caring person at the end. In reality, I feel relieved that it finally happened, even though I'm ashamed of that, and our home is much more peaceful. I was angry with him before he killed himself, but that doesn't mean I have to blame myself.
 
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