Name that distorted cognition (thought/perception)

[The Albatross]

Hmm. Intriguing... what are numbers from like 12 to 114?

 

[ms spock]

@The Albatross I think that @Link Removed meant Numbers 12 to 14? Is this correct @Link Removed?

There are 19 types of Distorted Cognitions now Alba see https://www.myptsd.com/threads/name...n-thought-perception.54277/page-5#post-883502 or scroll up to post #110.

12. Another form of Magical thinking as an adult simply fills up so much time. It is an avoidance strategy. It is not living presently, but finding a way to numb feelings through fantasies of what life could be.

13. You have to make everyone happy, or you will die or be punished or tortured.

14. It is all your fault - you are to blame for the problems in your family - even when you were one years old!

 

[ms spock]

I am finding layers of distorted thinking within a lot of my thinking about daily things and the past. I have so much distorted thinking, feelings and perceptions of condemnation from the past.

So that has helped me to stop torturing and punishing myself. I am seeing the internalised abuser thinking within and I am stopping doing that to myself quite a lot.

So I am using an emotional flashbacks thing that my psychiatrist gave me. I am shifting the constant judgemental condemnation in my head.

 

[The Albatross]

Like the original "P"s... I started with 5... and it took more than a few years to add the others (still don't have em memorized... like 13-15 or so of them now?)

So for now I'm just sticking to the original 10 (cuz I'm more familiar with those) and trying to work a bit to recognize those before I expand to the other ones. Just my weird way of doing things because my brain has to start small and get some competency before I add the new ones... or I will just get all muddled up and confused.

But... I see what you mean about how I totally misread post #120. Heh. Very literal today I guess.

 

[ms spock]

There was a typographical error Alba, so it is understandable you were confused/intrigued about 114 distorted cognitive thoughts.

What are the original ten Ps @The Albatross? I can't remember them today. I think I have them in bookmarks somewhere.

I have been jumping to conclusions, doing magnification, personalisation and mind reading and rumination - but at least I am noticing that now, so that is progress.

I am talking to myself about the past and telling myself that it is over and finished, so that is good.

I had not been aware of how much my thinking had gone awry.

I thought I was doing okay because I was doing stuff and that is doing better for me to be doing stuff around the flat, around my home. That is a significant improvement really for me. But my thinking went right off. I thought it was real and realistic. I was doing emotional reasoning.

I do things to prevent people from hurting me, monstering and savaging me. Though there is no one here right now that would do it. The flats aren't safe, and that came home to roost again last night. I went outside late last night and I was lucky my car wasn't vandalised/ attempted to break in when I was there at the car, so I was lucky.

The other people in the flats are pretty sure they know who it was as well. I don't know why I got singled out - it could be no reason or it could be they got pissed off when I got them to move the car they were cleaning the other day when I was leaving in a rush for the train that I missed. I don't know. But that guy couldn't look at me today, and it is not wise to antagonise them either. Some of the people who live here are dangerous people. Anyway I don't need to focus on that now. Now I can focus on what needs to be done rather than ruminating about other problems. I keep myself safe by not doing silly things like going down to my car late at night at 12am that was thoughtless.

I need to work on my thinking.

I also need to think things through before I do things like walk out to my car at 12am at night.

 

[The Albatross]

The original 10 cognitive distortions on this thread I meant. There are 5 original "P's" patience, practice, persistence, perseverance and (optional for the secular) prayer.

 

[Ronin]

Yesterday was full of over-generalization. The boyfriend insisted I can beat this as I've beaten it multiple times before so today I'm just trying to figure what to do with evaluating life as a list of victories instead of defeats and being very goggly eyed. /derail & tangent end.

 

[ms spock]

I have severe trouble with my cognitive distortions and I have thinking patterns which I never realised where distorted cognitive patterns, I though that they were just me! I know the thinking is iffy in some ways in some arenas, but I can't work it out, yet, that will come with practice I guess.

I am reading various theories of the processes/stages of Adolescence - I skipped over all the phases in each of the theories, which is rather sad but understandable given my family background.

The interesting thing is I am now reading about cognitive developmental stages in Adolescence now, as well. I missed those as well but it is giving me a lot of insight in to thinking and stages of thinking that I need to develop and incorporate into my cognition processes - what I am thinking at the moment - and I am just in the learning phase of it all - is that David Burns' ten distorted cognitions arises out of not managing to learn or incorporate the cognitive processes required as developmental steps when you were an adolescent. Hey it is my own intellectual property which I will probably find someone has written an article about! LOL It is really interesting stuff.

So I am understanding more about distorted cognitions, and sometimes I feel like sitting at the computer, and typing out paragraphs of my textbook. I have it as an Ebook as well as a hard copy. I can't always manage reading off a screen.

So I am thinking. My psychiatrist has been at me for the longest time to work towards actually thinking about things rather than reacting all the time or doing things on impulse.

So a great deal of my thinking is truly quite distorted, but the great thing is that one distorted cognition at a time I will work through them.

The lovely thing is someone came to me mired in dreadful guilt about the fact the elderly aunt she had cared for years and years died. And I was able to blow all the distorted thinking she had out of the water bit by bit. It was really helpful for her and she was grateful for me breaking it apart. Now I just have to be present enough in my own life to do it for myself. I am gaining competency and capability more each and every day. Even my low ones are higher than the best ones I had in 2013 - well ever before in some ways. I am improved dramatically. It feels crappy though as I am present some times to feel things and be there/here. Amazing stuff really.

 

[seedling]

I find that often when I am at work I am thinking "I'm not working hard enough." It's closely tied to "I'm not good enough."

I'm not sure if this is all or nothing thinking. I get in a behavior pattern of working faster and trying to do more without taking a break.
I'm starting to recognize the thinking/feeling/behavior pattern.

And I think that my boss is thinking that about me - that I'm not working that hard. And I work really hard all the time! Ugh. Just grateful that I am aware of it now so I can do something about it.

 

[ms spock]

You thinking that your boss is thinking you are not working hard enough is mind reading! I am so excited I am beginning to be able to identify those distorted cognitions more @seedling!

 

[ms spock]

Okay so I have this distorted cognition that I have to talk all the time to keep myself - to stop the poison from getting through, to stop the jabs and the horrible attacks from getting inside. I don't have to babble to keep myself safe. No one is going for me right now. It is okay. I don't have to entertain or win people over so they don't kill me. No one is going to kill me or wants to kill me right now. I don't have to talk all the time to feel up the space to be safe. I am safe. It is okay.

 

[ms spock]

The 20 primary cognitive distortions (according to Vulcan Logic) 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.

Add Ons:
No 11. Magical thinking is a distorted cognition as well. It is a big one for Developmental Trauma/Complex Trauma from childhood abuse. Well it is for me anyway.

12. Another form of Magical thinking as an adult simply fills up so much time. It is an avoidance strategy. It is not living presently, but finding a way to numb feelings through fantasies of what life could be.

13. You have to make everyone happy, or you will die or be punished or tortured.

14. It is all your fault - you are to blame for the problems in your family - even when you were one years old!

15. Hopelessness (Burns, p88) when you are so depressed you get so frozen in the pain of the moment moment that you forget entirely that you ever felt better in the past and find it inconceivable that you might feel better in the future.

16. Helplessness (also p88) You can't possibly do anything that will make yourself feel any better because you are convinced that your moods are caused by factors outside your control, such as fate, hormone cycles, dietary factors, luck, and other people's evaluations of you.

17. Overwhelming your self (also p88)There are several ways that you may overwhelm yourself into doing nothing. You may magnify a task to the degree that it seems impossible to tackle. You may assume you must do everything at once instead of breaking each job down into small, discrete, manageable units which you can complete one step at a time. You might also inadvertently distract yourself from the task at hand by obsessing about endless other things you haven't gotten around to doing yet. To illustrate how irrational this is, imagine every time you sit down to eat, you thought about all the food you have to eat durig your life time. Just imagine for a moment all that food piled up in front of you - kilograms and kilograms of food - and you thought each mean you have to eat all this food over a life time so you just stop eating because you feel like you will never get it done!

18. Distorted cognition: Binge thinking is helpful. (Thanks for that term @Spiderallis! Yes I do believe this. Of course it is not. But I didn't learn regulated thought patterns as a child. I was mostly dissociated, derealised and depersonalised. It is a close cousin with Rumination! Oh How I Love Rumination - NOT!

19. Distorted cognition: Rumination will help you work things out - well no, it doesn't but I didn't get rumination was a thing until 2013. People actually know that rumination doesn't help and makes your decision making processes much worse. I missed that memo until 2013.

20. Distorted cognition: That I must talk incessantly to keep the space filled up so I can manage to stay alive. This is not true. No one will kill me for not entertaining or Wowing them. So I have this distorted cognition that I have to talk all the time to keep myself - to stop the poison from getting through, to stop the jabs and the horrible attacks from getting inside. I don't have to babble to keep myself safe. No one is going for me right now. It is okay. I don't have to entertain or win people over so they don't kill me. No one is going to kill me or wants to kill me right now. I don't have to talk all the time to feel up the space to be safe. I am safe. It is okay.