Name that distorted cognition (thought/perception)

[ms spock]

Not sure but quite a few of them. Struggling a bit with this.

 

[Ironlady]

I feel like Too many to list.. but I'm going to at least pick out one. Emotional reasoning...

 

[Ironlady]

Disqualifying the positive. All or nothing thinking.

 

[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 for.

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My current goal is to reduce my ruminations by 50% in the next month. I am just jumping on the ruminations now. I thought myself out of a self destructive spiral during the last week. I kept my own counsel. Slowly I am beginning to trust myself a bit more.

Lots of emotional reasoning, over generalisation, jumping to conclusions and personalisation. Overall awareness of my thinking patterns has increased quite

 

[Heather]

My life is going to suck til the day I die.

 

[ms spock]

So which of the distorted thinking types did you identify that one as @Heather?

 

[Deleted member 12723]

All or nothing thinking. I am withdrawing from meds and feel sometimes as if I am going to fall apart. So distorted thinking too.

 

[ms spock]

Emotional reasoning

 

[jaccat]

Disqualifying the positive.

 

[The Albatross]

Should statements and disqualifying the positive kicking me in the head lately.

 

[ms spock]

My psychiatrist often talks to me about doing rational thinking and if it is not rational thinking to stop it - and I must say I am finding that hard - much easier than it was but still quite the struggle at times. Now at least I can see the thought cascades where before I would get lost in my badness, my worthlessness, my helplessness and my hopelessness. I would get lost in it for hours and hours, days and days, weeks and weeks, years and years - and now I can get it under control within minutes, days, weeks, months (not months as much as it was) but I am not lost for years. Huge improvements.

So yes I have been doing No 1 all or nothing thinking. However I am challenging myself on that one quite a bit. I am getting on top of this one more and more, step by step each and every day.

So yes 2. I am doing overgeneralisation, once again I am improving in that distorted cognitions, and I am pulling myself up, and didn't agree with my partner doing it today. So significant improvement here.

No 3 Mental Filter I went for a long journey with this one and almost talked myself into self destruction from taking a certain course of action - but I stepped back and didn't do it. That is huge progress for me.

No 4 disqualifiying the postiive in a significant way - finished, graduated the top of some of my subjects and just got up the next day and went on as if it was nothing. So not too much progress in this arena except I did celebrate some of the successes along the way - so that is improvement - not a lot but I will take it.

No 5 Jumping to conclusions - going for a Gold Medal at the Olympics with this one in such a big way and it clicks into some of my profound dissociation and splitting. And I get stuck in ruminations around this one! And the embarrassing behaviours that come out of this one make me cringe whilst typing this - however I have stopped a few OCD behaviours that are linked to this one and it is such a big thing for me - but basically this one is still pretty much a train wreck! A very big train wreck - but each improvement is important so I will give myself credit for that one.

No 6 Magnification and minimization -- You exaggerate the importance of things, or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny. YEAH YEAH YEAR! - Bit better - a little bit better.

No 7 Emotional reasoning - this still feels that it is true even if I intellectually know that is total BS - it is becoming less visceral - still a humungus problem - but still there is improvement - will discount most of the last month on that one.

No 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. If I had not done this on Xmas day it would have been a better day - it was still an okay day - but I didn't need to put myself through so much - or eat so much - or maybe I just need to stop eating and feel the feelings.

No 9 Labeling and mislabeling -- This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself. I am not really aware enough to know how I am doing this at the moment or at this time.

No 10 Personalization -- You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event which, in fact, you were not primarily responsible for. The shame I feel is so incapacitating at times - and my eating disorder is out of control. It is a real problem for me this one - really lost it and the shame is just everywhere. I am the shame at this time. So not so good on this one. All that happened is not my fault. I could do nothing more than I did.

 

[ms spock]

@SophiaWisdom and @MariaY and @recoveringfromptsd this thread might interest you both. It works through the top ten cognitive distortions.

So recently I have been doing emotional reasoning. I am picking apart my distorted cognitions more and more all the time. I am still doing personalisation quite a bit as well - but combating that with David Burns' techniques and self compassion has seen some small shifts.

I have really stopped jumping to conclusions as much. That is a much improved area!

I still have ruminations and maladaptive daydreaming and they are a huge concern and area I have to work on, but I have to say I have improved out of sight from where I was, even 3 months ago.