Name that distorted cognition (thought/perception)

[The Albatross]

... that and "feelings" are not FACTS. Iisten to me now and believe me later?

 

[ms spock]

Indeed @The Albatross. It is the very reason that I started this thread - in order to get to the point where I could actually identify the distorted and warped thoughts.

Now is the next stage and learning what to do/how to stop the slide.

I have actually been going from one personal best to the other in terms of improving my self and my life - exercise, mindfulness, therapy, contact with recovering peers, social contacts and activities, serving my communities, caring for others, taking more and more responsibility for myself, standing up, stepping up to the plate, learning time management skills and breathing, as well as working on my disordered eating.
for me or triggers for me.

So I have made a lot of progress. I am still not a functional adult in society yet - who earns a living, takes responsibility for themselves and manages their own life and regulates her own emotions. So I have along way to go and I am a little bit weary at the moment. I do, however, now have a basis from which to come from.

The David Burns book "Feeling Good, the mood therapy" has been very important to my recovery, though I don't get it all yet.

 

[ms spock]

Yes feelings are not facts - the emotional reasoning aspects of the distorted feeling/thinking/ perceiving/rumination is not real - they are just lies my head is telling me - lies my depression is telling me - lies my anxiety is telling me and lies my PTSD is telling me - lies that my Complex Trauma is telling me - lies my abusers told me etc etc The hardest one for me is the Attachment Disorder stuff - that still feels really real to me at this point, though some days I feel the reactivity - I feel the reactivity separate to the situation sometimes and within me, but that is only a rare day here and there.

 

[ms spock]

My anxiety today have been very high and it has been very challenging. My social activity for tonight has fallen through tonight as my friend's PTSD management is being challenging for her.

I feel worse over all but I am actually doing a lot better in all areas in my life, some only marginal, some significantly, as I am more present in my life. I am not so dissociated, depersonalised and derealised.

I am also able to pick cognitive distortions apart so much more. Though some of the really old ones from the pretty much continuous child abuse of my childhood are really hard to grasp/understand yet. But with time I will get to them and break them apart. Emotional regulation is a tough one, but the brain science proves it can be done, and so do it I will.

I have wasted a lot of my life, it was the best that I could do at the time, and it was not my fault, I had predatory psychologists, and I was retraumatised substantially and in an ongoing manner for about 15 years. I knew I needed help so as to not be like my parents but I couldn't see how abusive these so called professionals were because they were a bit better than my parents. The main thing for me now is self compassion for all that happened, loving kindness meditations are next on the list to incorporate in to my day. The main thing for me is to make the most of today and to take action TODAY. Today is mine to do with it what I choose to do with. Today was a lot about management and thinking things through. I am finally learning time management because I am present enough to notice time! That is an achievement but it does not feel like one.

Working on these cognitive distortions are so important for me, though I often can't work them out. But I have improved a lot since starting to challenge my cognitive distortions.

So I am doing personalisation and magnification today, though I didn't realise it. I am also doing all or nothing thinking.

 

[ms spock]

Once I realised that I was doing personalisation,magnification and all or nothing thinking I made adjustments and did some university work/ I did the idenficiation of the distorted thoughts, and then I put into action self talk and action that disputed those thoughts. Hey an improvement for me! I will take it!

And because I did this I was more contained and able to do Mindfulness and Alexander Technique and take better care of myself.

 

[ms spock]

The 10 primary cognitive distortions are:

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.

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So back to basics. If I focus on these I will get there. I don't have to strive for more complex things and understandings! I can just be with the basics.

 

[The Albatross]

I just sort of tabled all the chatter and stuck to the basics these last few days. It was easier but exhausting.

 

[Ronin]

I'm at plenty of should's and shouldn'ts and should have's and should had-have's.

Ack guilt, mooove it, nobody invited you. :banghead:

 

[ms spock]

I realise that my brief suicidal ideation only indicates that I am thinking within distorted cognitions and believing it.

Okay so I have been personalising, all or nothing thinking, a ton over generalisation - yes my life is an absolute failure! I have been shoulding myself. Yes that has been so effective these last three decades - NOT! I have had mental filters. Labelling and mislabelling my situation and my studies and seeing through that lens. I have been emotional reasoning - yes I feel it - so it must be true.

 

[Eleanor]

1-5 and 9. I don't do so much. Why? I think it is the philosophical training. I have VERY philosophical habits of thought which are rigorous to a fault. And they are habits. 6-8 and 10 seem to me a bit different. They seem less amenable to purely cognitive intervention - but maybe not...Maybe that's just an artifact of me being more likely to DO them...

 

[Kintsugi]

Does anyone have some tips on how to help others name their cognitive distortions? ... Without the conversation feeling like some sort of Internet flame-war where you're just yelling "fallacy!" when the other person is falling into these negative thinking styles?

I find it difficult to communicate my thoughts assertively to those who are (chronically) defensive. Sometimes speaking assertively seems to make people feel they are being condescended to or "shrunk" (as in by a 'shrink'). Not everyone will take the time to read about such matters, and I realize I have to accept that (research fiend that I am), but it's hard for me to watch people I care about fall into certain negative thinking styles again and again yet refuse to accept that they are doing so.

 

[Ronin]

@Simply Simon, I'm afraid there isn't much to be done about that if those others don't arrive to the need to change their thoughts on their own, or aren't open to that change - but I found it good to state your point and stress in the same conversation it isn't judgment, it's offering your opinion.

They may think about that if you're on good terms with each other, and the perceived 'criticism' isn't triggering them to abuse / other negative events in their life; so it helps to have people's background.