BPD and Catastrophizing - Irrational Thinking

hi my name is dr. Daniel Fox licensed psychologist in the state of Texas expert and here personality disorders and today's video we're going to talk about BPD and catastrophizing now it's very common for folks with BPD are those along the BPD spectrum to catastrophize their view of self-other the future their world and absolutely as it pertains to their personality disorder now in this video we're going to discuss this very thing and we'll also talk about techniques that can help you control it and manage it so that this 10 seek to catastrophize can be controlled and lessened so that you can utilize more of your energy on containing a lot of those maladaptive patterns and tendencies and utilize more adaptive functioning techniques and strategies for yourself so let's get started so the research actually shows that individuals with BPD choose less distraction and reappraisal strategies these are like adaptive methods of emotional behavioral control and they're more likely to engage in rumination catastrophizing and self-blame in daily life but it doesn't have to be this way there can you can utilize other other means to control this there are citations and in the end of the description that is to this data there's also more data available on this as well if you're interested in that so let's kind of let's go in a little deeper so let when we define it so what is catastrophizing well catastrophizing is this tendency to to see yourself for others or the situation the world around you as though it's the worst it's ever going to be nothing is ever going to get better you'll never get free from your BPD or you'll never get that job or you'll never get responded to or no one will ever love you and there's there's all these extremes of views and perceptions and all that and what happens is is all that you see is the catastrophe so you can't see any other way out a common one that my clients experience is texting so they'll send out attacks and I think a lot of us we have this this belief that it should be an immediate gratification for that text which would be an immediate response okay and our brain loves that because every time we get a text response we get a little dopamine and we're like oh my god it's great right and then but what happens is when you have a pause with with the text you send it and you don't get the immediate response and if you have that tendency to catastrophize what happens is then you start to think well he or she's cheating on me or they don't like me or you know whoever's there altogether and laughing about me and all this and all of this and and it starts to just sort of bloom more into this catastrophe Singh and this catastrophe is all that you see and when that builds your anxiety builds and folks that are along the BPD spectrum is that when that anxiety builds it puts them at a higher probability to engage in those maladaptive patterns and we want to prevent that but texting isn't the only way either there if your partner is late you're waiting for your partner to come home or you're waiting we're sniffing another to come home are you waiting for your kids to come home you're waiting for family to come or or you're going to a party and you start thinking no one's gonna like me there I have nothing interesting to say and I have no value I shouldn't go and you start to catastrophize what you'll be like in this party and you're not even there at your maybe you haven't even left to go on the way there but you already catastrophizing how horrible it's going to be for you how embarrassed you're going to to be and all these other factors that haven't happened yeah and so there's all these other factors so that is those are some examples of catastrophizing where does catastrophizing come from so some possible causes of catastrophizing these include when there's ambiguity a and you're unsure so when you're unsure you immediately go to this hardcore negative and that hardcore negative then you blow it up you build it build it build it and that's that hardcore negative of that ambiguous situation fear of loss so what you're doing is that that catastrophizing you're trying to beat the loss to the punch so you're like well if I think the worst is going to happen and then it doesn't happen that in pleasantly surprised that's a hard way to live a lot of my clients have built their life that way that encourages depression encourages anxiety it can exacerbate a lot of BPD symptoms and tendencies so it's a hard way to live it may feel like you're doing yourself a favor but in the long run you're actually getting in your own way and preventing yourself from moving forward in a successful manner another way is fatigue when you're tired a lot of people start to catastrophize when you're tired it's hard to think clearly our mind becomes very narrow Hey and then another possible one is of course anxiety when you feel anxious you feel uncertain and this anxiety starts to build and as that anxiety builds of course we know that there's that tendency to engage in maladaptive patterns so those are some possible causes you may have others and leave leave some some comments if you'd like about what drives you to catastrophizing that might be helpful for other folks to read it as well and but why is catastrophizing bad right we just talked about that you know some people they they base their life on that and if I expect the worst and the worst doesn't happen then I'm pleasantly surprised so why is it bad well the problem is is that it's likely to be perceived as a future event right catastrophizing so the time that it that you're waiting for the for the event to occur your catastrophizing the whole time and as your contact revising you're increasing your level of anxiety and stress and pressure and that is driving your anger your frustration could self-harm certainly increase the substance abuse and all these other factors so just that catastrophe nothing's happened yet but your catastrophizing to how you're seeing it and you're putting pieces in place that's supporting that catastrophizing in a lot of ways and a lot of that what evidence you think is supportive is actually not it tends to be forced into this catastrophe back right away because there's making fun of me so I know Bill thinks I'm an idiot so then Bill is probably going to talk to my boss and he's going to tell my boss that I'm no good at what I do so then eventually gonna have a job and if lose my job then that means I'm going to be homeless eventually to be homeless and I'm not giving anywhere to go and then see you know mom and dad were right and that becomes catastrophizing that was just a quick nutshell okay so that's certainly why it's bad and you're putting yourself into fight flight or freeze mode when you start to catastrophize and so as you're revving your engines for maladaptive strategies you're warming them up and what we want to do is I want to cool those down we're going to cool down those engines that prepping for maladaptive pattern engagement and that's part of what what you're doing in this videos and if you've watched my other videos as well is that what we want to do is we want to slow down that drive that that the impact that your core structure has on your surface structure right behaviors and if you're not sure what that is it explains to my other videos why won't it won't take a lot of that that time here but that surface structure behavior those maladaptive patterns are what then caused all these problems min issues in your life and you can rein those in then you can decrease the probability of engaging in those maladaptive patterns and utilize adaptive patterns instead and that's what we want well how do you do it right how do you manage and control it well I'm going to give you some tips and some things that you can do that can help you do that okay the first one if you feel yourself starting to catastrophize I want you to distract yourself distract yourself in that perceived catastrophe hey now it's easier said than done right because if you've built up a habit a tendency to go to catastrophizing you're gonna have to unlearn that and you have to learn a way of distracting yourself can be one and using adaptive strategies instead so you want to unlearn these maladaptive patterns if catastrophising is one of yours then we want to unlearn that distraction can do it some distraction techniques can be deep breathing I love deep breathing big fan all right exercise video games can be as well engaging in something that can occupy your mind so you're not focused on the catastrophe okay that's distraction okay the next one is if if it is something you must do like the situation you must get into and your contact refining about it tell yourself and visualize yourself engaging appropriately in the situation managing the situation effectively push out that tendency to visualize the catastrophe and visualize it being effective you being under control maintaining your control itself because when you control yourself you have more control over the situation and the interactions that occur around you so visualizing that can be very important and very beneficial as well and remember you must see it in your mind's eye to make it real and that's so important if you visualize the catastrophe and visualize all aspects of catastrophe believe it or not your brain in your body follows that tendency and you follow that tendency into catastrophe and catastrophes really I mean they don't they don't occur as often as we believe right but negative situations it increases our probability of going into these negative situations and if you visualize the positive though it can work out for you in that direction as well maybe you've used it long enough for the negative now use it for the positive so visualize positive visualize the success now the next one is recognize the catastrophe of self defeating it's unlikely and irrational now you want to bring some truth to it resist letting it be a runaway train in your brain okay you want to recognize what it is but do not blame yourself for engaging in it don't empower that tendency to catastrophize don't do that a berating yourself never helps beating yourself up never helps to avoid doing that next one is use positive affirmations about the situation's right now tell yourself that you can handle it you've handled other situations in the past and you can handle this my clients that are along the BPD spectrum are survivors they are tenacious these are people that are livers these are people that keep on going and if you are like that remind yourself of that that you are strong that you are resilient you are tenacious remember those things they tell yourself that I can do it I'll take it as it comes right because it's usually that future event so instead take it as it comes tell yourself that avoid drugs and alcohol take a moment and think about it do you tend to catastrophe most when you're under the influence of drugs and alcohol now a lot of folks do that they tend to exacerbate the negative when they're when they're under the influence of drugs and alcohol now if if you tend to do this a way to do this is make it make a sober message for yourself and I'm not encouraging of course to use drugs now go be great if you didn't but the reality is is that a lot of folks individuals along the BPD spectrum that they do they they do use drugs and alcohol and this is this is not a video about drugs and alcohol that that's another video so if you do that make a sober message to yourself dressing back that tendency to catastrophize talking yourself down bringing some reality to it okay you can do that as well that can be helpful the last one is bring it in bring reality into it and you want to recognize that the worst case scenario mentions our second the worst case scenario is very rare and there is a higher probability of better outcome than catastrophe ask yourself what are some less negative options and think about it there are a lot of less negative options than that massive catastrophe that you're thinking of that him or her leaving you forever no one loving you again and remember their extremes the world doesn't operate on extremes the world operates on sort of that meaty part of the bell curve right that middle-of-the-road the gray area right don't get caught in the split and splitting you have done a video on that I'll put the link here but that's splitting is absolutely a component of catastrophizing so prevent the split and remember that the world operates in a shade of gray hey and lastly do not catastrophize about your BPD please don't sit there and say oh I BPD my life sucks and I'll never have a good relationship and I'll always be broken and all that isn't true BPD is the most effectively treated personality disorder 80% of people that have been diagnosed with BPD have her emissions or emissions can last for many many years of those who go into remission that 80% only 15% go back and remain out of remission which is a continuous resurgence of symptoms so it's important to remember that that you know don't catastrophize your BPD and that you can do it differently and it is possible I hope you enjoyed the video subscribe if you did please leave any comments and have a good day thanks bye bye

Channel: Dr. Daniel Fox

Views: 118,271

Keywords: catastrophizing thinking errors, borderline, borderline personality disorder, borderline personality disorder episode, bpd, bpd emotions, bpd symptoms, bpd treatment, daniel fox personality disorders, dr fox, dr fox personality, mental health, signs of borderline personality disorder, symptoms of bpd, bpd and stress, bpd relationship, irrational, cbt, cognitive behavioral therapy, dbt, treatment, eupd, emotionally unstable personality disorder, affective instability, impulsivity

Id: rY-noHog2ZE

Length: 13min 28sec (808 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 04 2019