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100% to the above and I would look specifically for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy which specializes in treating distorted thinking. It rescued me from my early t
by cromwellian 4y ago
100% to the above and I would look specifically for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy which specializes in treating distorted thinking. It rescued me from my early thirties and I haven’t been depressed since. Our brains are wired to generate stories and narratives around everything, we can’t help it, and sometimes those narratives are distorted but cause damage and like a scab, we keep reinforcing and picking at them. Learning to recognize when you’re doing this and to stop is a skill like riding a bike, and a good therapist can help. Group therapy also helps because you can see other people going into these catastrophic narratives that look absurd to you and give you an idea of some of the same distortions you might be imagining.
Then other thing is, no matter how smart you are, you can’t debug yourself, you need other people. If you have a distorted negative feeling of yourself, then when you try to fix yourself, you’ll be more inclined to feel something isn’t working or you are doomed the first time you hit a roadblock or relapse.
And ultimately sometimes medication can help you get through the initial hurdle of such negativity, another reason you need to see a professional to evaluate this.
Go check out YouTube and Wikipedia for some cognitive behavioral therapy sources to see if it might fit.
- GFischer 4y agoSecond the advice for Cognitive Behavorial Therapy, looks like the best fit in this case.
- woolcap 4y agoAnother vote for CBT. CBT has made a big difference for me, helping me to find my way out of some very negative patterns of thinking, and allowing me to feel real joy, despite a number of ongoing difficult circumstances in my life. I'd recommend it to just about anyone, at any age. I didn't go through CBT with a therapist. I just read the first few chapters of The Feeling Good Handbook, then tried to establish a habit of confronting my negative feelings, and the thoughts that were feeding them by identifying the distortions in those thoughts. YMMV, but it may be worth a try.
- fsloth 4y agoCBT helped debug my thinking in very analogous circumstances to OP (30+, hit hard by events in life plus somewhat traumatic past), warm recommendation as well.
- cobbman 4y ago> Then other thing is, no matter how smart you are, you can’t debug yourself, you need other people. This is very true, and not always realized. Another way I heard it said which is easy to remember: "You can't read the label from inside the bottle."
- dejj 4y ago“Dr. Rosen: You can't reason your way out of this! John Forbes Nash: Why not? Why can't I? Dr. Rosen: Because your mind is where your problem is in the first place!” - 'A Beautiful Mind'.
- Trasmatta 4y agoAn alternative to CBT that you might want to consider is Internal Family Systems. I find it to be a more holistic and compassionate form of therapy that respects your entire internal system. Sometimes we have internal parts that need love and care more than they need lecturing on cognitive distortions. CBT is effective for many people which is great, but there are other options.
- boucher 4y agoCBT didn't really work for me, but I have found IFS to be a bit more useful, as well as another framework called ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy). Personally, I found it helpful to read some of the books on these and related concepts, as a supplement to therapy. Also, it can be a frustratingly slow journey.
- germinalphrase 4y agoJust seconding IFS. It has been a dramatically useful tool for someone very close to me.