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Core Beliefs & Counters

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Core Belief: I deserve to die.

Counter: It's not it. It's I don't deserve to suffer // truth sifted through trauma.

Core Belief: I deserve to suffer.

Counter: And *that* one is back then thinking cemented... as the full thought was: I do, *mine* don't, so come on, mind *me*, motherf*cker.

Core Belief: Never protecting people enough.

Counter: Trying IS protection. Not trying is the coward guilt shame hate bag of wonder issues ya aiming for.
 
Sometimes I feel core beliefs are so insidious and hard to articulate them in truly understandable or coherent language. They can be so organic depending when your body recorded them...so if you do not know your core beliefs...you can work backwards from behaviors...

This may not be accurate for obvious many reasons just like working from cognitive level of core belief thought but by trying you may end up in the right territory especially if you are doing this with a trusted person who is able to observe you ( a great friend or safe partner or a therapist). I forget to add or journaling and reading them back and recording the feelings the secondary feelings of reading them again.

I will give you and example that worked for me:
When I am speaking in groups, I would preface my opinion as if this should not be taken serious or it is not good already.

I do this whenever I feel others are more intelligent or higher or have more information (this was subconcious feeling that I came aware of after...not pre-notion feelings)

I worked it backwards to see the feeling from my body....I felt small, inferior, I did not want to be noticed cause if I am noticed and found right, ooh, I may be beaten. I kept going until at the end, I felt threatened.

Even writing this brings up the feeling of threatened now. and I resonated with that cause I know my past.

I hope this helps you out.
 
One of my core beliefs is that I'm a bad person because I've acted in a bad way and made bad decisions whilst being really unwell.

I guess the counter should be that I don't deserve to suffer because people were really horrible to me and I just did the best I could at the time. I deserve a good quality of life regardless of past experiences.
 
One of my core beliefs is that I'm a bad person because I've acted in a bad way and made bad decisions whilst being really unwell.

I guess the counter should be that I don't deserve to suffer because people were really horrible to me and I just did the best I could at the time. I deserve a good quality of life regardless of past experiences.
Don't know why that posted four times. Sorry?
 
Don't know why that posted four times.

(Chuckles) Maybe because it's an important one to note? ;)

I emphatize, a great deal lot... But who you were or were pushed to be, is not who you are, or will be in the future.

The decision to be different is more than past bad choices IMO.
 
Core Belief: Don't bother teammates with personal crap, you can sort it.

Counter: It's not bother if it keeps them in the dark, and messes us as a team.

It's also not personal if it compromises my ability to think straight.

I struggle with this!

Slightly similar core belief:

Core Belief: Don't bother best friend with personal crap, I can sort it out and it's my responsibility not hers.

Counter: It's not a bother if it holds our friendship boundary and keeps me from being too needy or an unnecessary burden.
Counter: Best friend isn't equipped to understand all my personal crap, and would worry unnecessarily if divulged, so personal crap can just be considered private (not a secret or something that brings shame) and shared with only those who understand.
 
(Chuckles) Maybe because it's an important one to note? ;)

I emphatize, a great deal lot... But who you were or were pushed to be, is not who you are, or will be in the future.

The decision to be different is more than past bad choices IMO.

I agree that the decision to be different is more than past bad choices...much more. In my case, I think the decision to be different, stems from my basic core personality somehow able to know that what I was living in wasn't right in some way and I retained a relatively intact value system. I was different from the dysfunctional system I came from. My differences rocked their boat, their mirage of a good life-and my being able to see what was real and open my mouth about it made me more and more different from them. From the very get-go I didn't ever feel I fit in with the dysfunctional family I came from, and on occasion, I even pointed it out (a bad co-dependent-and when you do that.....it's not endearing or supportive of their way of life).....all it got me was being the outcast-they set me apart as different......but in reality....as I think about it, in the end, I set myself as the outcast knowing that I didn't fit with the ways and beliefs in which I was brought up. In being the outcast, I used to feel different-unwanted-and woeful-just wanting to be and feel loved. Through both marriages, I did my best to keep the boat from ever rocking disillusioning myself into thinking I could fix things, and life would turn out rosey...this time....but in the end, I became the boat rocker, just like in my family of origin, and left both of those relationships....yeah....I repeated my childhood in both marriages....

Living alone, I can now, because I'm not caught up in dysfunction, see that I'm different in a good way.....a way with better values and insight and I treat myself and others more gently, am more flexible and accepting, and there are no implicit or explicit rules living alone, and no external criticism except what I tell myself.....This allows me to be really okay with being different...because different can be good......it is really good....different can have a positive connotation........and in believing this way, it allows me to let go of the shame I carried for being different for so very long for not fitting in, not being accepted, or not feeling a belonging to my dysfunctional family of origin. Now, 'm glad I'm not like them.....and have only one regret......I wish I could have known what it would have been like to grow up feeling loved by my family......then I remind myself.....I have friends who love me now....can't live in the past.

Back to thread:

Past Core Belief: Being different is bad, it means I'm doing something wrong.

Counter: Being different is a wonderful feeling, knowing I'm not like the people who raised me and hurt me.
Counter: Different has two different connotations, one positive and one negative, and I choose to see myself as different in a positive light.
Counter: It's quite okay to be different!
Counter: Maybe different is ultimately better.
 
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Core Belief: Not sayin', yet (anxiety & all around it too high.)

Counter: Fight gnatsies.
Literally that. It *is* a supremacist BS belief BS system.

Oh, and just because they were family doesn't make it applicable.

Waavey waves and sharks.
Speaking of, shark-people. Just so more outside people can reinforce assholes full of crap can f*ck right off.

Core Belief: .... protects people.

Counter: It literally doesn't. And, oh, me's peoples. Too. As shocking as it gets. <needs be pie time now>
 
I don't belong here

Where ever I am, at work, with friends, in my marriage, in the classroom when I was younger, in the school for that matter, in this city, in this country

I don't belong here

And others see me as not belonging here.
 
People don't like me

It's not safe to be me, except with a tiny few

I can't find an "in"

I'm trapped

I'm committed to unpopular facts so I'm doomed to be forever unpopular

I've had to be too independent so I don't know how to rely on other's

People aren't safe, they are ignorant, hostile and clicky, I'm never part of a click
 
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