#distorted thinking

Loki: He’s getting it. I can see the gears turning.

Me: I’m taking this personally. This isn’t about me. I’m personalizing and projecting my trauma. That’s not ok.

Loki: Not really.

Filtering: You take the negative details and magnify them while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation.

Personalisation: Thinking that everything people do or say is some kind of reaction to you. You also compare yourself to others, trying to determine who's smarter, better looking, etc.

Catastrophizing: You expect disaster. You notice or hear about a problem and start what "ifs". What if tragedy strikes? What if it happens to you?

Polarized Thinking: Things are black or white, good or bad. You have to be perfect or you're a failure. There is no middle ground.

Emotional Reasoning: You believe that what you feel must be true-automatically. If you feel stupid and boring, then you must be stupid and boring.

Mind Reading: Without their saying so, you know what people are feeling and why they act the way they do. In particular, you are able to divine how people are feeling towards you.

Being Right: You are continually on trial to prove that your opinions and actions are correct. Being wrong is unthinkable and you will go to any length to demonstrate your rightness.

Heaven's Reward Fallacy: You expect all your sacrifice and self-denial to pay off, as if there were someone keeping score. You feel bitter when the reward doesn't come.

I am currently in a hypomanic state and I am ambivalent about it. On one hand, I love having an increased drive to be more productive and more confidence that the work is spectacular. On the other hand, the sense of urgency increases my anxiety and irritability. This leads to me panicking more easily and getting quickly and unfairly angry at people for trivial misunderstandings.

I am very happy that despite this episode, I have been very self-aware and doing my best to use what I have learned to get through this.

One thing I would like to work on is challenging the idea that, “I don’t have time.” When I’m interrupted while doing my “very important work,” I get inappropriately frustrated and will huff, “I don’t have time for this.” The reality is, “I feel like I don’t have time for this.”

I want to challenge the all-or-nothing thoughts. If I asked myself, “What would really happen if I took a break to watch a funny cat video with a friend?” I would argue, “Well, I was on a roll and I don’t have much time left to meet my daily goals and taking a break could distract me and make me lose my momentum and then nothing gets done.” Then I’d have to ask, “Okay, well so it won’t work out perfectly, but what’s the worst thing that could happen?” And my answer would be, “I didn’t finish my goals on time so I’ll be late to my stream and have to stay up later and I’ll be tired.”

Boom. Now instead of being engulfed in a mindstorm of how “unfair” everything is and how today is “totally ruined,” I can see a clear yet cloudy sky that says, “Yea today’s not perfect but it’s fine.” And the most important part is that I am not turning my emotions into facts that I end up taking out on other people by being snappy and rude.

This is something important for me to work on because I am someone who identifies as a “Helper.” I have a slightly arrogant, intrinsic “righteousness” personality trait that makes me want to help others who need it. I jump right up to fight when I see someone being hurtful to others. And I’m working towards getting a license to be a therapist.

My motivation for live-streaming and content-creating is to give people something uplifting (literally) to look forward to after a long day in the rat race. The reason I pursue working hard is so I can afford to take care of myself. When I’m not trying my best, I rely on others more. I view it as my responsibility to take care of myself because then I’m equipped to help others better.

It’s important for anyone who is a helper to be smart about self-care and asking for help when needed. When I do not take care of myself, when I do not challenge the diseased thoughts in my mind, I end up snapping, being mad, and not helping anyone.

I’m very passionate about this because a lot of setbacks in my recovery journey were a direct result of doctors, nurses, or counselors who were not taking care of themselves and took it out on me and the other patients. I do not want to be a helper who just makes people worse off.

the idea that you can tell the difference between intrusive thoughts and your genuine self by whether or not you experience distress is a nice start, but they’re not that easy to categorize. given the way they work, you’ll start to wonder if you’re really distressed by the thoughts, if you actually like them, and that’s no good for anyone.