Sharing and Caring

[MajestyJo]

Styles of Distorted Thinking
Filtering: You take the negative details and magnify them while filtering out all positive aspects of the situation.

Polarized Thinking: Things are black or white, good or bad. You have to be perfect or you are a failure. There is no middle ground.

Over Generalization: You come to a general conclusion based on a single incident or other piece of evidence. If something bad happens once, you expect it to happen over and over again.

Mind Reading: Without their saying so, you know what people are feeling and why they act the way they do. In particular, you are able to tell how people are feeling about you.

Catastrophizing: You expect a disaster. You notice or hear about a problem and start, "What if's?" What if a tragedy strikes? What if it happens to you?

Personalization: You think everything people do or say is some kind of a reaction to you. You also compare yourself to others, trying to determine who's smarter, better looking, etc.

Control Fallacies: You feel externally controlled, you see yourself as helpless, a victim of fate. The fallacy of internal control makes you feel responsible for the pain or happiness of everyone around you.

Fallacy of Fairness: You feel resentful because you think you know what's fair but are sure that other people won't agree with you.

Blaming: You hold others responsible for your pain, or else you blame yourself for every problem or reversal.

Shoulds: You have a list of ironclad rules about how you and other people should act or feel. People who break these rules anger you and you feel guilty if you violate them yourself.

Emotional Reasoning: You believe that what you feel must be true automatically. If you feel stupid or boring, then you must be stupid or boring.

Fallacy of Change: You expect that others will change to suit you if you just pressure or cajole them enough. You need to change people because your hopes and happiness seems to depend on them.

Global Labeling: You generalize one or two qualities into a negative judgment. When you make a mistake, instead of describing your error, you say: "I'm a loser." If someone irritates you, you label them, "He's a louse."

Being Right: You are continually on trial to prove your opinions and actions are correct.

Heaven's Reward: You expect all of your sacrifices and self-denial to pay off, as if there were someone keeping score.

by Adult Children Anonymous

Have had similiar thoughts about my fibromyalgia. People who don't have it just don't understand how it affects you. I look perfectly healthy and look like there is absolutely nothing wrong with me. How can you explain to someone, that you just don't have the energy to sit up in a chair and that you have to go and lie down.

My doctor told me to throw away my high heels and to quit driving ten years ago. It took a long time to find acceptance. Any time something like this happens, it is a great grieving process for me until I can find the acceptance. I too had to detach from family and friends.

I still find myself trying to justify my existance and looking for approval because I often feel less than as a result of my dis-ease. It is not as bad as it was, but God and I are still working on it.

"Recovery is not about being right; it's about allowing ourselves to be who we are and accepting others as they are. Today, I will remember that I don't have to hide behind being right. I don't have to justify what I want and need with saying something is "right" or "wrong." I can let myself be who I am.

Excerpts Language of Letting Go, February 18."

Posted in 2009.

This is a one day at a time program. It is about my connection to my God, working my program, and how willing I am to practice it in all areas of my life. It just isn't about drinking and drugging, it is about my thinking that can take me out of myself, instead of going within, to connect with the Spirit within.