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ms spock
VIP Member
I chip away at these every day now. I even notice when other people do these distorted cognitions.
Distorted Cognitions Review.
No 1 all or nothing thinking. I am working on this one and I despite my slipping and sliding I am stepping out of this one again and again.
2. I am doing overgeneralisation, Catching myself doing this one - and I don't have to be like the child and teenager that I once was - I can state it as it is and I can give myself validation.
No 3 Mental Filter The world seems full of confirmation bias at this point in history - but within myself I am doing better with this one.
No 4 disqualifiying the postiive I am doing this a lot less. I am writing gratitude lists. I might write accomplishment lists as well. Time to write down the good stuff that I do. I work hard and I am making progress. Time to cherish that.
No 5 Jumping to conclusions - stopping my profound dissociation and splitting. I get less stuck in ruminations around this one!
No 6 Magnification and minimization -- You exaggerate the importance of things, or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny. Doing better with this one as well.
No 7 Emotional reasoning - this still feels that it is true, but it is becoming less visceral.
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. I have difficulty with this one.
No 9 Labeling and mislabeling -- This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself. Doing better with this one.
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 - but my eating disorder is manageable now. That has taken a very long time to get on top of and manage. At times I am just the shame. Struggling with this one. All that happened is not my fault. I could do nothing more than I did. I couldn't fix my family! I saved their lives, and that is enough. What is broken can't be fixed and even if I could it is not responsibility to fix everyone else. I can only work on myself.
So rational thinking is a topic my psychiatrist and I discuss a lot. Mostly for a very long time, I was not sure what she meant but now I am getting it more. I am getting to a point that if my thinking is not rational thinking that I can stop it, or deflect it or keep noticing it is rumination.
Before I would get lost in my badness, my worthlessness, my helplessness and my hopelessness. I still go there but I can bring myself out more and more. I don't fight with my mind. I just notice and observe and then deflect or radically accept. The Self Compassion Break is really helpful for me.
It is time for me to reread the David Burns book once more. I need to go deeper into the practices.
I have found disciplined practice of my Mindfulness has really helped me. If I hadn't work on that since 2013 I would not be able to do anything that I am doing now. It has been one hell of a hard slough, but so worth it.
I am finding it hard to do the practices of meditation on my own and so I went to a group last night and I will go on Thursday night and then Saturday. Last night I cooked Vegan with my Pumpkin muffins and soup, which were delicious.
I have places that I am very welcome, like Monday night and Saturday lunch/meditation (once per month) and I belong and all the people are working on the same thing as I am working on. I don't really know people on Thursday night and my social anxiety is really high, so I just keep going, and eventually it will abate. Their stories are just not as extreme as mine. But they all still struggle with ruminations, no one has talked about maladaptive daydreaming, but I am sure some will have that as well.
I can see the correlations of CBT, DBT and some of the Buddhist teachings, with Mindfulness, and working with your mind. Funnily when people get stuck on ruminations I can coach them through them and help them break them down.This, as my regular readers would know, is totally frigging HILARIOUS!
When I started on the Saturdays, once per month, my social anxiety was really high, and funnily enough one woman said that this was the first time she ever felt that she belonged and welcomed in a group - she is in her late 70s! So many people struggle with what we all struggle with - they just don't have the community that we have here, which is so sad for them but so good for us. There is much to be grateful about in my life.
Distorted Cognitions Review.
No 1 all or nothing thinking. I am working on this one and I despite my slipping and sliding I am stepping out of this one again and again.
2. I am doing overgeneralisation, Catching myself doing this one - and I don't have to be like the child and teenager that I once was - I can state it as it is and I can give myself validation.
No 3 Mental Filter The world seems full of confirmation bias at this point in history - but within myself I am doing better with this one.
No 4 disqualifiying the postiive I am doing this a lot less. I am writing gratitude lists. I might write accomplishment lists as well. Time to write down the good stuff that I do. I work hard and I am making progress. Time to cherish that.
No 5 Jumping to conclusions - stopping my profound dissociation and splitting. I get less stuck in ruminations around this one!
No 6 Magnification and minimization -- You exaggerate the importance of things, or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny. Doing better with this one as well.
No 7 Emotional reasoning - this still feels that it is true, but it is becoming less visceral.
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. I have difficulty with this one.
No 9 Labeling and mislabeling -- This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself. Doing better with this one.
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 - but my eating disorder is manageable now. That has taken a very long time to get on top of and manage. At times I am just the shame. Struggling with this one. All that happened is not my fault. I could do nothing more than I did. I couldn't fix my family! I saved their lives, and that is enough. What is broken can't be fixed and even if I could it is not responsibility to fix everyone else. I can only work on myself.
So rational thinking is a topic my psychiatrist and I discuss a lot. Mostly for a very long time, I was not sure what she meant but now I am getting it more. I am getting to a point that if my thinking is not rational thinking that I can stop it, or deflect it or keep noticing it is rumination.
Before I would get lost in my badness, my worthlessness, my helplessness and my hopelessness. I still go there but I can bring myself out more and more. I don't fight with my mind. I just notice and observe and then deflect or radically accept. The Self Compassion Break is really helpful for me.
It is time for me to reread the David Burns book once more. I need to go deeper into the practices.
I have found disciplined practice of my Mindfulness has really helped me. If I hadn't work on that since 2013 I would not be able to do anything that I am doing now. It has been one hell of a hard slough, but so worth it.
I am finding it hard to do the practices of meditation on my own and so I went to a group last night and I will go on Thursday night and then Saturday. Last night I cooked Vegan with my Pumpkin muffins and soup, which were delicious.
I have places that I am very welcome, like Monday night and Saturday lunch/meditation (once per month) and I belong and all the people are working on the same thing as I am working on. I don't really know people on Thursday night and my social anxiety is really high, so I just keep going, and eventually it will abate. Their stories are just not as extreme as mine. But they all still struggle with ruminations, no one has talked about maladaptive daydreaming, but I am sure some will have that as well.
I can see the correlations of CBT, DBT and some of the Buddhist teachings, with Mindfulness, and working with your mind. Funnily when people get stuck on ruminations I can coach them through them and help them break them down.This, as my regular readers would know, is totally frigging HILARIOUS!
When I started on the Saturdays, once per month, my social anxiety was really high, and funnily enough one woman said that this was the first time she ever felt that she belonged and welcomed in a group - she is in her late 70s! So many people struggle with what we all struggle with - they just don't have the community that we have here, which is so sad for them but so good for us. There is much to be grateful about in my life.
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