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Name that distorted cognition (thought/perception)

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10 primary cognitive distortions:
  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 for

It is so easy to slip in to all these again - and I can still take them so seriously.
 
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.
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I did my first assignment not doing this to myself, and I got 83.5%. So it is possible to exist in the world without doing this to myself.
 
I don't know, are these cognitive distortions?

I don't deserve help because I'm just the offspring of horrible people.

I should not have been born in the first place.

Therapist is only helping me because she gets paid for it.

There's no place for me in the world.
 
1. Yes @Cj77, those are cognitive distortions
2. We deserve help even more because we are offspring of horrible people
3. We should have all been born because we need to leave our fingerprints in this world
4. We are a challenge to a good therapist... they do care.
5. My place in this world is to fit inside my own skin... I have value. So do you !!
 
1. @Cj77 What ladee said.
2. No, you deserve all the more help in cutting every link between them and you that isn't hurting you in the process. They gave you birth and shaped a few years of your life - but you've been shaping yourself, all time long, through it, while they pestered around. Good job, you.
3. If you weren't born, existence would be missing a big important part of it. You would be missed.
4. If by chance that's true, (along a time of getting a new therapist) then still, grab all the help you can get out of it.
5. If there isn't a space for you yet - the better - you're here, the world better is sorry for not being prepared for the treasure you are and fixes it fast, and meantime, you take your time while /making/ that space that isn't counting with you, because you totally deserve it (and all the sunshine in the world.)
 
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.
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I am doing a stellar one with this one - totally honing in on the negative and negating how well I did yesterday.

I did really well yesterday with teaching the young people. I connected. I managed 4 ADHD and 3 Autistic Spectrum Disorder and I got them to do work and I positively reinforced them. I connected with the other kids. Many of them were Jack in the Boxes and I just was calm and got them to sit

You know I can feel feelings and I won't die. I really can. But no I am disqualifying the positive and ruminating around in my head.
 
Kudos @Ms Spock for making that first day count !!! Sounds like you did an awesome job... and about all the other. Well, you are working on those... you are so important to so many and I personally don't want you to be perfect... that leaves no room for growth, plus, you wouldn't be here... I wouldn't like that at all.... Happy you shared your first day with us.
 
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