Gosh. I was intending to answer this ages ago Nikakaa. Just did not get there. Will say what I was going to and add to it.
I actually think you should give yourself a pat on the back. I think distortions of the type you describe
are some of the hardest to shake. Especially in the moment. They have been for me anyway. They hang in there very tenaciously and absolutely arrive when I am triggered with something.
It sounds like you did stop and check in with your cognitive mind with the incident with your h and that that did start the process of getting you out of that mind space or at least understanding what was happening.
It seems you find practical suggestions helpful so I shall try to share what I do.
Initially I checked in with myself throughout the day regularly. I would ask myself how I was feeling. That was very hard at that point. I had no connection to my emotions and would mostly just end up in a terrible state in the evening with no words for it and no understanding where it had come from.
Every evening I would journal about my day. Looking for awareness about events that happened and looking for emotions felt.
Later I was more able to identify an emotion or a state.
These days I stop if I am feeling anything intense. I try to name it. I let myself fully acknowledge what it is. I try to accept it. I then try to think what it is coming from in the present. Followed by considering if it is actually more about the past. I try not to add to it by judging it and myself.
In a similar situation to what you describe I would ask myself what word or look in the present set off these feelings. I would then think if these thoughts were likely coming from me rather than the other person.
An important part of the process for me is letting myself have full awareness of what is happening and working on acceptance of that as my long term pattern is to get more into a state as I become more aware of how faulty I am and then turn that into more self hatred and judgement.
I have found the DBT concept of radical acceptance very helpful.
I have also found I can do a lot without truly believing or believing that something can change.
For example: I hated myself so much that all I could think of was that I shouldn't live. I couldn't think or believe that I deserved to make my life better. Not that I ever told anyone of course but that is how I felt. Not that I don't feel like that these days but I don't feel it all the time and overpoweringly like I did then.
But what happens to me has an impact on others and I used that instead. And I just put one foot in front of the other. I knew what I "should" be doing so I did it. If I had waited until I could love myself enough to want something better and get past all the distorted self beliefs I had before I did anything then I don't believe there is any way I would be here today.
I hope that doesn't seem off the point. I just meant to say we can change things once we identify distortions even if we still can't disbelieve them.
Hmmm... I sound like my life is sorted when it is actually a mess! But hopefully you know what I mean.
I can't see things getting better in the near future
I am sorry you are triggered at present. I find the self hatred always comes along then and is very hard to budge. These days I mostly try not to do things that don't compound it. Like hating myself for hating myself. Or expecting things from myself that I am not able to do at that time.
And I agree that black and white is a type of distorted thinking. Do you think you are also a perfectionist? I found the two tied to each other and have had to force myself to do moderation and try to expect more moderate things from myself.
I don't know about you but Nothing I ever did was OK at home. Or if it seemed that I was being complemented then there was always a hidden agenda in their somewhere. I didn't know what would happen with movement and so my default was to not do anything. Its a very powerful reflex and ingrained. Don't know if that resonates or not but thought I would share.
Hi Pencil!
I really do understand what you are saying in both of your last posts. There is so much to say relating to the first but I am not going to go into it here as it is so expansive and doesn't sound that relevant to what is bothering Nikakaa. Certainly has been a huge problem for me though.
All I will say about it is that I think there can be important obstacles to even being able to consider distortions. I think I would have taken 7 to 10 years less to get where I presently am in certain ways if I had not had important obstacles to being able to process my distortions.
For me getting partially past them (they are certainly still there) has been very helpful but taken much determined hard work and introspection.
I mostly agree with your second post except that I don't think another person is always necessary for realisations about distortions. Many, many of my realisations have come from me and not from others.Though not the self hatred and other ones related to being brought up in certain environments.
Would I have had the realisations I did if I had continued blindly living my life one moment after the other without attempting new understanding? I sincerely doubt it. But because I really worked terribly hard every single day for 7 odd years I did learn a lot about myself and the world. A lot was helped by what I read in research or books but some was not.
Certain distortions I don't think I would have ever identified without a therapist though.
When I write I really focus on trying to connect experiences, feelings and others reactions or possible perspectives and that has been helpful
