Spiralling Downwards

In everyday life, there are good moments and bad moments. These moments can be anything; passing or failing a test, finding or losing love, or maybe even getting accepted or rejected to that school you really wanted to get into. Every day there are good moments and bad moments. For “normal” people, these good and bad moments pass like hills and ditches; small bumps along the way, but nothing they can’t handle. But what if you “aren’t normal?” What if the good moments feel like you’re on top of Mt Everest, and the bad moments feel like you’re in the bottom of the Mariana’s Trench? How do you cope with these emotions?

These “abnormal” people I speak of are the 1 in 5 Canadians who will, in any given year, suffer from a mental health problem of illness. Whether it be bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression, borderline personality, anxiety, or an eating disorder, there is a cycle that cycles through the minds of the mentally ill when they hit a negative stage of their illness; where they become a danger to themselves or to others.

Negative Thoughts

The first stage of the circle of negativity is negative thoughts. Negative thoughts are usually cognitive distortions. Cognitive distortions are defined as “simple ways that our minds convince us of something that isn’t really true.” There are ten cognitive distortions:

Our first distortion is All or Nothing Thinking, sometimes called Black or White Thinking. This type of distortion believes there is no grey area when it comes to tasks, situations, and even everyday life. It’s believed that if you aren’t perfect, you’re a total failure.

Our second distortion is the Mental Filter. This distortion focuses on just negative evidence while filtering out all the other positive evidence. A prime example of this would be someone noticing all their failures but not their successes.

Our third distortion is Jumping to Conclusions. There are two types of jumping to conclusions. Mind reading, which is when we imagine we know what others are thinking, and fortune telling, which is when we attempt to predict the future, but both of these usually are distorted and darkened by mood

Our fourth distortion is Emotional Reasoning. This is when we assume that because we feel a certain way that what we think must be true. For example, someone might say, “I feel embarrassed so I must be an idiot.”

Our fifth distortion is Labelling, which is when we assign labels to ourselves or others to either put ourselves or others down.

Our sixth distortion is Over-Generalizing. Over-generalizing is when we see a pattern based upon a single event or we are being overly broad in the conclusions we draw.

Our seventh distortion is Disqualifying the Positive. This means discounting the good things that have happened or that you have done for some reason or another.

Our eighth distortion is Magnification (catastrophizing) and Minimising. Catastrophizing things mean that we are blowing things out of proportion and minimizing means we are inappropriately shrinking something to make it seem less important

Our ninth distortion is Personalization which is when we blame ourselves or take responsibility for something that wasn’t completely our fault or, conversely, blaming other people for something that was our fault.

Finally, our tenth distortion is Critical Words. Using Critical words such as Should, Must, or Ought can make us feel guilty or like we have already failed. If we apply Should's to other people, the result is often frustration.

Negative Emotions

Negative thoughts and cognitive distortions are the perfect breeding ground for negative emotions such as sadness, depression, stress, and irritation. If you add in a mental illness such as bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, anxiety, schizophrenia, depression, or an eating disorder can cause harsher emotions to appear. These emotions can be ones such as:

• Rage
• Paranoia
• Isolation
• Fear
• Anxiety
• Guilt
• Emptiness
• Despair
• Hopelessness

These aren't the only emotions that can crop up during this phase of the cycle, but it's important to mention that this is where one would want to break the cycle. After these emotions have settled in, its a lot easier to break these emotions and turn them into positive ones than it is to break the next part of the cycle; negative/self-destructive behaviours.

Negative/Self Destructive Behaviours

The last part of this "Circle of Negativity" is the self-destructive behaviour phase. Self-destructive behaviour is defined as "any behaviours that negatively impact our mind or body by the life choices we make." These behaviours can range from actions such as:

• Self-Harming (cutting, pinching, biting, scratching, hair pulling, head banging, self-asphyxiation, etc...)
• Suicidal Attempts or Gestures (Attempt at Hanging, Attempt at Overdose, Writing of Suicide Notes, Talking about “Disappearing”, Isolation from Loved ones, etc...)
• Substance Abuse
• Eating Disorders
• Taking Improper Care of Oneself (not showering, not eating, not sleeping enough or sleeping too much, etc...)

These habits lead back into the Negative Thoughts Phase of the cycle and cause it to repeat itself unless the cycle can be broken, either with medication and therapy or by creating achievable obtainable goals and slowly working towards bigger goals to head towards more positive thoughts, emotions, and behaviours.