CBT Stinking Thinking?

Thinking about your 'faulty' thinking--

Let this thread be for all who want to sort it out before they act.

In hind sight, I see my melt down last weekend was completely pointless. All those negative thoughts-- were they 'faulty'? I go from love to hate. I get panic attack and want to flee. If I tell myself I have BPD can I go easier on myself?

I hope to just vent my feelings better next time and avoid the confrontation.

Great thread idea. Too early in the morning to have thoughts yet, but I'm sure I'll get back to it once my brain wakes up.

Okay. Brain is waking up.

Last week was a difficult week. This time of year always is. Friday was my sister's birthday, and the 6th anniversary of her death is in a few weeks. Thursday and Friday I was particularly crabby. I was sad and teary. I barked at my family a few times.

. . . and then, I stopped and reminded myself that what I was barking about wasn't the issue. I took some time to remember and feel and honor my sister. I took some time to just allow the sadness to be what it was. I wrote an email to my other sister since I knew she was probably experiencing the same emotions.

. . . and then I felt much calmer and at peace, and I was able to enjoy the rest of my long weekend.

One thing I've learned about myself is that if I'm feeling particularly edgy or anxious or irritable, I need to stop and just ask myself "What is really going on?" Once I acknowledge the real issue, it is usually a pretty quick trip to feeling calmer. I don't have to analyze it to death or solve the problem; I simply have to acknowledge what it really is.

One thing that finally dawned on me (after several years!) is that it's not just having a laundry list of negative thoughts that is the problem - where did all the positive thoughts go? Where is optimism, hope, self-confidence, ambition, poise, curiosity, all that wonderful "pleasure seeking, goal oriented thoughts and behaviors" stuff ... where did it mysteriously disappear to? It is worthwhile noticing what one does not think or do, as well as what one does think or do.

Ah, I find that to be so true for myself too. It can be hard sometimes to pull yourself out of it though. Thank you for sharing that, and well done for taking a deeper look at your thoughts and truly honouring your sister.

Very true. I do tend to be what I give the most attention to. If my negative thinking and rumination is dominating my life (as it has definitely done on many occasions), I am inevitably worse for wear.

My therapist was always reminding me to actively find ways to break up that cycle. We spent A LOT of time working on being deliberately proactive about giving myself a break from my head. I used to really fight him on it: "Oh, that won't work." "I can't do that." But he was a persistent bugger about it; he knew what I was not really able to admit to myself -- I was in a really bad habit of actively fighting against what would help me feel some relief.

You see, in my thinking, if it wasn't going to cure all, if it wasn't going to feel perfect, then it wasn't worth trying because I was predicting failure. What I had to come to realize (and it took a LONG time to get there) was that improvement for just an hour was success. The ability to give myself a mental break for just a small portion of a day was a success. And over time, I began to give myself credit for all those little successes along the way, and they started to add up (which is exactly what my therapist had kept telling me).

I also think that somewhere in my mind I believed if I allowed myself a mental break, I was somehow minimizing my own pain or betraying myself or letting the bastards who did this to me somehow get away with it. I had to get over that thinking and learn how to honor myself by allowing myself to feel pleasure and think about the positives in life.

I really like this.

I just started CBT. I have a counselor who checks in by phoning me once weekly. And I picked up two books...one on living rationally (by Albert Ellis), the other a CBT workbook. The counselor and the workbook (initial chapters) is focusing more on behaviors than thoughts. Is this how others have done it? For instance...I have a list of things to do to get out of the house such as go have coffee, go shopping, go out to exercise etc. I find that even when I am doing these things I still feel pretty depressed. The thing missing in my life is social interaction and just going to the library doesn't do it. So I usually just end up ruminating about needing to find work and then I get lost in my thoughts.

I just would like to know for others who have done CBT...are behaviors first emphasized?

(I have a lot of negative thought patterns...but I can also conjure up positive thoughts and have been trying to record both in a journal)

Thanks for starting this thread. Brilliant!

For me when I had CBT addressing my behaviours was much more useful than trying to tackle my thoughts. In my case, though, it was mostly concerning a specific phobia that was affecting my behaviour quite seriously. If the therapy is being tailored to you and modifying your thoughts is more important to you then I think it is what should be addressed first. Not sure if that helps answer your question?

Actually, I always felt like what CBT helped me do first is to figure out what I am actually thinking as opposed to just emotionally reacting without being in touch with where that emotion was coming from. My therapist always had me kind of work backwards through things.

For instance, the situation I posted above about my sister. What I first really noticed was my emotion which was driving my behavior. I was agitated and anxious and angry, and I was taking my emotions out on my family.

What my therapist would have me do is to stop and find the thought I had before I snapped at my family. (Well, my sons hadn't cleaned their bathroom. How dare they be so inconsiderate!) My therapist would say, that's just a bathroom. That's not what really has you upset; what were you thinking before that? (Well, why do I always end up being the person fixing things around the house, the person making the decisions . . .?) My therapist would say, closer, but that's still not it. What were you thinking before that? (Well, I don't want to adult today. Doesn't my family realize what today is? I want my sister. Give me back my sister.)

Yup. That was it. Once I acknowledged what the initial thought was, then I could simply honor it and let it be what it was. It might take working backwards through layers of thoughts to get to the initial thought that set me off, and often that initial thought was tied to some old, mistaken belief about myself or my history that I had internalized.

It took my years to internalize that process. My therapist walked me backwards through my thoughts over and over and over again for years before it became a habit of thinking.

So, yes, in a way, behaviors came first because it is the behaviors we recognize first. Then we can usually recognize our raw emotions pretty easily. The hard part for me was understand where those emotions were really coming from; what were the thoughts that were driving my emotions. And if those thoughts were disordered, I also had to go through a process of recognizing when my thinking wasn't really rational and putting my thoughts up against a reality check.

What I found was that I kept bumping up against the same initial thoughts rather frequently. There was a definite pattern to the thoughts that kept driving my anxiety and anger and depression. It took time, but after a while, I got tired of bumping up against that same old garbage and I actually started truly changing those initial thoughts -- I stopped buying into that old thinking and created truly healthier messages and beliefs for myself.

There is a reason I don't believe behavior therapies should be considered short-term or a quick fix. My experience had been that CBT was a long, difficult, deep process, but one that was truly life-changing for me. I truly do use these skills each and every day.

The behavioral activities like getting out to the library, going for a vigorous walk, playing ball with your dog, etc. are simply ways to break up the ruminations (in my case) temporarily. They aren't going to "fix" anything, but they can provide a respite for a short time. For me, the most effective activities were things like playing a board game with my family, going to choir practice, watching a great movie (not a sad one). Even mundane tasks that are rather brain intensive like balancing the checkbook or making a menu out for the next week, planning the shopping list, and doing the shopping were things that I realized could completely get me out of my problems and into something else. You kind of have to know what works for you.

I really don't know. I lost my job and was starting to isolate so my counselor is stressing I get out of the house daily. I think this is appropriate. Because I live alone I could end up just sitting around getting too lost in my thoughts. But overall I am very excited about doing CBT and really throwing myself into it. Thanks for your helpful comments.

I feel like the counselor did kind of explain CBT as a quick path. For sure it can initially lift one's mood because of breaking up some old patterns of behavior. But you have really pointed to what needs to be worked on.

Thanks for your comments. Very helpful, indeed.

Why do I care so much about family history that my sisters don't care about at all?

I am not Anastasia for ch sake!

What does any of that mean now anyway?

The phrase stinking thinking makes me think of SNL character Stuart Smalley:
"I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me."
"That's just stinkin' thinkin!"
"You're should-ing all over yourself."
"Denial ain't just a river in Egypt!"
"I am a worthy human being."
"...and that's...okay."
"Trace it, face it, and erase it."
"I don't know what I'm doing. They're gonna cancel the show. I'm gonna die homeless and penniless and twenty pounds overweight and no one will ever love me."
"I'm in a shame spiral."
"You're only as sick as your secrets."
"Compare and despair."
"You need a checkup from the neckup."
"I am a human being, not a human doing."

My stinking thinking isn't even always my own thinking, it's my mother's words resonating in my head, it's things others say, too. My thoughts race so incredibly fast, now that I am aware of them. They ping pong from negative to positive and everywhere in between.

My thinking style I'm supposed to challenge this week is the Pink Elephant. Think of and imagine a pink elephant. Now try not to think about one. You can't. Like a musical earworm a 'pink elephant' thought is one you just can't rid yourself of. I have many - some that will last for days on end. Anyway my challenge this week is to let thoughts pass.

I really like this thread (I'm sure my T would, too ). I'm too tired right now but I want to come back to this tomorrow!

My first homework from my T was to do a list of such thoughts.
I wrote a looooooot.

And he said i was the first client who took it seriously and did it so honest

I'm so easily impressionable, now I'm thinking about pink elephants! Lol

I have this recurring fantasy. When I'm listening to the radio and driving, I imagine I'm back in HS, auditioning for rock ensemble. I'm singing as well as the singer on the radio and I look like how I would have liked myself to look, and all the guys are dumbfounded by my talent and beauty.

I have done this since I was that girl in HS. In truth, I did audition for rock ensemble, I was a very good singer and got in, I didn't look how I wanted to look, and the boys kinda liked me. But... I was promiscuous in order to be with them. Really low self esteem.

So, I know why I have that dumb fantasy. Low self esteem and huge ego. I never grew out of it, still having these intrusive thoughts at 50. It's one of my many pink elephants!

Tisha, I wonder if there is more to your fantasy than low self esteem and ego. Maybe you are sad that you didn't continue with your singing?

I need to get rid of this sort of "stinkin thinkin"-- I am to self absorbed. For example, yesterday, when my H said he was monitoring me it was mostly about his anxiety about me. Instead of immediately feeling empathy, I felt threatened. Since he was upset, I did listen to him but in my head, it was making me upset too. When he is upset, I need to try to calm down my internal "fight or flight" reaction and take more time to understand his feelings.

As Lolagrace said, psychotherapy has been about "Where is my stinkin thinkin come from?" Sometimes understanding why you are having negative thoughts can help you not think so negatively. But sometimes you do have to truly acknowledge negative thoughts that have merit. A couple of weeks ago, I was saying to myself, "I must truly be an idiot to have **** myself" (made an attempt). Calling yourself an idiot sounds like stinkin thinkin but it was not. It was the first time I cried about what I did to myself. I needed to cry (hadn't cried for years). My attempt was a real tragedy.

So... I wrote off my mom, dad, aunt, cousin, sisters, 'and anyone else who sided with my mother's abuse without defending me' last night.

They will say I overreacted. But did I? Was it faulty thinking or perfect clarity?

It is just necessary for the sake of your sanity. Think of it as therapeutic.