As we continue through our discussion of commonly used cognitive distortions, we are noticing simple (though not necessarily easy, if these are old habits) ways of cleaning up our thinking. Cognitive distortions are faulty ways of thinking that happen to us when we are under stress or feeling big feelings. Big feelings can taint the way we talk about what is happening- including how we talk about what is happening to ourselves in our heads. Here are two more examples…
catastrophizing
-Blowing something out of proportion. Thinking that a mistake is the end of the world or that one problem means the end of a relationship.
Do you really want to do this?
Yes! 1000%!
The current catastrophizing that I find most annoying is using an impossible percentage to get across how emphatically you feel about something. This specific version of catastrophizing probably doesn’t hurt anyone (beyond those who are mathematic or semantics purists). But catastrophizing does hurt when you jump to something, especially something uncomfortable or even painful, being bigger than it actually is.
Sadie knew she was about to lose her job and that her girlfriend was about to break up with her. She knew this because she forgot to turn in a report her boss had asked her for and because her girlfriend hadn’t texted all day.
There may be other things to point in the direction of the fortune telling Sadie was doing, but catastrophizing the first mistake she’d ever made at her job only makes her feel worse. Catastrophizing that her girlfriend not reaching out via text must mean their relationship is over only makes Sadie feel worse.
When Sadie remembers her cognitive distortions and thinks, “oh yeah- I am catastrophizing!” she can go to her boss, apologize for being late, get the report in as quickly as possible, and let her boss know she’d make an extra effort to be punctual moving forward. She can reach out to her girlfriend and ask if something is wrong and then make choices about what to do next based on what she finds out. (In this instance, her g.f’s sister, who g.f. shares a plan with, had not paid the bill, so her phone was unusable.) By blowing these things out of proportion with catastrophizing, Sadie is more likely to get stuck in feeling hopeless or overwhelmed, and that makes good decision-making even harder!
At the other end of the spectrum, we can sometimes make something seem less than it is, diminishing how good we could be feeling.
minimization
-Often done with your own strengths, thinking something good about yourself isn’t as good as it is. Can be seen when someone disputes a compliment.
I hear minimization all the time with compliments between women. “That dress looks great on you!”
“Oh- I’ve had this forever and I just haven’t done laundry…”
Bro- someone just felt good enough about you and about how you look to tell you about it. Don’t push it away!
I have had clients working with this specific cognitive distortion who practiced just saying “thank you” when compliments were offered. When this becomes an intentional focus, it is wild to notice how ready we are to resist positive statements about ourselves. And if we are so ready to push away others’ positivity towards ourselves, what does this say about how ready we are to push away our own positive feelings towards ourselves?
Where do you see catastrophizing or minimazation? Can you step back from it, recognize it as a cognitive distortion, and choose a more realistic assessment?