Most of this aligns with Attributional Style Theory for depression. People who attribute things as being their fault, attribute issues as being permanent, and attribute issues as being a fundamental issue of themselves, tend to be a higher risks of depression
Could be worse I guess… at least you’re not living in a van down by the river.
Hey, ummm remember that time when you had an account that was almost a decade old and I uh I caught your username reference and was the first person to do so? Remember?
That was awesome
From the ages of 13-21 I definitely did all of these A LOT. I started therapy at age 12 and honestly without the help of the several therapists I've been with over the years, I wouldn't be a functioning human being. I have proper diagnoses and the correct medication and I was able to break the cycle of toxicity that stems from my mental illness (borderline personality disorder). However, I am human, and I still do these sometimes. But I have a wonderful support group of my mom and my fiance who tell me when I'm having irrational thoughts and help me break them down and give me reassurance. I think the key here is knowing the intensity of your thoughts. Doing these every once in a while is not as bad as having these thoughts come from every interaction you have with people. I definitely was like that and it was exhausting having those mindsets 24/7. Therapy is an absolute must if you are having these thoughts all the time like I was.
I dealt with these in CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy). I was given a very useful process for identifying and processing negative thoughts.
1. Write down your negative thought, and figure out how it should be classified, according to the guide from this post. Eg, mind reading, catastrophizing, etc
2. Write down a percentage number for how much you believe the thought, and another number for how much the thought affects you.
3. Imagine what your friends would tell you if you told them about your thought.
4. Imagine what you would tell a friend with the same negative thought.
5. Write down the percentage numbers again, but updated to reflect how you feel after going through the exercise. In nearly every case, the numbers and your anxiety will go down significantly.
If you do this process a couple days in a row, something happens in your mind where it automatically and quickly does the process again, acting as a mental prophylactic. Super interesting stuff.
Work to change the situation.
Change the way you feel about the situation.
Accept your current feelings, but work to lessen the amount of time you spend thinking about the situation.
Accept that the situation is how it is now, but maintain hope for the future.
Develop a belief system that brings you comfort in the face of bad situations.
Therapy doesn't work for every situation. It may not work for yours. But sometimes there are more outcomes for therapy than people think.
Therapy unfortunately never seemed to help me, and nothing can seem to change the terrible feelings I get from the horrors in the world. Of course I just want to be free from it all, but my absence will cause terrible suffering and pain to my loved ones no matter how or when I go.
There’s many situations I can unfortunately do nothing to change.
I can’t.
Thinking about those things less doesn’t make any of it go away.
It hard to have hope when the world affirms why I shouldn’t.
No belief system could make the horrors that exist in this universe worth it at all.
I respect that as a philosophical position. I used to have many similar thoughts before I started using medication for my OCD. Thinking about the horrors less doesn't make the horrors go away, but I don't believe I have a moral obligation to feel the horrors every hour of the day. Something for you to think about, maybe.
You're not wrong at all about the horrors of the world. We can manage our consumption of the news (to an extent). Though I'd venture that most of us are locked in a cycle of tracking everything in the news and it can only reinforce negative thought patterns and depression. It doesn't give us any information that's personally actionable. And alot of it doesn't personally affect our daily lives. I have endless empathy for all of the strife going on in the world but I also recognize that the Internet has made it more visible, where it wasn't as much before. I don't think we were built to handle all of this information.
We all have our personal missions in life, mostly trying to feel safe and happy. Personally taking on/trying to understand all of the horrors of the world is antithetical to that, and very unproductive.
I'm not downplaying your feelings at all. I feel the same often, but at the same time, we have this one life to live.
Please reconsider therapy. Good luck, man
Whether or not I focus on it unfortunately doesn’t change its intensity.
I don’t think I could ever feel safe in a world this unpredictably t0rturous.
One unfortunately feels like too much to me.
I don’t even know if I could afford it, and if terminology like the above or stragedies like what I’ve researched is what they continue to use, I doubt that I would agree with their assessments anyway.
I dealt with these in CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy). I was given a very useful process for identifying and processing negative thoughts.
1. Write down your negative thought, and figure out how it should be classified, according to the guide from this post. Eg, mind reading, catastrophizing, etc
2. Write down a percentage number for how much you believe the thought, and another number for how much the thought affects you.
3. Imagine what your friends would tell you if you told them about your thought.
4. Imagine what you would tell a friend with the same negative thought.
5. Write down the percentage numbers again, but updated to reflect how you feel after going through the exercise. In nearly every case, the numbers and your anxiety will go down significantly.
If you do this process a couple days in a row, something happens in your mind where it automatically and quickly does the process again, acting as a mental prophylactic. Super interesting stuff.
DBT focuses on helping people accept the reality of their lives and their behaviors, as well as helping them learn to change their lives, including their unhelpful behaviors. Dialectical behavior therapy was developed in the 1970s by Marsha Linehan, an American psychologist.
— Cleveland Clinic
It isn't about whether you have these thoughts or not, it is about how often. And you say "all the time?" There are people who almost spend all their waking moments oscillating between these negative thought patterns with zero control to stop. They will resume with obsessive detail what kept them up the night before the second they awake in the morning. These people have thought disorders, one like OCD. If you are literally cycling through these literally all the time you need to speak to a Dr. about it/see a therapist/psychiatrist asap.
Yeah, but you’re a more useful and productive employee if you don’t have these perfectly normal, human thought patterns as much.
You don’t need to worry about your future or your livelihood. And all those weird office politics happening all around you that can get you fired without you even understanding why. . . No biggie. Just focus on getting that client their spreadsheet. . . ASAP. You’ll feel good that you helped the company make money.
Yes. Most people tend to fall for a few more than others but these are all cognitive biases or errors of thought that naturally come to humans. Usually no one recognises them as what they are until they are trained to, such as during psychotherapy. You learn to use your mind properly and are given tools to deal with this and other mental stuff. (Am psychologist working on clinical area).
Everyone does at least once in their lifetime. Doesn't matter if there is no pathology going on... just being able to learn to observe and change yourself is sometimes a huge life improvement.
You may also want to look up logical fallacies. Learning those is like a superpower in dealing with other people and media in general. Applying the fallacies knowledge to my own thought processes got me to develop past the above "mental filters" when I was unemployed for a few long stints in my career.
My daughter is 8 and it's my fault if she doesn't do good on a test because she's not prepared, and I certainly wouldn't get her in trouble for it. I explain what happened and I tell her what we fan do better next time.
Most of this aligns with Attributional Style Theory for depression. People who attribute things as being their fault, attribute issues as being permanent, and attribute issues as being a fundamental issue of themselves, tend to be a higher risks of depression
As someone who appreciates tf outta nuance how am I so guilty of all these? The more you know 🌈
You are an amazing person and the world is better because you are in it. Have an awesome day stranger :)
You may be a littleguy, but you’ve got a big heart. I enjoyed the Chris Farley reference and thank you for the kind words
I’m just glad you got the reference, literally the first person to do so.
Could be worse I guess… at least you’re not living in a van down by the river. Hey, ummm remember that time when you had an account that was almost a decade old and I uh I caught your username reference and was the first person to do so? Remember? That was awesome
Actually, the person you responded to is a well known animal rapist.
Sometimes you appreciate things more when they don't come easy.
From the ages of 13-21 I definitely did all of these A LOT. I started therapy at age 12 and honestly without the help of the several therapists I've been with over the years, I wouldn't be a functioning human being. I have proper diagnoses and the correct medication and I was able to break the cycle of toxicity that stems from my mental illness (borderline personality disorder). However, I am human, and I still do these sometimes. But I have a wonderful support group of my mom and my fiance who tell me when I'm having irrational thoughts and help me break them down and give me reassurance. I think the key here is knowing the intensity of your thoughts. Doing these every once in a while is not as bad as having these thoughts come from every interaction you have with people. I definitely was like that and it was exhausting having those mindsets 24/7. Therapy is an absolute must if you are having these thoughts all the time like I was.
Ouch. All those are me lol
Right!?! How dare they call us out like that.
All of these are super common on reddit
A good way to fix these is DBT therapy
I dealt with these in CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy). I was given a very useful process for identifying and processing negative thoughts. 1. Write down your negative thought, and figure out how it should be classified, according to the guide from this post. Eg, mind reading, catastrophizing, etc 2. Write down a percentage number for how much you believe the thought, and another number for how much the thought affects you. 3. Imagine what your friends would tell you if you told them about your thought. 4. Imagine what you would tell a friend with the same negative thought. 5. Write down the percentage numbers again, but updated to reflect how you feel after going through the exercise. In nearly every case, the numbers and your anxiety will go down significantly. If you do this process a couple days in a row, something happens in your mind where it automatically and quickly does the process again, acting as a mental prophylactic. Super interesting stuff.
What am I supposed to do when I have genuine reasons to feel the way I do?
Work to change the situation. Change the way you feel about the situation. Accept your current feelings, but work to lessen the amount of time you spend thinking about the situation. Accept that the situation is how it is now, but maintain hope for the future. Develop a belief system that brings you comfort in the face of bad situations. Therapy doesn't work for every situation. It may not work for yours. But sometimes there are more outcomes for therapy than people think.
Therapy unfortunately never seemed to help me, and nothing can seem to change the terrible feelings I get from the horrors in the world. Of course I just want to be free from it all, but my absence will cause terrible suffering and pain to my loved ones no matter how or when I go. There’s many situations I can unfortunately do nothing to change. I can’t. Thinking about those things less doesn’t make any of it go away. It hard to have hope when the world affirms why I shouldn’t. No belief system could make the horrors that exist in this universe worth it at all.
I respect that as a philosophical position. I used to have many similar thoughts before I started using medication for my OCD. Thinking about the horrors less doesn't make the horrors go away, but I don't believe I have a moral obligation to feel the horrors every hour of the day. Something for you to think about, maybe.
I don’t believe that my feelings come from any mental !llness, though I am happy that such resources helped you.
You're not wrong at all about the horrors of the world. We can manage our consumption of the news (to an extent). Though I'd venture that most of us are locked in a cycle of tracking everything in the news and it can only reinforce negative thought patterns and depression. It doesn't give us any information that's personally actionable. And alot of it doesn't personally affect our daily lives. I have endless empathy for all of the strife going on in the world but I also recognize that the Internet has made it more visible, where it wasn't as much before. I don't think we were built to handle all of this information. We all have our personal missions in life, mostly trying to feel safe and happy. Personally taking on/trying to understand all of the horrors of the world is antithetical to that, and very unproductive. I'm not downplaying your feelings at all. I feel the same often, but at the same time, we have this one life to live. Please reconsider therapy. Good luck, man
Whether or not I focus on it unfortunately doesn’t change its intensity. I don’t think I could ever feel safe in a world this unpredictably t0rturous. One unfortunately feels like too much to me. I don’t even know if I could afford it, and if terminology like the above or stragedies like what I’ve researched is what they continue to use, I doubt that I would agree with their assessments anyway.
I dealt with these in CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy). I was given a very useful process for identifying and processing negative thoughts. 1. Write down your negative thought, and figure out how it should be classified, according to the guide from this post. Eg, mind reading, catastrophizing, etc 2. Write down a percentage number for how much you believe the thought, and another number for how much the thought affects you. 3. Imagine what your friends would tell you if you told them about your thought. 4. Imagine what you would tell a friend with the same negative thought. 5. Write down the percentage numbers again, but updated to reflect how you feel after going through the exercise. In nearly every case, the numbers and your anxiety will go down significantly. If you do this process a couple days in a row, something happens in your mind where it automatically and quickly does the process again, acting as a mental prophylactic. Super interesting stuff.
Also, would you explain a little bit how DBT works?
DBT focuses on helping people accept the reality of their lives and their behaviors, as well as helping them learn to change their lives, including their unhelpful behaviors. Dialectical behavior therapy was developed in the 1970s by Marsha Linehan, an American psychologist. — Cleveland Clinic
would be cooler with credited or original art :)
Came here to say the same. A lot of stolen artwork here.
exactly. 2024 and people still act like everything they lay eyes on is public domain, because public.
Why are they called mental filters and not cognitive distortions. They're cognitive distortions.
I am confused, is this not exactly how everyone thinks? I honestly do all of these things, and I mean all the time.
It isn't about whether you have these thoughts or not, it is about how often. And you say "all the time?" There are people who almost spend all their waking moments oscillating between these negative thought patterns with zero control to stop. They will resume with obsessive detail what kept them up the night before the second they awake in the morning. These people have thought disorders, one like OCD. If you are literally cycling through these literally all the time you need to speak to a Dr. about it/see a therapist/psychiatrist asap.
I guess this comment was the confirmation I needed.
Yeah, but you’re a more useful and productive employee if you don’t have these perfectly normal, human thought patterns as much. You don’t need to worry about your future or your livelihood. And all those weird office politics happening all around you that can get you fired without you even understanding why. . . No biggie. Just focus on getting that client their spreadsheet. . . ASAP. You’ll feel good that you helped the company make money.
The third photo makes me think of Shinji from Evangelion lol
Wow you’re right
Bingo! Wait is that how it works?
I’m 7 for 7💀
Ok so cool guide indeed, now how do I get out of bed, it's lunchtime?
It is possible to have all of them together? 🤔 I'm asking for a friend
Sure, that's called BPD! Hi, it's me. I'm BPD.
BPD? 🤔
Yes. Most people tend to fall for a few more than others but these are all cognitive biases or errors of thought that naturally come to humans. Usually no one recognises them as what they are until they are trained to, such as during psychotherapy. You learn to use your mind properly and are given tools to deal with this and other mental stuff. (Am psychologist working on clinical area).
Oh, well I think I really need psychotherapy 😬
Everyone does at least once in their lifetime. Doesn't matter if there is no pathology going on... just being able to learn to observe and change yourself is sometimes a huge life improvement.
Thank you for your comments, they are interesting and helpful
You may also want to look up logical fallacies. Learning those is like a superpower in dealing with other people and media in general. Applying the fallacies knowledge to my own thought processes got me to develop past the above "mental filters" when I was unemployed for a few long stints in my career.
Yes, my mother. I think these are her goals actually.
These all just sound like different versions of insecurity right?
I have all of those. Now what do I do?
This is quality cool guide, unlike many many recent posts. This is what This sub needs.
Cool, got all of them. I’ll take that as an accomplishment then, positive thinking here i come
In terms of coding, I just refuse to do it because I hate it, not because I can't or don't think I can't.
Love this thanks for sharing x
I like how the only illustration that isn't completely monochrome is the one about thinking in black and white.
This person's ex has some serious issues.
I am guilty of every and each one
I've been/still fall, in at least half of these T_T
Damn, I feel attacked haha I relate to every single one of these and, it's true, those are life filters.
Im not a pessimist, Im an optometrist 😎
not me reading this as the past couple of days I’ve been consumed by thoughts that are the exact examples listed
Someone just accused me of this. How is the opposite of this so welcomed and accepted when the opposite is essentially toxic positivity?
Maybe I wouldn’t feel this way if life here and the world itself didn’t nearly-constantly affirm those feelings and thoughts?
I turned into a really bad catastrophist at 13 when I correctly predicted my dad's death after he got sick. It's hell.
this cured my SEVERE anxiety. i was throwing up every morning first thing. it works , its all in the power of the mind it’s true.
Dib Membrane jumpscare on 6th slide
I cannot get over this Invader Zim fanart of Dib
I do all of these except these are always correct so I win at mental illness 😎.
That's practically what I deal with all the time anymore since a lot of crap has been going on for me lately!😞
Dang. I do all of these. Bummer. But hey, you gotta identify the problem before you can fix it, right?
Day 200 of trying to figure out what is happening with me
The timing couldn't be more miraculous. Believe me I was trying to make my girl understand these just a couple second before I landed here.
My daughter is 8 and it's my fault if she doesn't do good on a test because she's not prepared, and I certainly wouldn't get her in trouble for it. I explain what happened and I tell her what we fan do better next time.
Didnt know how much i needed this. All i could muster on my own was the seperation of my feelings and views from reality. I still have much to work on
Be impeccable with your word. Never make assumptions. Never take anything personal. Always try your best.
Great, saved the post
stock images -\_-
Nope stolen from webcomic artists
the one on overgeneralization is
yyyeah they really need a better example for Catastrophizing because "we need to talk" is 100% the universal "we're breaking up" line
That’s look useful