15 Common Cognitive Distortions - "Self Defeating Thoughts"

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-14-2010
15 Common Cognitive Distortions - "Self Defeating Thoughts"
2
Wed, 10-20-2010 - 7:08pm
15 Common Cognitive Distortions By John M. Grohol, Psy.D.

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart... Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. I started looking inside and went NC October 15, 2010
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-28-2010

Right on, right on!

So great you posted this - I am sure ALL of us can recognize our own distorted thinking during the affair. It is SO helpful to have them articulated so clearly. There is not one of us who could enter into & continue on in an affair without exhibiting/enacting distorted thinking. It's why we don't just FALL into affairs (whoops, I just landed in his lap, or sent an inappropriate text) ... little by little it's about how we come to THINK in our affairs about our actions: the justifications & rationalizations.

That's why I say, it's not our hearts that did us wrong (the metaphorical center of our love & care, & intuition). It is the erosion of healthy thought processes, or the absence of healthy thought processes within our BRAIN that got/gets us into trouble.

The process of (re)creating these distortions happens through tiny little steps & seemingly "innocent" actions that start to cumulate into these destructive thought patterns. And then it becomes a feedback loop wherein behavior that feels "wrong" at a core level necessitates further distorted thinking to continue in the affair, and then it is that distorted thinking that then leads to actions that perpetuate the loop --- feelings, thoughts, actions, feelings, thoughts actions around and around the crazy train we go!

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-14-2010

Yes! Yes!

I concur!

I remember at the beginning of the A - certain actions / comments etc. feeling "off kilter". Those were my "red flags" (the fact that he was MARRIED uhm, the FIRST RED FLAG and BOUNDARY I violated) But I still had a CHANCE to save myself from getting "emotionally hooked"...the red flags I began ignoring became behavior that I soon was DOING and then like you said, TA...WHOOSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sucked in the vortex and swirled round and round till my SELF had been sucked out of me.

Whose responsibility was it?

YUP. Mine. For telling myself "I can play with fire and NOT get burnt."

If distorted thinking (with or without action) was the cause of my unwinding then, it stands to reason that thinking (and acting or not acting on) is MY WAY OUT.

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart... Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. I started looking inside and went NC October 15, 2010