Re: I keep imagining what would have happened without my parents income.

[Anonymous]

bguntoor – Cognitive therapy would probably be your best bet for it. It’s all about recognizing what initiates that thought process, stopping it before it has a chance to get out of control, and replacing it with another thought that is more balanced and works for you.

My therapist equated it to a train, each car was a different thought and no matter what the thoughts progress from one to the next because you’ve been repeating the same “thought train” in your head over and over. Just for a sec… imagine you’re on a slight incline and you have a train rolling down. With each car (or thought) you add it gets harder and harder to stop the train. If you try to stop it when it’s 10 cars long it’s going to take longer and be harder (if not impossible) to regain control of that train. But, if you see the problem at the 1st car instead of the 10th it becomes a lot easier to gain control of and keep those other 9 cars from being added.

With the way the mind works, even if you stop the thought process you need something to replace it because if you don’t it’ll just start right up again. The therapist can help you figure out where your trigger points are and what thoughts you might insert in their place. Sometimes the trigger point can be tricky too, an example from a person with weight issues might be: “I love cooking -> Indian food is so interesting to make -> I love the spices -> it has a lot of ghee -> I wish I could replace it -> it’s so fattening -> probably why I’m fat -> look at how disgusting I am -> I’m worthless -> I should just give up -> no one will ever love me”. This might happen in a matter of seconds and the person may only recognize that they’re having the thoughts of worthlessness and despair but if the person learned to stop themselves at “it has a lot of ghee” and replaces that with “It has some ghee and that’s ok because I eat it in moderation and am exercising” it never leads to the rest.

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