Automatic Thoughts

I really got something out of my therapy group/class on Monday night.  It was the first time I really understood that there really are people out there just like me.  People who really do think just like me.  Actually, I feel kind of bad for them really.

I related mostly to two in particular who had completed their “automatic thoughts” exercises using experiences similar to mine and who had pretty much had similar or exactly the same thought patterns.  It’s comforting in some way to know that I’m not the only one who automatically thinks I’m going to be fired just because someone says something, anything, or that I think people are talking about me because they are whispering or being secretive.

Obviously, the three of us need to work on retraining our brains to not let them run amuck with these thoughts.  Surely the three of us are not all going to end up fired over trivial things and unable to pay our bills and end up living with my parents in New Mexico — though maybe just in case, I should tell my parents to start working on building a commune on the back part of their property.

Anyway, I felt a kind of a connection and I kind of need that right now.  I need to know that I’m not a total freak.  I’m not unique.  I’m not alone.

So, this week, we’re supposed to be at least once a day, writing down at least one situation, our mood (plus rating it, which I still stuggle over as it’s subjective and there is no right or wrong answer), and then what our automatic thoughts are.  Automatic thoughts are those runnaway thoughts you have — most of the time you don’t even know you’re having them — when you panic.  Here’s a good example from my meeting last week when I had to talk to my boss about FW:

Situation: Had to meet with boss to discuss FW’s treatment of me

Moods:  Anxious (90%), Nervous (70%), Worry (70%), Angry(70%), Hurt(80%)

Automatic Thoughts:

• “What if I complain and he fires me?”
• “What if I lose my job and can’t pay my bills?”
• “My parents will think I’m a failure and they will be disappointed in me.”
• “Everyone will think I’m a failure.”
• “If I can’t pay my bills, I will get evicted and have to go live with my parents in New Mexico.”
• “There are no jobs for me in New Mexico and I will never find another job and I will be stuck living with my parents forever in New Mexico.”
• “What if what FW is right and I am incompetent?”
• “Then I have been wasting the last 10 years of my life.”
• “If he convinces everyone else that I am incompentent then I will get fired.”
• “If I lose my job, then I won’t be able to pay my bills.”
• “If I can’t do this kind of work, what would I do?”
• “My parents would be disappointed in me because I am a failure.”
• “If I can’t pay my bills, I will get evicted and have to go live with my parents in New Mexico where there are no jobs for me…”

For me, my parents thinking I am a failure and having to go live with them is “the end of the world.”  There is apparently nothing worse in my mind for me.  I think it’s my own personal hell.  I guess because I’ve already had to do it once.  After college, when I didn’t get a job and I had to leave everything behind and move home and live with my parents and my mother who nagged and controlled and ran my life and my father who controlled and fathered and nickeled and dimed me when I had no money and it was miserable.

And they’re approval is so important to me and I’m not sure why it’s everything.  I spent an hour of therapy on that yesterday and I still don’t understand why.  I’ve got to mull it over for a while.

In the meantime, I’ll just work on recognizing my automatic thoughts.  I think the next chapter we might actually start doing something about those automatic thoughts.  Whoo-hoo!.

tags: therapy

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