Name that distorted cognition (thought/perception)

[ms spock]

http://psychology.tools/unhelpful-thinking-styles.html

In a sheet form!

 

[jaccat]

Should statements- I should be keeping busy, I shouldn't be taking it easy on my holiday.

 

[ms spock]

Next to dissociation and emotional avoidance, Low Frustration Tolerance, sometimes called "I can't stand it-itis", is a major block to emotional growth. Dead Link Removed

This cluster of dissociation, emotional avoidance and Low Frustration Tolerance is embedded with distorted cognitions for me. I need to pull this apart.

I think a fair bit of it would be magnification.

Some of it would be all or nothing thinking.

Some of it is magical thinking.

Some of it is over-generalisation.

There is a lot of mental filtering going on.

I am certainly disqualifying the positive.

I am also taking on too much and feeling the need to be the perfect student.

I feel the need to rescue people.

Or do stuff for people as I am so bad no one would like me for who I am. I am jumping to conclusions that it will all be dreadfully hard and I won't cope.

And my old favourite emotional reasoning - I feel it therefore it is true. Well I have lived my life there.

I am shoulding myself, which is helping me remain stuck. I am overwhelming myself.

So I am giving quite a few distorted cognitions a good go at the moment.

I think I will write out the Hopelessness and Helplessness ones and keep rereading them today.

 

[ms spock]

I have to get moving on these distorted cognitions.

I need to take more emotional responsibility for my emotional states and also to take responsibility for my dissociation and emotional avoidance. I need to pull apart my distorted cognitions in a more detailed way.

The sooner I work on it and do it, the sooner I make progress and move out of this state that I am in. I don't want to be here any more. I don't want to live this way. I want to move ahead and participate in my life, rather than watching the clock wind down each day and think "I can't do anything now it is too late, it will have to wait until tomorrow". That is no way to live or more accurately not live my life.

 

[ms spock]

Low Frustration Tolerance, called impatience or discomfort anxiety, is created by distorted views of a situation and our ability to put up with it. Here are some typical Low Frustration Tolerance beliefs:

I need or deserve comfort all the time
I can't stand it
I can't bear it
I can't live without it
I can't tolerate it
It's too much
It's too heavy
I'm losing control
It's overwhelming
Will this ever end?
My life should be easy and comfortable
This is driving me out of my mind
Too B-O-R-I-N-G
This is excruciating
Too hard
This is too heavy
I'm going to jump out of my skin
from Dead Link Removed
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I have a lot of this thinking from growing up the dysfunctional, abusive, chaotic family. The thing is that I am not there now. I am adult who can leave situations. So now of this is real, except in my head. (Well my living situation is not safe in NSW, so I have to be careful about that - that is real and a serious problem where my car has just been vandalised, (most of the cars have been vandalised) an attempted murder took place, and the man then smashed her car up so that there is glass everywhere through out our parking complex. I now get why staying in my flat became too overwhelming when my little fence was taken down.)

So that is something to be mindful about - and not go out at night - and not engage with the dangerous people.

But the drama in my head about my studies - is exactly that an drama in my head about my studies, which is stopping me from moving ahead in life. When I finish this degree I can get a job and move far, far, far away form this place. Until then I can stay periodically with B and PB.

My lack of distress tolerance is really stymieing my life.

 

[seedling]

I have to get moving on these distorted cognitions.

You are moving on them :)
You're doing great work!

The "will this ever end?" is one I do. I don't feel like I'm an adult that can change my situation. Helplessness. I'm surprised by the effect I have on others and on my own life as an adult. I'm not expecting to have much sway with others - like when I was a kid.

I will look out for these and practice my patience! Thanks.

 

[ms spock]

Thanks for bringing my attention to that @seedling.

http://psychology.tools/unhelpful-thinking-styles.html

 

[ms spock]

So about 80-90% of my thinking styles are distorted. So the good news is that with some effort I have been able to cut a fair bit down. Now I need to more on to working with the deeper levels. I am making a bit more progress each day.

It was a day of some rumination and binge thinking but some disputing thoughts as well. Some success and some improvement. Not feeling that crash hot though, despite the improvement.

 

[The Albatross]

Have sort of back slid a bit the past couple days:

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. 
   
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. 
   
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.

Ack. Still feeling very small and fragile and incapable. Have been a bit clingy with my spouse and am still near to tears today. I need to get a grip on this.

 

[Ronin]

I'm at minimization but quite happy that's so far the only thing today, because it means I recognize reality, when I'm at jumping to conclusions & swimming in wrong ones I'm usually not quite 'here' so if it's the distortions I have when more attached to reality? A move forward.

--- (Why do I forget whole halves of posts I'm meaning to write is beyond me, cough)

Wanted to say, Alby, you and incapable? You're one of the most collected and having it together and aware and self aware and right up realistic levels of critical people I know, I admire you for that quite a lot, and, well. Proper phrasing of personal sympathies courses been lost on me, so just saying this much.

 

[jaccat]

Caught myself at number 9 yesterday, telling myself I was thick as two short planks because I dropped something.

 

[The Albatross]

Yeah, thank you... but try as I might, I am not impervious to the root woundings of some adverse situations.... working on it.