#cognitive distortion

[embracetheunseen]

A reminder I’ve been trying to hold onto lately, especially on the days when overthinking feels louder than reality itself. 🌿

[laughingsquid]

How Different Forms of Cognitive Distortion Can Lead to a Continuous Cycle of Negativity

[unlikelywombatmiracle]

Cognitive distortion, I'm tired of that let me just try and turn off my emotions real quick

[anarchyroll]

Be Aware of #CognitiveDistortions

Every day I have a reminder of my phone set to go off that says “I am Aware of Cognitive Distortions”. It only goes off once per day. I could probably use another two or three…dozen reminders over the course of the day, as could most people. Cognitive distortions or perceiving reality inaccurately, is as natural and normal and easy and automatic as breathing. Is it possible for people to not…

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[i-want-your-bones]

therapist: have you ever heard of cognitive distortion? it’s when-

me: hehe. distortion. like michael

[justseveralowls]

The Quick Question List For Cognitive Distortions/Negative Self Talk:

Hello Lovely humans, this is a follow up to my previous post on coping with Cognitive distortions, But instead its an abridged more of an in the moment list of questions to ask yourself in response to those thoughts. Feel free to share, use adapt and change any way that you find helpful! (I included examples for help)

1. What is the evidence for this thought? The evidence against it?

“I messed up this project, now it’s ruined.”

Evidence for:

This eye is drawn crooked

It doesn’t look like it was supposed to

Evidence against:

It’s a sketch, this is where I am supposed to make mistakes

I can erase it an try again.

When I walk away and come back to it, the mistake seems a lot smaller.

The rest of my drawing looks okay, if I cover the mistake it looks pretty nice.

Is this thought always true?

2. Is this thought always true?

One mistake means that I can’t handle any part of this project.”

Kids make spelling mistakes in school, that doesn’t mean they can’t learn English at all

So no, the thought isn’t always true.

3. Has this always been true in the past?

“Every time I make a mistake I will inevitably fail.”

I fell off my bike a ton of times when I was learning to ride it. But I did learn.

The presentation that earned me a promotion, took like four tries to format right. I made plenty of mistakes and still did well.

My favorite recipe took years to perfect, but now I can make that and a bunch of other things without hesitation.

4. What are the odds of this being/coming true?

“If I don’t get everything right on this test, then I will fail, and won’t pass the class.”

There are 56 questions on the test, technically I only need to get 39 correct to get a 70%. This means that I can miss up to 17 questions without failing. This is only one out of five tests so even if I did fail one it wouldn’t mean I would fail the entire class.

So the chances are pretty darn low.

5. What is the worst that could happen? What’s so bad about that? What would I do if that happened?

“What if I forgot my alarm?”

Worst case: I sleep through the alarm or it doesn’t and I am late for work/school and an authority figure is upset with me.

Why is this bad: They could punish, fire or fail me potentially if this lateness becomes a habit.

What would I do: I would call/email ahead as soon as I was able to, apologize to my boss and or peers, and inform them it would not happen again, and maybe offer to work late/do some work to make up for it.

6. Am I looking at the full picture?

“I tripped now everyone thinks I am foolish and clumsy.”

Those people either have known me for a long while and see me as more than that because I am. Or I am a complete stranger and they either will not care or will have forgotten about it within a day or two.

7. Would I say this thought to a friend/ is it objective?

“I’m feeling bad, but it would be lazy of me to take a break to rest and recover.”

I would never say that to one of my friends or loved ones. In fact, I think I would encourage them to rest or relax because it would be good for them.

This is not objective because is I don’t rest or take care of my problem, then the problem won’t resolve or even get worse, meaning I would be able to be even less helpful/productive.

I very much hope that this post comes in handy when Cognitive Distortions or negative self-talk are being difficult. You are more than your thoughts. You are strong, you are doing well, you are valid. I am proud of you. You are not alone and you can do this.

Keep fighting,

R and S

[intersex-ionality]

Yo, regarding the "I can't help it because I'm sick" thing - I'm unsure how familiar you are with TA, but iirc that's one of the 'games' outlined in it, namingly wooden leg. Wooden leg is so called because it's based off the phrase "what do you expect from a person with a wooden leg?". The game itself is most commonly used to avoid responsibility and such, from what I understand. I don't know much about the community, but from what you've said it sounds like that game?

So before I begin this post, I want to acknowledge that yes, transactional analysis has historically had Freudian roots. However, today’s transactional analysts are primarily informed by cognitive behavioural analysis. At this point most (but not all!) TA is basically a type of cognitive therapy/study that helps you to recognize two major things: other people have just as complex and complete a set of internal mental processes as you do (theory of mind), and that all people--yourself AND others--have inherent worth and value (I’m okay, you’re okay).

The wooden leg game is a type of cognitive distortion that is first described in older forms of TA, and while it is sometimes described in condescending ways, I think the general concept has value.

The archetypal example of a wooden leg game is someone with an anxiety-related stutter, who cannot find employment. He blames his stutter, and technically this is correct, because he only applies for public speaking jobs which are incompatible with the symptoms of his anxiety. An easy fix to the problem would be to apply for work that does not set off his anxieties or require him to speak to large groups of people with low fidelity audio equipment in a clear, concise manner that is incompatible with his stuttering. But, by blaming his stutter itself and refusing to take any further action, the man becomes trapped in a sort of cognitive loop wherein he either thinks of himself as increasingly worthless or the world around him as increasingly hostile and broken.

That’s the simplest example, and the one that most closely parallels the obscenely large number of people on microblogging and highly public social media platforms who excuse their own misbehaviour as “symptomatic,” saying things like, “your paragraphs are ableist because I have ADHD” or “I have to insult anyone who disagrees with me because I’m cluster-B,” things like that.

But there are other equally obnoxious examples that people use to excuse themselves from making any attempt at growth or at basic courtesy to others, such as, “no one can be expected to perform unpaid emotional labour on top of the other unpaid labours expect of us by our employers, therefore I have no obligation to be kind to others, therefore being extremely mean to others is justified,” or, “under a patriarchal society, women are always hated for existing as women, therefore any criticism I receive is not because I’m being a right bastard, but because I am a woman.”

It’s basically a way to shuck any personal blame for one’s circumstances. A blame-shifting cognitive distortion. Now, of course, everyone has some level of blame-shifting behaviour. But for some people, this becomes an immense distortion in the way they perceive themselves and others around them.

And since there are a ton of circumstances one can end up in that legitimately aren’t one’s own fault (eg: becoming poor as a result of layoffs at work, being bown non-white in a white supremacist culture), it is very easy for people who have these distortions in extreme, to functionally justify anything they want.

When presented with someone who has the exact same “excuse” as them, but does not take it, this cognitive distortion often motivates people to further justify their inaction by saying that those others are unique and extremely fortunate examples who have other benefits that make taking action easier, are actually just really mild cases who shouldn’t be compared, or are faking.

Of course, one must take extreme care when dealing with this distortion, because the fact of the matter is, although it’s not objective fact, the person in question legitimately believes that they cannot change their circumstances for the better, and that instead the world must change first. As such, interventions that aren’t careful and gentle enough as guidance will be seen as attacks on the person’s sense of reality. Obviously, that makes things worse, giving them new anxieties and reinforcing destructive beliefs.

Furthermore, for some people, it’s not a distortion. They legitimately cannot change their circumstances, because the trouble really is coming from an outside source. In those cases, the therapist’s duty is instead to help a person realize their fundamental self worth, and help them learn not to lash out at others who also are not responsible for the pain unfairly.

So yeah, in as much as this distortion can be said to exist, I would agree that it applies readily to this situation.

[williambetterfan]

Cognitive Distortions | An Overview

What is the Cognitive Distortions? Let us simplify this jargon for you.

We all know that a same situation or event can be perceived differently by two people. You know what is the difference? It's the thinking pattern. Our thinking pattern can be a sum of our life experiences or how we saw our caregiver reacting to stressors.

For example- If you were rebuked or criticised as a child, you will tend to see future events from the same experience.

Simply put it is a way of your mind to trick you. It is natural for us to trust out mind and all the thoughts that ruminate within. However, we must be careful as not all these thoughts are true.

Our minds can surprisingly create faulty connections. These connections become stronger and wilder in our heads which becomes a cause for our distress. Ironically, in reality those connections and thoughts are not true.

Now, since these connections/patterns are strongly embedded. Thus it becomes difficult at times to combat these thoughts by ourselves.

When a person wants to explore in depth the way he/she thinks, reacts, behaves and feels, counselling offers a safe space to find a resolve. It is a relief sometimes to be true to ourselves and ask for help rather than suffer alone in silence.

Reach us out on BetterLYF.com to speak to our Counselor.