Episode 8: The Family Under Stress

This week was a very interesting topic. I hope you guys find it as fascinating as I did.

           There are two types of stress, distress and eustress. There are actually many benefits to being in stressful situations in the family. I think most of us are familiar with distress, but eustress is “Moderate of normal psychological stress interpreted as being beneficial for the experiencer”.

When our lives lack stress, we become too comfortable and can become weak. We started talking about astronauts and how when they come back from their missions in space, they cannot walk when they come back due to the lack of stress on their muscles and bones which can cause permanent damage to their bodies.

One thing we talked about is something my teacher calls the “Checklist of Cognitive Distortions” which is a list of 10 distortions people think when put in a stressful or devastating situation.

1. All-or-Nothing Thinking You view things in absolute, black-and-white categories.

2. Overgeneralization You view a negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat: “This always happens!”

3. Mental Filter You dwell on the negatives and ignore the positives.

4. Discounting The Positive You insist that your positive qualities don’t count.

5. Jumping to Conclusions You jump to conclusions not warranted by the facts.

• Mind Reading You assume that people are reacting negatively to you.

• Fortune-Telling You predict that things will turn out badly.

6. Magnification and Minimization You blow things out of proportion or shrink them.

7. Emotional Reasoning You reason from your feelings: “I feel like an idiot, so I must really be one.”

8. Should Statements You shoulds, shouldn’ts, musts, oughts, and have tos.

9. Labeling Instead of saying “I made a mistake,” you say, “I’m a jerk,” or “I’m a loser.”

10. Blame You find fault instead of solving the problem.

• Self-Blame You blame yourself for something you weren’t entirely responsible for.

• Other-Blame You blame others and overlook ways you contributed to the problem.

My teacher then says when he finds even one of these distortions, he gets excited, because then he can peel it back. When this happens, he asks the patient to find “Entirely true, more positive thoughts”. This process helps the person going through the situation connect their thoughts and emotions with the situation and help them realize that the distortions that they are telling themselves aren’t true. We went through many situations and identified what their thoughts and emotions could have been and what their cognitive distortions could have been. My teacher talked about a time he demonstrated this for a class with a previous student that volunteered. She had just lost her 6-month-old son about 8 months prior. This student was extremely depressed and suicidal because she had been blaming herself for her child's death when she had done nothing wrong. They went through this checklist, and she had almost all of these distortions, which my teacher counteracted with “Entirely true, more positive thoughts”. After this experience she was very clearly feeling so much better. So much so that the other students were doubting whether she was being genuine or not. They didn't think that this silly checklist could really help this poor woman going through such a devastating trial. This woman was pregnant after the school year, after being so terrified to have another child. This checklist helped her realize that she did everything she could have done for her child. I talked so much about this in-class story my teacher told because I think that the checklist sounded a little silly, but after I heard that story and learned that it saved that young woman's life, I gave it a second thought. What this checklist does is uncovers the truth of the situation. Doctrine and Covenants 93:36 & 37 says “The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth. Light and truth forsake that evil one.”