Who says it’s a cognitive distortion? ?

[Mee]

Seem on a list of common cognitive distortions on Instagram I noted two in particular:

1. The world is a dangerous place and I need to be aware of my surroundings to be safe

2. I can be harmed at any time


I get that not everyone feels this- but who says thinking this ash is actually distorted? ?. Why is it not the case that the people who think this could be the ones thinking correctly? It’s essentially how health and safety officers are asked to think too, and they have no trauma required to do their job.

 

[Friday]

Personally, I think those 2 things are just plain common sense.

HOWEVER... and why they probably made the list... is that many people take it to the extreme, and are either too terrified to live, paranoid, or justify their violence against & shite treatment of others by those 2 things.

You see it here in the forums often enough... especially In the whole “I don’t feel safe, I need to be safe!” thing, and treating others who’ve never done a thing wrong to them like rapists and abusers.

 

[Mee]

Yes, I picked thoe two off the list because they seem so ‘sensible’ to me. I am not sure I want to change them.... but they were on the list I read ( some of the others I recognised as ‘mine’ others not) and it struck me... if these aren’t ok what else isn’t. Maybe those steeering us are wrong? Or if they are right am I wrong about so much more than I can imagine? It’s really unfathomable..,

 

[somerandomguy]

When you think about "I can be harmed at any time," how many people do you know that have been seriously harmed? Take that number and compare it to the number of ALL the people you know. The numbers, most likey, aren't going to be close to each other.

When you think about safety ... take that number of people you know that have been seriously harmed again. Out of those people, how many of them wouldn't actually have been harmed if they had been more aware of their surroundings?

The point is ... maybe we can be harmed at any time, but there's literally no way to plan for all the infinite number of ways we can potentially be harmed. To try to plan for all of those potentialities anyway is impossible ... yet thanks to PTSD, many of us try anyway, which makes everything worse.

 

[Tinyflame]

Oops, cross-posted with @somerandomguy . I would say #1. might better be termed, ".. to be safer", and both #1 and #2 are true for all people, at all times, and throughtout all of history.

So like @Friday said, if extrapolating, or taking to extremes or using as justification for lousy or unfair treatment of others (+/ or yourself), it would be distorted.

And as @somerandomguy said, I think one has to consider context, probabilities, beliefs (such as, rephrasing #2, "I always could be harmed, therefore I will be' (always, never, etc being a fallacy) ). Maybe also to flip it: though I could be harmed, the likelihood is less atm than many other moments could be, or were.

Maybe other things, too. For example, I have issues with 'feeling' safe, which is different than being safe. And can be caused (apparently) from discounting what or who is actually not safe, because it feels or seems unfair to think badly of another.

 

[Mee]

When you think about "I can be harmed at any time," how many people do you know that have been seriously harmed? Take that number and compare it to the number of ALL the people you know. The numbers, most likey, aren't going to be close to each other.

When you think about safety ... take that number of people you know that have been seriously harmed again. Out of those people, how many of them wouldn't actually have been harmed if they had been more aware of their surroundings?

The point is ... maybe we can be harmed at any time, but there's literally no way to plan for all the infinite number of ways we can potentially be harmed. To try to plan for all of those potentialities anyway is impossible ... yet thanks to PTSD, many of us try anyway, which makes everything worse.

Every woman I have spoken to about it except three....

Plus all the other ways.

I think we almost all get harmed? Like everyone experiences trauma but not everyone gets PTSD .

I get what you are saying and agree we cannot plan for everything... but that doesn’t make that ‘I can be harmed at any time’ untrue.

For me it’s sort of the .... anti making effort to stop danger because of exactly what you say- we cannot plan for everything. And trying to do so would actually put us in more danger ! Can you imagine trying to run from trouble pulling a suitcase of you ‘just in case’ emergency supplies?

 

[Ronin]

I think you might run into selection issues there, though.

Ie women you spoke to are already a sample you found trustworthy... and we tend to find more trustworthy those of alike or related background, even if implicit and not disclosed from the get go / some experience translates enough in reactions.

And then there is... can get harmed starts to be a problem when it begins to be conflated with *will* be harmed.

That danger doesn't exist a priori. Possibility isn't certainty. Heck, even objectively 'dangerous' situations don't guarantee things will go pear shaped. Risk ain't outcome... and PTSD poses certainty even where there is NO risk.

 

[Mee]

I think you might run into selection issues there, though.

Ie women you spoke to are already a sample you found trustworthy... and we tend to find more trustworthy those of alike or related background, even if implicit and not disclosed from the get go / some experience translates enough in reactions.

And then there is... can get harmed starts to be a problem when it begins to be conflated with *will* be harmed.

That danger doesn't exist a priori. Possibility isn't certainty. Heck, even objectively 'dangerous' situations don't guarantee things will go pear shaped. Risk ain't outcome... and PTSD poses certainty even where there is NO risk.

Ok... yes.

My point is more we all come to serious harm..... eventually. Other wise the world would be even more overcrowded.

To me the cognitive distortion would seem to be that we won’t come to serious harm.... it’s how, and how often.... not if?

 

[Ronin]

Bit snorted at death as serious harm, if that was it... since not sure about that? The normal / natural causes ends of life ain't harm in my book, tend to go more with hurt: injury / accidental, or harm as meant injury.

Which got me thinking maybe the whole how you *personally* categorize messing with bodily integrity may be worth a look?

As you might discover the harm perception shifts, if categories for what IS harm change / become more conscious and choice.

 

[Mee]

Bit snorted at death as serious harm, if that was it... since not sure about that? The normal / natural causes ends of life ain't harm in my book, tend to go more with hurt: injury / accidental, or harm as meant injury.

Which got me thinking maybe the whole how you *personally* categorize messing with bodily integrity may be worth a look?

As you might discover the harm perception shifts, if categories for what IS harm change / become more conscious and choice.

Re definition of harm- definitely going to consider this. As a multi linguist I think I definitely benefit from looking at definition and also I feel common Usuage ( in one place when languages are used differently in different places) is highly relevant but doesn’t negate original or other cultural usage. I find this in more than English.

Something for me definitely to think about, thanks Ronin.

I also think it helps to know I also type with a smile often.... I have a humour which doesn’t translate to screen well because it’s dry. I definitely feel a good snort reaction was solicited my my post ;)

Albeit for me it’s more a sort of .... black humour , smile because it’s true. So I understate to overstate sort of thing

 

[HaveWorthjustLiedTo]

In 100% of my personal experience, I was seriously harmed roughly 5 times a week until able to escape home at 17. I smelled slightly fewer than 4,000 people barbequed like pigs or splattered like tomatoes on 9/11. The smell was the nastiest part.

No, parents don't like to know that whatever they do to keep their children safe, one day their big soft eyes will fall in and melt off the bone. 100% guaranteed. That we can't do anything about.

Me? i have been careful. It's not pretty, but I would most certainly have been harmed a bunch more times if I hadn't had an inkling of something wrong. Yeah. Once it was a bear in the woods, and once it was women's major natural predator, a guy. On a bicycle. On a bike path. in a nice wealthy suburb of LA. Who when I turned around on my bike because I didn't like something about the way he looked at me when he passed me on his bike, emerged from behind the bushes where he'd been waiting ahead and out of sigh, chased me down, grabbed my bike handles and wrested them away from me. I fell, of course. but I fell headed the right direction and well clear of those trees. So when I levitated to my feet and ran, I was running the right way (toward people) and he'd no element of surprise. Still he caught me once and bit me before i yanked free and levitated across a highway to a condo guard booth. That was the closest. But aside from family members, I've been followed on the street, changed sides, and been followed to the other side. I wait those rather frequent kinds of things out in 24/7 stores. After a while they move on and look for less alert prey. I am sorry it will be someone who doesn't know she can be harmed and the world is dangerous; she should never have listened to anyone trying to tell her differently, and that person is the more culpable. Good male friends, good fathers, good brothers tell their loved women to be careful out there. Because the truth is hard, but some deaths are much harder and come too late rather than too soon. I'm not saying you're going to harm me. i am going to say that to expect me to not do due diligence has no upside for me and the downside is me dying screaming a long time after i started begging. Sorry, but i'll pass on the generalization of your reality to mine.

Think these things don't happen? Maybe not to you. But that is not a privilege i will ever be granted in 100% of my only lifetimes.

Never again, if I can help it. If that sounds neurotic, what should I tell myself instead, pray?

 

[somerandomguy]

once it was women's major natural predator, a guy.

Might want to check that cognitive distortion.

Good male friends, good fathers, good brothers tell their loved women to be careful out there.

I've never told my wife to be careful out there ... because both she and I understand that the chance of anything happening to her is low, and not worth worrying about.