Emotional strength in thalassemia

I have been studying Dr. Burns's Cognitive Behavioral techniques.  I understand that his techniques are the best for avoiding and treating emotional issues.  Since thalassemics are prone to mood disorders due to the disease - or perhaps due to some of the hardships in dealing with the disease I am listing some of his techniques here.  These are from his book "Feeling Good"

1. All-or-nothing thinking:  You see things in black-and-white categories.  If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.

2. Overgeneralization:  You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.

3. Mental Filter:  You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that colors the entire beaker of water.

4.Disqualifying the positive:  You reject positive experiences by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason or other.  In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences
 
5.  Jumping to conclusions:  You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.

   a. Mind Reading.  You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively
               to your, and you don’t bother to check this out.
   b. The fortune teller error. You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and
       you feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact.

6. Magnification (catastrophizing) or minimizing – You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else’s achievement), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or other fellow’s imperfections).  This is also called the “binocular trick”.

7. Emotional Reasoning:  You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: “I feel it, therefore it must be true”.

8.Should Statements:  You try to motivate yourself with shoulds and shouldn’ts, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything.  “Musts and oughts” are also offenders.  The emotional consequence is guilt.  When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment.

9.Labeling and mislabeling – this is an extreme form of overgeneraliztion.  Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative lable to yourself: “I’m a loser.” When someone else’s behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him: “He’s a goddam louse”.  Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.

10.  Personalization:  You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event which in fact you were not primarily responsible for.  

I hope this is helpful to everyone, remember in thalassemia half the battle is a mental and emotional one.  It's not what is happening to you - it is what you THINK is happening to you.  All mood disorders tend to have their roots in the distortions listed above.  I recommend this book to everyone - especially everyone afflicted with thalassemia.  Family members of thal patients are as vulnerable to these feelings as the patients themselves.  I will add more information later.  

Sharmin

Sharmin,

Thanks for sharing that. I think we can all benefit from seeing the patterns into which we fall. The moment can seem so overwhelming, that often we need to step back and put it into perspective.

And for those in this group, always remember that you have this group to help you through whatever happens. Let's do our best to make sure each other views each situation with the proper perspective. Each moment and each event will pass, regardless of how terrifying or troubling it may be at the moment. Try to step back and observe yourself in the moment. When you do that, it becomes much easier to see that you are falling victim to self-inflicted negative behavior, that in no way can help you deal with the situation at hand.

This does bring up another question. What can we do when we see someone else falling into these traps? What approaches are best?

Hi Andy,

Next month I plan to attend a four day intensive conference that Dr. Burns is holding himself.  I will learn techniques that will help me treat others dealing with these issues.  I hope that it will allow me to help people in this group as well as keeping myself and my family more positive. 

I am taking the course because I know I will need the techniques to help lil A and the rest of us stay positive. 

Sharmin

Sharmin,

This can be helpful to many of us and especially to those who children have recently been diagnosed, as the initial shock can often lead to many of these pitfalls. Getting parents through this initial stage with their sanity intact is one of our missions here, as there is much negative information to counter online. Helping parents and patients avoid these negative emotional reactions when things are not going well can make this group truly stand out as a beacon of hope and strength to all who come here.

I'm leaving for my trip tomorrow morning.  I hope to learn a lot of useful techniques that will help me and everyone else that I encounter.  I hope to bring back useful information for you all.  Lil A and our entire family have had a tough year, I hope these techniques make the future brighter for us through our own efforts. 

Much love,

Sharmin

Sharmin,

Good luck with the trip  i am sure everything will turn out fine very soon.

Zaini.

Good luck my friend , enjoy as much as you can

Much love to you and the kids

manal

Dear Friends,

I am home after a week of intense learning about the greatest obstacle presented to thalassemia patients and their families.  Learning to be happy, fulfilled and satisfied in life despite having thalassemia.  Learning to accept any shortcomings, disadvantages and flaws one has in life is important in order to enjoy ones life.  It is important to learn what one can improve and overcome, and what one must accept as it is - even see it as a strength.  Having that mindset is crucial in order to live a healthier and happier life with or without thalassemia. 

I have learned things that have changed my life.  I hope to share them with each of you on an ongoing basis in hopes to enhance yours as well. 

Much love,

Sharmin

Sharmin,

although I tend to believe being happy is not something one can learn about -  it is something that comes from within and depends on your entire philosophy and look at  life (thal or not thal) - I agree with any attempts of improvement, not to mention I sense they have a great impact on you.

Lena.

I have been studying Dr. Burns's Cognitive Behavioral techniques.  I understand that his techniques are the best for avoiding and treating emotional issues.  Since thalassemics are prone to mood disorders due to the disease - or perhaps due to some of the hardships in dealing with the disease I am listing some of his techniques here.  These are from his book "Feeling Good"


Quote
1. All-or-nothing thinking:  You see things in black-and-white categories.  If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.

2. Overgeneralization:  You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.

3. Mental Filter:  You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that colors the entire beaker of water.

4.Disqualifying the positive:  You reject positive experiences by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason or other.  In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences
 
5.  Jumping to conclusions:  You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.

   a. Mind Reading.  You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively
               to your, and you don’t bother to check this out.
   b. The fortune teller error. You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and
       you feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact.

6. Magnification (catastrophizing) or minimizing – You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else’s achievement), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or other fellow’s imperfections).  This is also called the “binocular trick”.

7. Emotional Reasoning:  You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: “I feel it, therefore it must be true”.

8.Should Statements:  You try to motivate yourself with shoulds and shouldn’ts, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything.  “Musts and oughts” are also offenders.  The emotional consequence is guilt.  When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment.

9.Labeling and mislabeling – this is an extreme form of overgeneraliztion.  Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative lable to yourself: “I’m a loser.” When someone else’s behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him: “He’s a goddam louse”.  Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.

10.  Personalization:  You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event which in fact you were not primarily responsible for. 

I hope this is helpful to everyone, remember in thalassemia half the battle is a mental and emotional one.  It's not what is happening to you - it is what you THINK is happening to you.  All mood disorders tend to have their roots in the distortions listed above.  I recommend this book to everyone - especially everyone afflicted with thalassemia.  Family members of thal patients are as vulnerable to these feelings as the patients themselves.  I will add more information later. 

Sharmin

I am posting this again because every person, thal or non thal should know that if they have negative feelings constantly or in passing - they are NOT weak, they are not missing something or deficient in any way.  Everyone has the right to feel better.  Sometimes life can beat you up in more ways than one and at times like that we all need to reach out and find a way to heal again.  The need to heal does not make you weak!  Millions of people deal with emotional issues at some time in their lives - and often it results from our thoughts spinning in a negative direction out of control.  This is not a weakness and can be overcome.  In fact, MRI imaging has shown the results of thinking on the brain - and changing the thought pattern is as effective as drugs - this has been shown in brain imaging.  It is completely worth one's while to learn about their own thinking in order to live a more full and complete life. 

Sharmin 

Thanks Sharmin for sharing and caring!

Hi everyone, could you answer my survey! if you go on my profile my bio explains why i'm doing a survey but basically it is for a project qualification at school. any queries email me at h.delasalle@hotmail.co.uk

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Q8J26LJ

Thanks a lot!

Hannah xxx

Sharmin ,,
nice sharing (Y) ...  and yeah i believe its true and rightly described many things ...  :/ ... .