vw - you are making considered decisions. This is a good thing. Reread your tagline.

vw that sounds like some good planning.

I just wanted to say it so maybe I'd actually believe it. My distortions are high these days...

Define distortions, please?

It makes me think of me, this morning, who spent far too much time justifying the note I sent to Kara's teacher about why she wouldn't eat her lunch and how it wouldn't kill her and I hoped they wouldn't kick her out of the program because she's started crying a little bit every day.

Define distortions, please?

Cognitive distortions are actually a CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) thing. Here are the ten most common:

Listed here are the 10 common cognitive distortions. Read through each of them and see if you can recognize your own thinking. Then go back and see how you can change your thoughts. One way is to make a chart with one side proving your specific thought is true, and the other proving it is not true. Be honest though--is the proof you listed REAL or is it possibly another way of using Emotional Reasoning (#7)?

1. ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING: You see things in black-and-white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.

2. OVERGENERALIZATION: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.

3. MENTAL FILTER: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors the entire beaker of water.

4. DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE: You reject positive experiences by insisting they "don't count" for some reason or other. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.

5. JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.

A. MIND READING: You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don't bother to check this out.

B. THE FORTUNETELLER ERROR: you can anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact.

6. MAGNIFICATION (CATASTROPHIZING) OR MINIMIZATION: You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else's achievement), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or other fellow's imperfections). This is also called the binocular trick."

7. EMOTIONAL REASONING: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: "I feel it, therefore it must be true."

8. SHOULD STATEMENTS: You try to motivate yourself with should and shouldn't, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. "Musts" and "oughts" are also offenders. The emotional consequences are guilt. When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment.

9. LABELING AND MISLABELING: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself" "I'm a loser." When someone else's behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him: "He's a freakin' louse!" Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.

10. PERSONALIZATION: You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event, which in fact you were not primarily responsible for.

Edit: Today's distortion would fall under the category of "jumping to conclusions" or "should statements."

vw, I think your decision is a wise one.

Susan, everyone's got very good advice for you.

And to complete the overthinking!trifecta, we have our first counselling session tonight, and I am a wreck. I keep envisioning the worst-case scenarios (for our marriage, not just limited to tonight), and it's just making me more and more upset. So upset that we had a long discussion last night instead of, you know, having the discussion today with the counsellor who could maybe help us bridge the gap. Gah.

{{{juliana}}} You guys are doing a good thing here. I have great faith in both of you.

Oh, Deena. There are always growing pains, aren't there?

Good for you, for sending that note. I hope they leave Kara alone about it. It sounds like they're creating an issue.

From your post to Susan--I take it you're now thinking Aidan's diagnosis was incorrect? I've been wondering, because so much of what you describe when you're telling cute Aidan stories seems not just normal, but actually non-autistic.

Aidan's autistic behaviours are, I recently discovered, "blindisms."

Deena, I haven't been around much, but does this mean you are reconsidering Aidan's autism diagnosis?

{{{juliana}}} Calm, strength, peace, and love to you and Z. You two have had at couple of turbulent years. The first year of marriage is difficult enough, even when it doesn't come in the wake of a major family death, or even when one of the spouses doesn't suffer a traumatic injury.

You are doing the right thing getting some counselling. I'm glad you're doing it early, and together.