Since we’ve spent much of the week talking about cognitive distortions and distorted thoughts, I thought I would kick off our little series on the common forms of cognitive distortions that we see in our community. From time to time I’ll add to this series.
Let’s start with all or nothing thinking. This is sometimes called black-and-white thinking. The premise behind all or nothing thinking is that only one thing can be true at a time. When you engage in all or nothing or black and white thinking, this OR that must be true. Multiple outcomes cannot co-exist under this distortion.
If you step back for a minute and think about the premise of all or nothing thinking, you can see almost immediately why it is a cognitive distortion. Is life always black and white? Is everything always well defined? Can more than one thing be true at at a time? Your life experience tells you that things are often unclear and that there can be more than one point of view, more than one outcome to an action, and that multiple things can and are true at the same time every day.
When under the sway of disordered anxiety, that life experience goes out the window and you begin to believe all or nothing thoughts. You might still readily acknowledge that both pizza and tacos can be delicious at the same time, but when it comes to those “special” thoughts that scare you, the ability to see nuance like this gets squashed and things become black and white quickly. This fuels fear and does not help promote recovery.
Let’s relate this distortion to the common fear of never getting better or never being able to fully recover. Consider a day in which you engage in few exposure activities. The particulars do not matter. You’re challenging yourself by intentionally being anxious and uncomfortable so you can get better at those things and move forward toward recovery. You complete all your exposure assignments successfully, but you felt very afraid and didn’t want to complete them. All or nothing thinking will drive you to declare this successful day (you did all your exposures) a failure because you still felt anxious, afraid, or uncomfortable. You are not recovered at the end of the day and the all or nothing distortion will tell you that you must either be recovered, or not recovered, therefore you have failed.
See the problem here?
All or nothing thinking means you totally discount the reality of the situation, which is more complex and nuanced. In reality, you did scary, difficult things and felt afraid when you did them. But you also successfully completed the challenges. You also had real world experiences that get filed away and contribute to a changing relationship with anxiety and fear. More than one thing was true on this day. You were both not recovered, and also moving toward recovery. You were both feeling bad, and making progress.
Emotional reasoning and discounting the positive are other cognitive distortions that matter in this situation. We’ll talk about them down the road. But at the heart of “I’ll never get better” is all or nothing distortions that rob you of the ability to even consider the nuanced and complex nature of the recovery process. They force you to declare failure and defeat when you simply do not have to do that.
Are you guilty of all or nothing thinking? Most people are at least sometimes. Even “normal” people! If you have examples of all or nothing thinking in your life, share them in the comments on Substack if you’re so inclined.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
109. Cognitive Distortions: All Or Nothing Thinking