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shaneguymon · 10 years ago

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Common Cognitive Distortions

I read an interesting article on the Atlantic titled, “The Coddling of the American Mind” In the name of emotional well-being, college students are increasingly demanding protection from words and ideas they don’t like. Here’s why that’s disastrous for education—and mental health.

This is what the “political correctness” and “equality” movements nurtures in a culture or a society. The society becomes a society of victims. When we attempt to remove all forms of possible offense in the world and attempt to shield and protect the society from pain, discomfort, or failure (everyone’s a winner mentality). There is a reason and a divine purpose to the existence of opposition in all things. Good can only exist if bad also exists. The yin and yang must coexist. The reality of the world is, that we are all going to be offended. It’s not a matter of figuring out how to eliminate all offenses, but rather understanding how to manage the offense, and how to deal with offensive people and situations.

This stuff has to do with cognitive distortions that we make as we interpret the world around us.

Here’s a partial list of common cognitive distortions from Robert L. Leahy, Stephen J. F. Holland, and Lata K. McGinn’s Treatment Plans and Interventions for Depression and Anxiety Disorders (2012).

1. Mind reading. You assume that you know what people think without having sufficient evidence of their thoughts. “He thinks I’m a loser.”

2. Fortune-telling. You predict the future negatively: things will get worse, or there is danger ahead. “I’ll fail that exam,” or “I won’t get the job.”

3. Catastrophizing.You believe that what has happened or will happen will be so awful and unbearable that you won’t be able to stand it. “It would be terrible if I failed.”

4. Labeling. You assign global negative traits to yourself and others. “I’m undesirable,” or “He’s a rotten person.”

5. Discounting positives. You claim that the positive things you or others do are trivial. “That’s what wives are supposed to do—so it doesn’t count when she’s nice to me,” or “Those successes were easy, so they don’t matter.”

6. Negative filtering. You focus almost exclusively on the negatives and seldom notice the positives. “Look at all of the people who don’t like me.”

7. Overgeneralizing. You perceive a global pattern of negatives on the basis of a single incident. “This generally happens to me. I seem to fail at a lot of things.”

8. Dichotomous thinking. You view events or people in all-or-nothing terms. “I get rejected by everyone,” or “It was a complete waste of time.”

9. Blaming. You focus on the other person as the source of your negative feelings, and you refuse to take responsibility for changing yourself. “She’s to blame for the way I feel now,” or “My parents caused all my problems.”

10. What if? You keep asking a series of questions about “what if” something happens, and you fail to be satisfied with any of the answers. “Yeah, but what if I get anxious?,” or “What if I can’t catch my breath?”

11. Emotional reasoning. You let your feelings guide your interpretation of reality. “I feel depressed; therefore, my marriage is not working out.”

12. Inability to disconfirm. You reject any evidence or arguments that might contradict your negative thoughts. For example, when you have the thought I’m unlovable, you reject as irrelevant any evidence that people like you. Consequently, your thought cannot be refuted. “That’s not the real issue. There are deeper problems. There are other factors.”

#political-correctness #cognitive-distortions #victimization

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supercalipaigealistic-blog-blog1 · 14 years ago

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Politically Correct Rapunzel

WARNING: This is quite long. But it's kinda fun, so please have time to read. LOL.

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Once in a not so faraway kingdom, there lived a monetarily challenged couple -- a tinsmith and his wife. However, his economical unpreparedness does not mean all tinsmiths are subject to such; his condition was because he was previously practicing undocumented multicultural marriage. It so happened that all his unpaid sex slaves were all ethically disoriented and were only after his gold. When he finally realized he has already become a displaced homeowner, he decided he would be marrying a single wommon.

The couple lived in a humble residence beside the estate of an economically maximized and chronologically gifted witch. From their window, they could perfectly see the witch’s artistically arranged exploitation of Mother Earth. It was mostly filled with lamb’s lettuce, or rampon, as they call it. The couple lived in perfect harmony and, despite their economic disadvantage, the tinsmith was very romantically automated that his wife came parasitically oppressed. As the days passed, the wife started to crave for the witch’s rampons and demanded the tinsmith to get some for her. The tinsmith refused, but the wife never stopped talking about it day and night. She even bothered his conscience by talking about how the child in her womb would get sad if he does not get her some of those rampons. The tinsmith won’t budge, and the wife was so desperate that she decided she would climb the fence by herself. Driven by her craving, she was able to climb the fence – which was actually only about three feet tall. She did not bother to go back home; she savored the rampons right then and there.

Now, this witch I’m talking about is not really kindness-impaired as stories usually make of witches. She was actually a very considerate and compassionate neighbor; too bad people don’t know about this because they were blinded by the standards that good things look pleasant while evil things look, well, the opposite of pleasant. The witch, being aesthetically-challenged, was mistakenly classified into the evil category. She was nasally gifted, with a mole standing on the tip of her nose. She also does not dress extravagantly since she was such a humble creature. She hardly looks economically maximized with her rugged appearance.

As stated earlier, the witch was a considerate and compassionate neighbor. When she saw the pregnant wommon exploiting her lettuce, she walked to her and smiled.

“Are you enjoying my lettuces, neighbor?” she said with a very soft voice.

The wommon was aghast as she replied, “Yes. I was craving for them since last week.”

“Go on and eat, then. I will send you a basket of those lettuces every morning so you won’t need to climb my fence every single day.”

As promised, a basket of lettuces gets delivered to the pregnant wommon’s house every morning. When the child was finally born, the couple was dazzled by their child’s physical advantage over any other female and they realized they don’t have enough abilities to maintain her pleasant appearance. Having this dilemma, they looked over their window and saw the witch’s mansion again. They thought it would be best if the witch would take care of their daughter.

“A pleasant morning, neighbor,” the tinsmith said as the witch opened her door.

“Oh, yes, a pleasant morning to you, too! How was your misfortuned unpaid sex slave?”

“She gave birth to a baby girl this morning. We named her after your rampons. We named her Rapunzel.”

“I am happy to hear that. What sends you here?”

“Well, you see, my wife and I are both indefinitely idled. We haven’t paid our rent for four months. The landowner had been to our home yesterday and we will be involuntarily undomiciled in just a few days. We are afraid we cannot take care of our daughter very well. Would it be fine if…”

“…if I take care of her; let her grow with me and acknowledge me as her mother; feed her every single day without getting paid; send her to school with my own savings; let her enter a prestigious university with, again, my own money; assist her with her wedding arrangements; and then see her leave me when she gets enough money and realizes I’m not her real mother? Yes, of course, that is perfectly fine,” the witch said with a genuine smile.

The tinsmith became relieved. He went home to get his daughter and prepared a grocery list of what the baby would need. Diapers, milk, cute princess clothes, a nice pink crib, cashmere pillows, and a lot of not-really-necessary items that were just probably written out of ambition.

Years swiftly passed and Rapunzel grew up to be a very pleasant young lady. She helped her foster mother in household chores and had a very healthy connection with her. They were also both overly susceptible to marketing ploys, so they go shopping together every weekend.

However, when Rapunzel reached sexual maturity, she became exposed to parties, dancing and drinking. She became a regular visitor of the nearby saloon and stayed out all night. She did not want to help in household work anymore. She did not want to go shopping with her foster mother, too, since she already had her party friends to come with her. This bothered the witch too much. The witch was left with no other choice but to lock her up in that high storage tower she had beside her mansion. Again, days swiftly went by. One day, a prince came searching in the forest near the tower.

“OMG! It’s so hot! Like eew, I’m so sweaty already. Where on earth would I find this magical herb anyway? I’m like so looking all over the forest for this beauty herb for like a thousand years already. Maybe it’s time for a short break.”

When the prince is about to seat under an apple tree to take a nap, he heard a voice singing in a not so pleasant way. He then followed the sound of the irritating voice and soon led him to a 5643 square root of 1902π all over x, x ≠ 0 and x ≥ 972.893 high tower where he saw the most wonderful thing he had ever seen.

The prince stared with awe. “Oh my... I think I’m in love. O yes, I’m truly in love. I’m so in love with her hair! I must talk to her and ask her secrets on having and maintaining such a long, silky, horse-hair-like hair.

He then decided to approach the tower and shouted, “Excuse me, my lady!” But being on a 5643 square root of 1902π all over x, x ≠ 0 and x ≥ 972.893 high tower, Rapunzel didn’t hear the prince’s call. “Hey you, down here!” cried once again by the prince.

After trying to call Rapunzel for the millionth time but still gets no response, the prince then pulled Rapunzel’s hair but for a weird unreasonable reason, Rapunzel didn’t feel it so the prince just climbed the 5643 square root of 1902π all over x, x ≠ 0 and x ≥ 972.893 high tower using Rapunzel’s major major long hair.

Rapunzel was surprised when the prince climbed inside the window.

“Who are you?” sacredly asked Rapunzel. The prince reached for her hands.

“Don’t worry. I mean you no harm. I just need you to...”

But Rapunzel interrupted him saying, “No! Stay away from me!”

“Are you crazy? I’ve climbed this 5643 square root of 1902π all over x, x ≠ 0 and x ≥ 972.893 high tower for nothing?” argued the Prince as he walk towards Rapunzel trapping her on one corner.

Rapunzel was terrified. “Please! No! Please don’t rape me!”

The prince looked at Rapunzel from head to feet, feet to head and head to feet. “What the...? You really are crazy! I’m not after your lousy, full of cellulite body. All I want is your secret on having a long, smooth, silky, shiny, lice-free hair. Well... it has some dandruff though, but that could be easily remedied.”

Rapunzel kept quiet as the prince continuously criticized her.

“Anyway, what’s your secret? Did you have it rebonded?” the prince asked curiously.

“No! I only use shampoo.” answered Rapunzel. “I just use Rejoice Long Shampoo. It was really a wonderful experience. I haven’t shampooed my hair for 2 days now, having only used bar soap because we ran out of shampoos. I just bought two sachets to try the new product from Rejoice and I really liked it. The scent lingered for quite sometime. My hair is softer too, and manageable. I did not even use a conditioner today just to test if the Shampoo and conditioner formula works well for me; and it does! I even have run my finger through my hair.”

“You run your finger through your hair – as in all your hair? That’s amazing! Where do you get that? Oh my gosh, I’ve been searching for such in that muddy forest for years! And oh, by the way, your hair is strong, too. What makes it so strong?”

“It’s the numerous fibers of hair strands tangled together that makes it strong – and the curse, of course.”

The prince circled Rapunzel and praised her in every way he could. Suddenly, he sat on the floor and cried.

“Why are you crying?” asked Rapunzel.

“You’re very lucky. You’re just locked up here, doing nothing but to beautify yourself. I envy you.”

“What? Seriously?” Rapunzel asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes. I want to be like you. I want to be you.”

“Well, I think you won’t really need a gender reassignment to be me. I’m willing to help you. So, are you really willing to be like me? Let’s have a deal then.” Rapunzel smiled as a plan for escape builds up in her mind. However, before the prince could answer, the witch came standing beside Rapunzel. The young wommon was surprised.

“How did you get up here? You didn’t ask for my hair!”

“Well, I had an extra hair made just in case of emergencies. By the way, who’s this person here? Is he your unpaid sex worker? Are you that desperate, Rapunzel?”

The prince butted in disgust, “Eeew! No way! What do you think of me, testosterone-dominated? Yuck!”

The witch looked at the prince more closely. She touched his arm, his face, his hair, and everything she could. She was so amazed of the prince’s physical attributes.

“I like you. Your skin is fairer, smoother, more radiant. Perhaps this is because you don’t stay up at night partying, right? Your face is free from blemishes; your hair, so dazzling. And your smell,” the witch paused to smell the prince’s scent caught in her hands, “you smell like… oh my gosh, is this…”

“Victoria’s Secret, yes.” The prince completed her sentence.

The witch smiled and that started their beauty conversation which seemed to last forever. Rapunzel was annoyed.

“Hello? I’m still here, just in case you forgot.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Rapunzel. I just like this friend of yours. He is, well, no offence here, okay? He is better than you. I like him.”

The prince smiled with delightful eyes. To the witch’s surprise, Rapunzel was smiling, too.

“Does that mean you’re letting me go?” asked the young wommon.

“Yes, certainly, you can go now, Rapunzel. Always take care.”

With this, Rapunzel immediately rappelled down the tower and away from the witch’s mansion, leaving the two beauty-conscious individuals conversing about cosmetics and regimens.

Finally, Rapunzel was free to party again but something felt wrong. She did not enjoy it anymore. It could have been her rehabilitation in the tower that made her fondness for night life fade. She realized she wanted to be better – happier. That was when she decided to go back and search for her real parents. When she finally found them, they hugged each other for what seemed to be an eternity. With her hair hindering her movements and her family’s economic weakness saddening her parents, she had her long hair cut and auctioned. A doll company bought it for a hundred thousand dollars. The money was then used for a Beauty Salon business that eventually helped her family advance in the world of economics.

And so, they all – I mean literally all of them – lived happily ever after.

THE END

#adaptation #rapunzel #political-correctness #LOL #HAHA

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