Eeyore Abhor

[ehowton]

I have this powerful ability to automatically "re-frame" everything I run across to ensure the widest view possible. Every once in awhile I find myself slipping into conscious re-framing. Both are effective means of adaptive behavior. I am rarely angry, hurt, offended, or exasperated. Mostly, I'm amused. Human behavior amuses me. People

Comments

[michelle1963]

Like you, I've had frustration in trying to explain to others why they needn't mentally / emotionally torture themselves.

I've run into it in instances where a person has been a little fender-bender, no doubt invoking a huge, scary, adrenaline jolt, but are otherwise unscathed, and s/he proclaims, "If I'd been going faster, was a moment later, fill in the blank with some other 'if', I could have been killed!"

Yeah, but none of those "ifs" happened. You had a fender bender. Sure a bit scary in and of itself, but really only a huge inconvenience.

Self-inflicted emotional torture.

I love the Zen Masters clarity of thought. Neither a memory or a hypothetical can kill you.

[ehowton]

One could, I suppose, argue that empirical "past experiences" create a framework for future events (e.g. worrying; suffering) but knowing what I know about expiring known baselines and aggressive reevaluation I reject the notion outright as cowardly and part of the problem.

[michelle1963]

If all one learns is fear from a past experience, then one really hasn't learned the lesson at all.

While it's true that none of us wishes to repeat a painful experience, experience often provides the tools to prevent a repeat. However, if fear is the only lesson, then one potentially remains doomed for a repeat.

Also, it seems that over-generalizations often occurs with a painful experience. For example if a woman is treated badly by one man, she may generalize her feelings to all men. Likewise, a man may do the same.

[ehowton]

IKR? Some of the articles I came across specifically mentioned PTSD, but more in the vein of different breaking points in different demographics and less about re-framing as an effective treatment. That said I did run across articles when researching my Cognitive Buddhism Therapy post concerning something called "MCBT" or Mindfulness Cognitive Behavioral Therapy which they incorporate mindfulness & CBT that more fully addressed PTSD.