[sittingatwatersedge]

cognitive distortions.... I was given a list of 13 of them.

I expected to find that I might resort to two or three of them

but the more I get into it, the more of them pop up... all the time .... eveywhere.

Do I ever have a thought that doesn't warp?

The idea of trhing to challenge them all as they occur is so daunting; I feel I will just patch my self here and there and here and there and here and there until I am just a surface of patches. Can a person live that way? won't the stitching wear out before long?

[jexa]

(warning: jexa is stepping on her soap box)

Ahhh you can't! You can't fix them all! You can never catch them all! This is why CBT did not work for me. I went CRAZY trying to fix all my thoughts. All I can say is this - fix cognitive distortions when it's useful for you. Don't try to fix them all, or hear them all -- only look for them when you need to, for instance, when you are trying to approach an anxiety-provoking situation and your thoughts are keeping you stuck. Or when you are in a thought spiral leading you into deeper depression.

I don't like this thought replacement thing in CBT. I don't like it one bit. It does feel like a bunch of patches over something much below the surface.

This is why I like ACT. I could go on and on about why this is. Behavior is important - putting yourself in circumstances you've been avoiding - but only when you choose to do it out of the values you've chosen for yourself, not out of shame or "shoulds."

Anyway, I will get off my soap box. I don't mean to bash CBT completely - try it out, really give it a good try, and it may work very well for you - it works for others very well. But if it doesn't work, don't blame yourself. Try something different.

Originally Posted by sittingatwatersedge

The idea of trhing to challenge them all as they occur is so daunting; I feel I will just patch my self here and there and here and there and here and there until I am just a surface of patches. Can a person live that way? won't the stitching wear out before long?

Hmm, I've never had formal CBT so maybe I don't fully understand your question, but for me, I have had success with challenging the way I think in certain ways. For example, I have made a concerted effort to, in the face of uncertainty, try to be more optimistic. (I read the Learned Optimism book, which helped me.) Now, it feels fairly natural and I don't have to manually force myself to rethink things so much.

But my T has always said that no one is perfect, everyone can use help re-framing things sometimes, that it's just part of the human condition, not a pathology, etc. So...maybe take what you can from the list you have but don't expect that you'll ever be "perfect" -- everyone has to adjust their thinking from time to time, even Ts!

You'll learn to focus on the ones that trip you up the most. It's not so important that you can name and identify all 13 distortions as it is to recognize when your thoughts are really tripping you up.

For instance, one of my big cognitive distortions is thinking that I can't be open about things with my husband because I am afraid if he hears the truth, he won't be able to handle it. That's a big cognitive distortion in our marriage. Notice I didn't even label it. That really isn't necessary. What is important is that I realize this belief is a problem in my life. Then I can work on understanding that it isn't a rational thought, that I'm not responsible for his reaction, etc.

CBT done right will do this. You'll be able to focus in on the big issues in your life and learn to work with them. Try not to get too overwhelmed by all the labeling.

I think I am proud of my warpness. Makes me interesting.

Do what you need to do for you, I am sure all of us have some sort of warpness, and changing negative or distorted thoughts can help.

But then that would just make you better than all the rest of us and we can't have that, can we?