Part of my therapy was identifying those ugly things I might say about myself or others or life. Then we'd look at the emotions, thoughts, beliefs and activating events that brought it on. Then we'd dispute the thoughts and beliefs rationally.

Say, for example, I was saying I was a ... to avoid the filter ... a goshdarned nogoodniking bum and loser because I fiddlesticked up again because that mothball loving shitake eating soup maker had annoyed my precious eyeballs.

Or similar words.

We'd analyze that, look at it for rating and labeling, cognitive distortions and irrational beliefs. For example, it's an irrational belief that my eyeballs are so intensely precious that no one should ever annoy them and they're a low-down soup maker if they do. It's far healthier to say that I'd strongly prefer it if my eyeballs weren't annoyed and they're really no more precious than anybody else's eyeballs and it's unfortunate that I felt annoyed but just because someone did something I didn't like, it didn't make them a soup maker. And so on in that vein. Using the language that I'd used in my own mind or out loud in private.

We'd also work on accepting that I sometimes use salty language and that doesn't make me a nogoodniking bum, but it would be highly preferable if I didn't dwell on those ideas or actually say them to people because I live in a social environment and there are usually consequences to calling people soup makers.

I also learned to practice "thought stopping" if I start catastrophizing or even making things up in drama llama fashion. I used to do that when I was a school girl. If someone offended or hurt me I'd write a whole scenario inside my head making their actions worse and my wounds deeper and I'd feel that pain. It was maybe a way of avoiding the deeper wounds I could never talk about back then. I think most kids do it to some degree and some people don't learn to stop it.

With thought stopping, when I recognize the catastrophizing, I say outloud: STOP! If I'm with other people I say it to myself. If I'm alone, I say it outloud, rather loudly, and may even hold my arm and hand up like a traffic cop. STOP! That thought is an exaggeration. STOP! That thinking is going to make me feel worse. STOP! That's not true.

Then after some deep breaths I start analyzing my own cognitive distortions and self-defeating behaviors as well as the person I'm annoyed at. I get to analyze their actions, too, without condemning them or damning them to hell or hating them for offending my precious eyeballs. If they've done something that is truly detrimental, I may decide to detach from them or tell them what I'm thinking and feeling after I calm down or try to negotiate some sort of agreement. It doesn't always work to get an agreement, but it does work to calm me down and it keeps me from distressing myself too much. I hope it works for you, Pre.