Self-flagellation: putting the whip away

I woke up late this morning. My phone alarm did its part. It jingled politely at 7:00 am, then again when I reset it to 7:30 am, and even when I ignored it at 8:00 am. So I can't blame it for my oversleeping. I can say that despite falling asleep at around 8:00 pm, I wasn't awake enough to get out of bed at any of those times. I finally arose at 10:30 am, loaded with guilt, anger, and fear. I felt guilty at not getting up at 7:00. I felt angry at myself and beat myself up for not getting up. I felt afraid that I was repeating old patterns (not so old, really) and that I was a failure and would never get better and who was I to think things could get better after so many years of things being the same?

I got a little saner while I made my breakfast. I reminded myself that I haven't always been in a crazy sleep rut. And that there were times that despite the sleep rut I was still able to go out, have a good time, enjoy life.

By the time I got outside, having talked myself out of "well, I might as well give up on the whole sunlight thing, that's another hopeless avenue of well-being, I started remembering little tidbits that I've learned of cognitive behavioral therapy.

Most of what I've learned about CBT came from working on it in group settings in hospitals or day treatment programs. You fill out the sheets, identify the cognitive distortions, and try to replace them with alternate ways of thinking.

The idea is that after a while, challenging your emotional responses to situations becomes more natural. I couldn't remember all of the cognitive distortions that I was having in my thoughts, but I knew that one of them was all-or-nothing thinking: thinking that what happened today was always going to be the way it was.

I actually felt a little better after that.

I ate my breakfast, wrote in my journal, read a little bit of the non-fiction book that I have been attempting to finish for about three years now, and wished that it was earlier because the sun was really hot at 11:00 am.

I'm putting this out there because I've learned a lot of tools to get better, but I have a hard time remembering them and practicing them.

I've also had a hard time finding individual therapists who are willing to work within the CBT framework. A lot of therapists I've worked with have claimed the "client-centered therapy" stuff, meaning that they let the client choose the direction that therapy goes. Apparently that means that even if I request CBT, and they are trained in CBT, they will still be willing to drop the whole thing if I don't do my homework or come in in crisis, or for any other reason.

Sigh. Maybe I need to fill out a worksheet on this.

Because I was planning to write this, I looked up some links that will better explain CBT to people unfamiliar with it:

Aaron Beck's Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders. This is the classic, first text on CBT, published in 1979. It was my first exposure to CBT. There are many other books and workbooks on the subject, and this may be a little difficult to read. But I wanted to put it there for historical purposes if nothing else.

Article from PsychCentral.com on cognitive behavioral therapy.

Nice printable list of cognitive distortions from Therapist Aid. They have some other good worksheets and information about CBT there, too.