Tag Archives: psych

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Post Covid Update

I haven’t updated in a while, mostly because I’ve been focusing on taking care of myself and accepting help.

I’ve been doing EMDR and it’s been helping me reframe my memories. At first I was doing it to recover from the trauma of being hospitalized for bipolar disorder. We’ve started working on my childhood trauma since then. This morning I was thinking about how Penelope said that the biggest impact for kids was when their moms got more support. This has been true for us because I’m able to be more regulated and present for my child, which I’ve written about before is their primary need.

One of the things that has come out of my bipolar diagnosis is being forced to focus on taking better care of myself and asking for or accepting help. I’ve been learning that ignoring my needs, such as disassociating from my pain, is one of my maladaptive strategies I’ve brought from my childhood.

One of the first stories I reframed with EMDR was about my elementary school worms.

The school I went to had one of those red dirt tracks out in the field. Whenever it rain the track would be covered in worms. During PE if it wasn’t raining, we would be told to run the track. It took me forever because I was avoiding stepping on the worms. Eventually I’d get in trouble for being squeamish. I was the only one reacting that way, so I was the wimpy freak. Re-examining it I realized that I was the only one sensitive and caring enough to want to avoid killing the worms by stepping on them. And instead of my kindness being honored it was dismissed.

I didn’t find out about the trait of high sensitivity until my late 20s or early 30s, so while I was able to do some reframing on my own, I didn’t realize how many formative memories I had with negative interpretations. And it was only recently working with my chiropractor that I realized how disassociated I was from my body and its pain signals.

I wouldn’t say I feel lucky to have bipolar, but I do feel lucky to have such a large caring network of friends and family to support me while I rewire my brain.

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Schemas or Distortions

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Homework assignment, identify my maladaptive schemas/cognitive distortions

All or nothing thinking. Perfectionist – if not perfect then why bother

Black & white thinking. – using extremes, always, never, ever, completely

Mind reading

10 common cognitive distortions – mental shortcuts or assumptions about how the world works that helped you survive but are no longer supportive

18 maladaptive schemas – thought structures that helped you in one or some situations but are now harming or restricting you.

18 Early Schemas Defined (schematherapy.com)

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Are you sure you know how to search?

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How to do a web search: (link Ecosia)

Ask good questions.

Add one of these words to the search:

  • Reviews
  • Problems
  • Concerns
  • To know before
  • To look out for
  • Fail

These will help with cognitive bias and accidentally search only for stuff that supports what you already know rather than offer you new stuff. New information might be uncomfortable, so is growth. If you are comfortable, you’re probably stagnating. Change (entropy) is always occurring, so if you aren’t actively choosing your path, then you will end up on the most familiar path (the one that has the least resistance – as in the most traveled, not the least pain),

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Thinking Thoughts

Thoughts are stories we tell ourselves.

We use thoughts to understand the signals our brain sends us.

Not every thought we have is true.

“I’m having the thought that….”

Thoughts have power. Consider the placebo effect.

The way we have thoughts is that there is electrical activity in our brains. Electricity is energy, energy can also be called power.

Thoughts have power.

Will you control your thoughts, or will you let them control you?

We have free will.

We can choose to control our thoughts.

Our life is only predestined to follow the path set for us by our predecessors if we do not pause, evaluate, and choose.

If I am choosing, I can choose to make it harder for my descendants to choose, or I can make it easier.

I choose to make it easier. This is my intention.

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Pain and The Bad Place

When I notice that I’m thinking painful and likely untrue thoughts, I think of it as my brain trying to go to or already in The Bad Place (aka: negative sentiment override, assuming the worst, being pessimistic, running a maladaptive schema, bad programming, telling yourself bad stories, feeding the bad wolf, sending out negative energy, trauma response, being triggered, starting to get flooded).

When I am in the Bad Place I can still function, but only just barely. Others see it as me being rude, inconsiderate, stupid, ridiculous, mean, unkind, self-centered, selfish, stubborn, bossy, pedantic. I’m trying to get into the habit of wearing noise cancelling headphones so I can tune out other people until I’m functional again. So far just keeping my mouth shut as much as possible if I’m in the bad place is working ok.

Headphones would help, I’d need active noise cancelling headphones: Bluetooth, comfortable.