Name that distorted cognition (thought/perception)

[Deleted member 37085]

Lots of things almost work or temporarily work or don't work at all, I assume it is the same for you. Maybe I assume too much, sorry.

I am so grateful for your post @enough thank you for your openness and much appreciated by me willingness to share more about where you are at in your ptsd recovery.

Personally, I too battle with a "brainwashing" and the echoes of the perpetrators echo in my head but in my own voice making it very difficult to determine whats me and what is the manipulated self that was created against 40 years of my "will".

I've posted a lot about myself in my forum trauma diary entitled: My Trauma Is Real I'm Out Of Denial - I Am The Living Proof!" and I've talked about a lot (but not all) of the multiple traumas I've endured and survived to tell in this - my personal forum trauma diary. It's beyond difficult for me now trying to live and stay present while dealing with the wreckage of my past @enough and I am so glad you are here and I relate to a lot of what you above-shared. Thank you.

too bad we didn't have that skill when the perp's were having their way with us, right?

Yes, I agree. And currently in weekly therapy sessions, my therapist and I are working on negative cognitive distortions and I very much as you above-shared so much appreciate this thread that DDQ initiated. I am learning so much @enough about my serious and only for me potentially deadly (if I don't get them under control) distorted thoughts, feelings, and then actions. In my sick, twisted, and near deadly sexually, verbally, physically, and psychologically abusive relationship by father, and other perps/pervs I was not aware of their ability to seriously (brainwash) mentally and psychologically, etc. harm me which they surely did cause grave damage to my psyche and when I know better I seem to learn and grow and try to do better. Again, I'm eager to learn to try and change trauma damage I have survived to tell and have gratitude that I now get and take this opportunity to learn and grow more in ptsd recovery. Take care and see you around in forum.

 

[ms spock]

All or nothing thinking! And getting better at not doing it so much.
Also emotional reasoning - I laughed when someone else did this to me!

 

[Beans]

Jumping to conslusions/mind reading/ fortune telling- i still dont know what they think or what will happen, tomorrow or any time in the future. it's interesting to me, recently when i think of what the great nebulous they will think, i feel a sense of unease. a bit of annoyance and frustration. like i want to roll my eyes. i think my inner f*ck you is rising up slowly but surely.

overgeneralizing- pple iand situations in my past are not indicative of how all/most pple are or how all/most situaions will be. not by a long shot, this is kind of fortunetelling as well. things are not the same

emotional reasoning- just bc i feel i cant do something doesnt mean it's true. so i can do it and be happy i did at the end of the day. or i can not and be disappointed in myself

also whichever one involves me telling myself i cant make friends and have fun with others. guess more fortune telling, but it has a real negative kick towards me and my abilities

in fact most of my thoughts are a mix of magnification/minimization, disqualifying the positive, overgeneralizing and mental filter. i have had many positve experience of pple liking me or wanting to be friends, but i downplay that majorly, magnify the teensiest bit of evidence that they're not interested or mindread them or fortune tell that we wont be friends, usually overgeneralizing by assuming it will be like all the others, and filtering out/disqualifying the positive, etc.

Whoo that's a bit to pick apart! It's ok though, there's a ton to be said for awareness!

 

[Beans]

jumping to conclusions- they're all going to be mean or impatient or dislike me or i wont fit in or they wont' get me or i wont be comfortable. i hate how teenagery that seems to me. but it comes up almost automatically. i do appreciate being older though and now i only want my pple. i dont wnat the whole world to like me. i want the ones who really get me and connect and deeply accept me. so the rejection isnt so scary, though i still assume it will happen. oh lord what a tangled web

 

[ms spock]

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.
School didn't go well today, but it wasn't all bad either. I faced up the potential music before I left. Not so bad at all.

Over-generalization -- You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
Not doing this so much.

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.
I am actually becoming more balanced with this. I am seeing both the positive and the negative much more.

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.
I am really making strides with this one. I am challenging many of my negative beliefs.

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.
So I am presuming a lot less that people are doing their healing and recovery in a dedicated and precise manner. I am presuming a lot less that people are judging me. I am managing this to a much more sophisticated level.

Magnification and minimization -- You exaggerate the importance of things, or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny.
Overall I am more balanced.

Emotional reasoning -- You assume that your emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are, as in "I feel it, therefore it must be true."
I can even identify when other people are doing this around me, and how my parents did it to me.

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 am really making headway with this one.

Labeling and mislabeling -- This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself.
Doing it less and less.

Personalization -- You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event which, in fact, you were not primarily responsible for.
Actually not doing this has changed my life, in some profound ways.

 

[ms spock]

All or nothing thinking!

 

[Powder]

This set of ideas is interesting to me. I found that my previous leadership position itself forced me to rethink my cognitive distortions. It was exhausting, but I'm grateful that I simply HAD no other options if I wanted to continue being good at what I did.

Now, in my current position, I'm being challenged in other ways. I don't see it in the list but Shutting Off Emotions during triggery or stressy times, when there is a trigger or emotion related to the abusers or trauma to process, that is not able to be processed right away due to day-to-day business, I have difficulty with regulating emotions, voice levels, and internal emotional responses.

One cognitive distortion I've learned about with my PTSD is that just because I feel like I'm "spilling over" with emotions inside, it doesn't mean I have to be afraid. I have historically had increased anxiety (like most with anxiety) that emotions or emotional flashbacks will hit at inopportune social moments. They do. But I've practiced moving through the moment with grace and being okay if others sense that I'm a tad bit off, since they have no idea what I've lived through and what strength I have to forge ahead with all that is inside me.

It's not the absence of my fear, but the knowledge that I can "do it anyway" and be successful that gives me more confidence to carry on.

I cannot "keep calm and carry on," but I can "appear calm and carry on." Fake it till you make it. :)

As to some of the distortions, I think they forget the research into psychic type of abilities that as humans we all have and once had in abundance. As we continue to specialize in only one field, educate only one way, and outsource most of the life skills we need to access parts of our selves, we will see that so-called psychic abilities will continue to not be the norm. More and more, they will appear on lists as "distortions." Because for the majority of folks they are. But what about the folks who actually can do things that are on the list? You see, such as list is like a Development Chart. Really, no human fits a chart as "normal." The best we can hope for is that we can pass as normal and be successful and happy.

As someone with PTSD and other abilities that cannot be simply explained away, it has been even more challenging to sift through my distortions and learn to accept my abilities for what they are. Moreso, since my abusers gave conflicting information regarding the abilities, within spiritual abuse.

I am a huge fan of being willing to face the inner dragons, the skeletons of the closet of the mind, and in seeking wise counsel and sharing the process with objective support to keep it healthy and keep it in check within distortions. Such supporters are able to help the PTSD recovering individual recall what is and isn't working.

It's these healing relationships, more than anything else, that help to find the balancing point in all these areas.

What I'm wondering about today is how Traumatized Children grow up and find each other as the fellow Walking Wounded. If we refuse to try to form relationships with less wounded and more healthy types of folks, then we cannot experience the kind of calibration I'm talking about that automatically begins to help the PTSD sufferer change in positive ways the thoughts and core beliefs. However, if we abandon our "tribe" of the also-abused, then how can we see those reflections of our experience in another? It is best for me to be around "healthies" as much as possible, to become more healthy. But I also feel a special compassion for those who are "like me" who carry wounds like me, and who are trying so hard in life to overcome and be a better person each day, to triumph over adversity.

 

[ms spock]

In your post is a whole host of successes! Good on you @Muse.

My psychiatrist is pretty insistent that I spend less and less time with people who are the walking wounded. That it is not good for me, and it also is holding me back.

 

[Deleted member 37085]

Such great advice to try and walk away from the "walking wounded" also not so good for me to be around those who are either not in recovery or who are negative and suck the life force right out of me and the air that I breathe right out of the room, as I continue to learn to self-care, etc. @Disco Dancing Queen

I am learning that social, financial, professional status does not necessarily ensure that the person in front of me who is engaging and interacting with me is "healthier" and not walking wounded; and only the interpersonal interaction with them over a period of time affords me awareness that I either need to move the hell away from them, or continue to get to know them better. And this process can be painful by allowing myself (with bad relational radar) to come closer and closer to someone that could very well be so broken, or a narc, etc. And potentially emotionally harmful to me (when I did not move away from broken woman over her son's burglary/drugging, and now possible looming prison term) and in fact leaned in for more of woman's depression, and despair that I allowed her to vomit onto me.

As I've just recently experienced this woman who vomits her personal life and then walks away, then more vomit, then walks away...take, take, take and no give. Was so emotionally draining...and I had to put a stop to it. This has been a very hard lesson and I am angry with self for how I handled myself and for how long I have allowed this to go on which made me irritated, uneasy, negative, and not wanting to go to fitness building. Trying to forgive self now. (sigh).

 

[Powder]

I absolutely agree on these posts on the need to weight the cost of all kinds of relationships. It often helps me to remember that this is how this person socializes, and it has nothing to do with me. :) I'm just present to witness it, and I get to chose all kinds of things. We have so much power in our lives.

Realizing how much control and power we have also shows us that we actually bear some responsibility as well, especially with those who are vulnerable.

Today, I'm reflecting on my stance in life and how upsetting the Bystanders (primarily women who did not feel able to stand their ground from older generations) in my life. I feel a lot of anger with these women for not being Protectors of the vulnerable, which I see as their moral duty. These women allowed the men in their family to do abusive things. They don't have good boundaries, and they seem self-centered and unable to lift a finger to make a stand for anyone other then themselves. They may have anxiety, but not PTSD, and they close ranks surrounding family and have a black and white thinking distortion that blood relatives are absolute, and that there can be no boundaries within family.

They never questioned nor stopped the abuses that the men perpetrated against the children or their women.

I am wondering if their lack of education and lack of support, lack of feminism, and lack of a sense of personal power contributed. Yet, I also don't understand their codependency, its etiology, and why they simply do not learn, grow, or change as human beings.

Which Negative Core beliefs result in this kind of thinking that they have, that keeps them stuck? I think Black/white, Good/Bad splitting, keeping them childlike in their belief that family can do no wrong. Possibly, they have the emotional coloring, only positive opinion and definition of "family" based largely on denial.

 

[ms spock]

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.
Still this a bit, and being too hard on myself. But I am improving.

Over-generalization -- You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
Well I was told a stack of lies, and I knew it didn't add up, but I didn't act on it, I didn't connect with what is going on.

I have so many successes to focus on now.

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.
I did the negative thing way too much last night.

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.
Doing this a lot less, but I am still good at doing this, and undermining myself, and not trusting myself.

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.
This meant that I missed some really important information that was right in front of me. I seriously missed some really obvious lies and manipulations.

Magnification and minimization -- You exaggerate the importance of things, or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny.
Flipped back and forth on this one last night. I was really dysregulated and all over the place!

Emotional reasoning -- You assume that your emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are, as in "I feel it, therefore it must be true."
I still fall for this at times, but overall improvement, and I can challenge this a lot more within myself, and not take other people so seriously when they are doing it.

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 am really tough on myself still.

Labeling and mislabeling -- This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself.
Yeah I did this yesterday. I really wound myself up.

Personalization -- You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event which, in fact, you were not primarily responsible for.
I am getting a lot better with this one. I am not blaming myself for my family troubles when I was a child. I also am not blaming myself for the psychologist's abusiveness.

 

[ms spock]

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.
Ingrained but improving.

Over-generalization -- You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
Less so now. I have improvements and successes to focus on.

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.
I still do this too much. I focused on a negative too much. Not sure how to think things through enough or too much. I also try too hard as well.

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.
Doing this less, but I still undermine myself.

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.
Yeah and I do this in thinking positively of people as well as thinking negatively of people. So I am naive and gullible in some ways. More so, it is a disconnectedness a split that doesn't allow me to connect to what my experiences actually are at times. Manipulative people have a field day with me at times, but I am getting better at noticing this.

Magnification and minimization -- You exaggerate the importance of things, or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny.
Flipped back and forth on this one last night. I was really dysregulated and all over the place! Like seriously wasting days ruminating on things - not sensible! I avoid things to avoid the magnification in my head - and it was nothing in other people's eyes. I am seriously silly billy!

Emotional reasoning -- You assume that your emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are, as in "I feel it, therefore it must be true."
I still fall for this at times, but overall improvement, and I can challenge this a lot more within myself, and not take other people so seriously when they are doing it. Occasionally finding it amusing! Who would have thought it?

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 am so hard on myself it is ridiculous sometimes! I do all these new and hard things, and then just think "What is next?" rather than well done! I should be perfect, and if not I should be punished! Thanks Mum and Dad! You were such there are no words to describe you as parents! You certainly left a mark!

Labeling and mislabeling -- This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself.
I can wind myself up. And it is not helpful thinking.

Personalization -- You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event which, in fact, you were not primarily responsible for.
I'm not blaming myself for the psychologist's ability to manipulate me. I'm not blaming myself for my family troubles when I was a child. Something was almost dumped on me this week, and I stood my ground and said "Actually no, he had decided to move before I sent that text, as his reason for coming when he didn't text, was that he was organising him stuff to be moved in the truck on Saturday.