Do you have a harsh self-critic? Is your mind relentless with ‘always’ and ‘never’?
Depression tends to make people think in absolutes and Black and white thinking is common. This is when you think in terms of extremes with no middle ground or shades of grey.
I am a complete failure. I am totally worthless.
These thoughts are almost always self-destructive, and they make you feel hopeless.
If you do this kind of thinking it almost always includes ‘Should’ Statements. This will leave you telling yourself you should be better than you are, and blaming yourself continuously for all of your faults, failures, and mistakes.
So how can you change this?
Most of our life events are not completely ‘disastrous' or only 'wonderful'. Most of the time, we end up somewhere between 0% and 100% and situations tend to contain elements of both good and bad.
Starting today try to find the grey in one situation each day. Things can be both good and bad, and people can be both right and wrong, strong and weak, smart and stupid, a success and a failure. Take some time out to consider that we are all human.
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