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Thinking Straight

 
It matters how you think.  Bipolar disorder and depression both affect the way that people think.  In turn the way that people think affects the way they feel and the way they act.  Cognitive behavioral therapy is a major tool in the treatment of mood disorders.  In order to manage your disorder successfully it is essential to manage the way you think.   

The Bible has words of wisdom on the subject:  "... whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable.... think about such things" -Phillipians 4:8

One of the things you can learn to do is to change the questions you ask yourself about your perceptions in life. 

 
  1. Is what I am concerned with important?  All of us get upset or concerned with things that simply aren't important.  We operate under the mistaken assumption that things that feel urgent are important and many times they are not.  How many times have you gotten upset about things that after the fact you are amazed that you got upset about at all?  When you start feeling upset look to the evidence.  What makes it important?  What makes it unimportant?  Make your decisions on more than feelings.  Two hints.  Practice doing that on things you are not upset about.  Things you are used to doing are easier to do.  Secondly try to act quickly.  Feelings and moods easily overwhelm.  Act when you have your feelings-- not when your feelings have you.
  2. Are you justified in your feelings?  Your feelings are conclusions about what you believe to be true and sometimes you are simply wrong.  For example, people commonly take things personal that are not personal.  We attribute motives to people and assume we know why people do things when we don't know.  Look for other explanations and check them out.  Is someone really mad at you or they just stressed out about something that has nothing to do with you?  Question yourself.  This is part of what is means to think before you act.
  3. Can you do anything about it?  Acceptance is a major issue for most people.  Much agitation and stress is wasted on things we can't do anything about.  The sky is not always falling.  Sometimes it is just the sky.  Do I just need to accept this and go on is one of the most important questions you can ask yourself when trying to manage the way you think.
  4.  Is it worth the cost?  How many times do we solve problems by making bigger problems?  Consider what we will reap before we attempt to sow.  Again this is an area of considerable blindness for most of us.  It is so hard sometimes just to slow up and think.  But yet is so important.

Do not base your decisions on how you feel.  Urgency is the child of emotion.  Make your decisions on how your think.  Base your decisions on what is real and what is important.  Get in the habit of doing that and you decrease the probablity of being hijacked by your moods and feelings considerably.  Thinking straight can't control the occurence of mood episodes, but they can affect the power and strength of the things that trigger them. 
Remember the man who is looking for his lost money under a streetlight.  Stranger comes up and says "Oh did you lose your money under the light.  The man says, "No-- the lights just clearer over here."  Sometimes our feelings get us to look in places that cause us to hurt or damage those things most important to us.

Identifying cognitive distortions:


 

There are many good books that talk about cognitive disortions.  Many of them will give a list of the most common cognitive distortions as a way to help you identify problems with your thought processes.  The following list is taken in large part from the book "Bipolar for Dummies."  It is written in fairly easy to understand terms and would be perhaps a good place to start.
 
  1. Overgeneralizing-  Making one event into an all time rule.  "Nobody is ever going to like me"
  2. Mind reading-  Assuming you know how other feel, and what their motives are.  "He is just trying to make me mad."
  3. Fortune telling-  "I'll never get a job.  Why try?"
  4. Labeling- Taking an event and making it a personality trait.  "I'm a stupid loser."
  5. Black and white thinking-  Everything is either all bad or all good.  "Things never work out for people like me."
  6. Filtering-  "Maybe I am broke, but getting that car would be a real blast."
  7. Exaggerating/minimizing-  Big deal.  "So what if I spent the rent money.  We will think of something to do."
  8. Emotional reasoning- "I really feel stupid.  I must be an idiot."
  9. Entitlement- "I have a right to get what I want."
  10. Shoulds-  "People should stop hassling me."
  11. Blaming- "It's all my fault."

 

Maybe you can identify some of these patterns in the way you think.  Read and study more.  Learn how to identify your patterns and what to do about them when you do.

 

Remember--

A vital part of managing your mood disorder is to manage the way you think and perceive the world.