How do you not take on other's "stuff".

[joeylittle]

That's why I was suspect mind reading as a part of that. Not all of it, just part of it. I suspect that there are many distortions in it but was trying to break it down, as much as I could.

The fear is a big thing but that's emotion, so not cognitive, but gets sort of processed in my head.

I'd challenge that the fear is cognitive. I don't think you are mind-reading to resolve the fear. Mind-reading is not wondering, it's knowing - so seeing a person and knowing what they are thinking. Because you 'know' that they are dangerous, you have fear, which drives more thoughts, which drive more fear.

It might help you to re-look at the basic cbt 'diamond' - the concept on the relationship between thoughts, emotions, actions, and physical response. It does require accepting that there are connections between those four things, and that one can set of any other one, but that they are going to cascade no matter what. So, you can think it's starting with an emotion, but that will create a thought and a physical response, which then creates an emotion, and a thought, and a physical response, and an action, and then another thought, leading to emotion, etc...So it doesn't matter sometimes where you start in the 'chain' - an emotion is never too far away from a thought.

Thought isn't limited to reasonable thoughts. We are talking about basics here. Like, see a stranger - feel afraid, think that they are dangerous, accelerate heart rate, think 'I'm panicking', feel fear, physically freeze, feel threat, etc.

They go fast, but the first phase of being able to interrupt them is practicing seeing how one leads to another.

If you decide that they are separate from each other, you are basically deciding you have no ability to change them - and that's (a) not true, and (b) very negatively reinforcing.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I can see them connected. And that makes sense. I wasn't thinking that they weren't. I was thinking that cognitive issues or distortions are handled one way and emotional issues another.

Like challenging a thought and naming, accepting and letting an emotion pass. They are two different ways of going about something.

So I think that is where the unintentional disconnect is happening. Because I have handled these things differently.

And that's why I was trying to find the distorted thoughts and cared where it started or at least what emotions were there, and trying to pick this apart.

I can see practicing seeing that they are connected can help because you are more aware when its actually happening.

 

[joeylittle]

I was thinking that cognitive issues or distortions are handled one way and emotional issues another.

Gotcha - yes, they are not addressed differently, it's the same.

There are more detailed techniques for tolerating and managing emotional dysregulation - and that's where the DBT stuff comes in. It's a manual for how to live with (distract from, tolerate, turn the noise down on, live through, observe) emotional dysregulation.

But the basic approach for taking the source of the problem apart is in CBT. And it doesn't matter whether the problem seems to be a feeling or a thought, it will all need to be broken down so you can identify the thought and then re-write it (which is the purpose of the thought record)

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Thanks @joeylittle! I appreciate you explaining the difference!

 

[I_will_recover]

imagine those two strong characters standing behind me.

A technique I've never SF tried but can already see better by helpful.

 

[I_will_recover]

I'm going to disagree a little.

I've always felt the same but couldn't put my finger on the why.

it seems to me like it would be better to think 'I don't know what other people think, and I don't know why they do what they do. But I do know myself, and I can have some influence over that.'

This is my new mantra, "I don't know WHY they do what they do...""'

 

[lostforgottensoul]

This is my new mantra, "I don't know WHY they do what they do...""'

Amen! Something I need to burn into my skull!