"Therapists use cognitive behavior therapy techniques to help
individuals challenge their patterns and beliefs and replace "errors in
thinking such as overgeneralizing, magnifying negatives, minimizing
positives and catastrophizing" with "more realistic and effective
thoughts, thus decreasing emotional distress and self-defeating
behavior"
The element of this passage that stand out is "catastrophizing". I don't know if I overgeneralize much...I'm acutely aware that I
can do this to defend my pitiful ideals. I do magnify negatives, but I wonder if it's justified when those negatives include the decimation of all natural forms of life to be replaced by Apple Corporation robots....yes? Same goes for turning things into a catastrophe.
I've definitely met a few people who were classic examples of this trait. I rented a room to a dying artist in Los Angeles. He had AIDS, all his friends and lovers had died. Judging by the porn he left behind, I guess he was gay once. He had lost his job, all his savings...his health...he had a dog and some old model train sets. I actually wrote a full length stage play with him as a character. He had stories to tell that made himself out to be the victim of the most insane catastrophes ever. And I was indifferent mostly to his past; he had a piano and was interesting and pathetic so I rented him the room. What followed could fill a book of crazy tales that I don't want to deal with right now. Suffice to say it did not work out and I'm certain he's dead now. The highlight was his crashing a full size moving truck into the house.
Anyway, I'm sure he felt that his life was, in fact, a catastrophe. But the way the stories were told made him to be the victim...and I think that's the symptom therapists look for. It is true that getting a fatal disease IS a catastrophe. Who can argue with that? But the victimization syndrome is a separate issue and this guy took it to an extreme.
I remember laughing because everyone kept saying, "Oggy, why did you rent a room to a dying, hysterical, unemployed gay artist?"
My answer was defensive, "Right, so it's
MY fault he shit in his pants and threw the pants into the corner of his room to rot.
I'm responsible for that."
I think my point was that I don't take any responsibility for his action. None.
He was fucked up, not me. I made a bad decision based on what followed but I did not
personally drive his moving truck into the side of the house or hang 200 pounds of cooking pots over the sink on a rack that eventually broke in half and fell onto the faucet, breaking it off and flooding the kitchen. He did that. He glued a bookshelf to the wall. He put Christmas decorations all over the front fence and then lit them on fire. I'm not going to victimize myself and you aren't going to hold me responsible for him being fucked up.
