[jbuttz]

I'm currently reading 'The bipolar 2 workbook' by a bunch of different psychologists. Right now I'm reading about developing healthier thinking patterns. I thought this could help somebody somewhere. 'The best way to notice your thinking patterns is to identify automatic thoughts. Automatic thoughts are thoughts that seem to arise on their own in response to events or situations. These automatic thoughts happen all the time, so they tend to "fly under the radar" of your awareness. The best way to tune in to your negative automatic thoughts is to pay close attention to your mood. When your mood suddenly worsens, simply ask yourself, What thought just went through my mind? You might be amazed by how much "self-talk" you notice, once you train yourself to do this.'

[jbuttz]

Each of these shows a situation, automatic thought, cognitive distortion, your emotion followed by how you react with your behavior.

Your girlfriend doesn't call>She's going to break up with me>catastrophizing, jumping to conclusions, fortune telling>sadness, fear>you cry and put away pictures of her.

One that matches me to a T

You receive a compliment>she's only saying that to be nice>mind reading, minimizing, discounting the positives>sadness, embarrassment, annoyance>you avoid eye contact.

When that bunch of different psychologists figure out how to suppress automatic thoughts, I have some automatic thoughts that I'd like to suppress.

[B2008]

I can't even take a compliment from my husband to the point where I will do something automatically to disprove his compliment and not even realize it till after the fact. Few days ago he tells me several times throughout the day how beautiful I am that night I stake war with my blackheads. I didn't see what was really happening. I actually pealed layers of skin off in two big spots on my face and leave other spots of bruising. I am not a face picker! The next morning I was able to tell myself see I'm not beautiful. Now I feel like crap for marking up what my husband sees as beautiful. Which is complete bs because I know when he tells me this he isn't just referring to physical beauty. Physical compliments from him are made with some arnery noises and some love pats and neither one of us use beautiful lightly. It's the ultimate compliment. He is my rugged beautiful I am his beautiful.
Why do our thought patterns have to be so difficult. A question never has a quick answer!

No matter how small, a positive change deserves to be celebrated!

[pirilin]

I agree with lefty.

[Woolly Bugger]

Originally Posted by pirilin

I agree with lefty.

Two peas in a pod.

[smallwonderer]

I signed up for a new t to do CBT (where I first learned of automatic thoughts, after reading a couple CBT books). New t has not done a stitch of CBT. I can't figure out what's going on since I signed up for CBT and came in to see her about it...but maybe the next t will figure it out.

Moodnotes is pretty good - iphone app. Helps you record negative thoughts and reading them back and thinking about other ways to consider the situation (how most CBT works) does help. The easiest one I found early on was also the 'number line' - in Judith Beck's CBT book. If you say "I am a complete failure" (black and white or catastrophizing) you come up with an extreme person - a 0 or a 100 and then you fill in with more people and the real you almost always ends up somewhere in the middle. Even when I'm most down on myself, I can at least get to 20% which feels better than 0.

[lacerta]

I have gone through CBT now for more than a year and it has helped me enourmously with those automatic disturbing thoughts. However I cannot imagine myself going through this on my own, by help of a book, as there have been many thoughts that I have not been able to resolve on my own and needed the T to help me on finding alternative answers to them.

[BastetsMuse]

Originally Posted by jbuttz

You might be amazed by how much "self-talk" you notice, once you train yourself to do this.'

I've been working in this for a long time. You're absolutely right about the self-talk.... our "still, small voice" inside sure does have a lot to say!