“I am haunted by failure”: how to change a negative scenario

Forty-one-year-old Nadya is from the documentation department of a large corporation, something is always going on. The cat caught a rare disease, the door jammed before an important meeting. The company treats her differently: someone with irony (“Something always happens to her”), someone with regret and sympathy.

When her 80-year-old father fell ill after a stroke, which often happens at this age, she again took it as a persecution and punishment of evil fate. More and more often she complained to her friends that she was very tired of fighting with something all the time and that it was as if fate had punished her: “Why is this all the time with me? Will it ever end?”

Thought Selection and Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

In such scenarios, several factors come into play, says Dmitry Kovpak, a cognitive behavioral therapist. “Such a person has a kind of “I-concept”, an image of himself, including the belief that he is unlucky. And he looks at everything through the prism of this “I-concept”, exercising selective, selective attention. Selecting a depressed person who is sure that everything is bad will mark only situations where everything is really bad. But there are positive things in life too.

The second factor influencing the behavior of such a person is the so-called self-fulfilling, self-fulfilling prophecy (a term proposed by the American sociologist Robert King Merton). When there is some assumption and it becomes the dominant definition.

As if we ourselves provoke this bad attitude. Merton cited a bank as an example. If there is a rumor, however irrational, that a certain bank, which has always been considered the most reliable, has become unsustainable, then a huge number of depositors will withdraw their money. The suggestion effect is so strong that it can affect even normal, successful enterprises and provoke mass panic and psychosis.

Fuss breeds mistakes

On the one hand, a catastrophe person has a negative “I-concept”, and on the other hand, the effect of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Such people begin to initially play it safe, fuss, which entails negative consequences. As long as we lay straw in one place, we inevitably lose control in another.

“If you are redundant in something, then you will definitely be deficient in something. If a warrior fusses on the battlefield, he will get a bullet faster, because he will become an easy target. Worry turns into a lifestyle for such people and leads to more mistakes and costs. Due to excessive fuss, we spend more time, energy and attention.

And as a result, we miss what in a normal state could be done calmly and correctly. For example, a tightrope walker needs to be calm. If he starts fussing, becomes tense, the chances of falling will increase. The more control and fuss we put in, the more likely it is to make a mistake,” explains Dmitry Kovpak.

Attention will begin to weaken, absent-mindedness will appear, which will increase the likelihood of stumbling out of the blue, not noticing an open hatch or a passing car.

“The orientation reflex will go out. We get tired of constant anxiety, become less attentive. Vicious circle: I get confirmation of the hypothesis that I am a loser, that I am helpless against evil fate. I worry about how I can cope with this evil rock, I try to keep track of everything, I experience even more anxiety and skip the mandatory “safety exercises” even more, the psychologist explains.

At the moment when we are afraid to stumble and fall, all attention is directed there. And at this time, we are pulling out a wallet from a bag. And what is the conclusion that follows? “There’s always something going on with me.”

In fact, there is a distortion of the perception of reality, overgeneralization. If we are afraid of catching a cold, then we wrap ten scarves, sweat and catch a cold. When we are fragile and vulnerable, we look for guarantees that nothing will happen to us. And no one can give them. In these searches, we will spend a large amount of resources.

Break the vicious circle

Jokes that all the troubles from the family and school are not so unfounded. We bring into adult life what we learned in childhood, accepted into ourselves and now consider it an inseparable part. In the behavior of a disaster person, one can see some variants of the so-called learned helplessness.

“Once upon a time, a person stopped believing in himself, or maybe he was immediately awarded a stamp in childhood: “Hands grow from the wrong place”, “You are not a child, but a punishment”, “Again you failed to do it.” Adults do not notice how they drive nails into the child’s self-image. And he is forced to justify the psychological stigma given to him.

It’s not that he deliberately plays along, but he has already absorbed faith in himself so much that he is not so bad, a loser, that he only perceives himself that way. If I believe that I am a disaster person, then I will consider the whole world as a potential threat. And tendentious thinking will present events in a special way, I will look at everything through the glasses of faith, or rather, disbelief in myself,” says Dmitry Kovpak.

How to get out of this vicious circle? You need to see yourself from the outside. Being inside the system, that is, oneself, it is difficult to do this. “That’s why psychotherapy is needed. Together with a psychotherapist, arrange a debriefing and find the mechanism that creates tension, emotional overexcitation, physical exhaustion.

A mechanism that contributes to catastrophes, of which we become a willing or unwilling participant and initiator. And change your approach to life. According to the theory of probability, everyone gets into trouble. If you pour water on the mill of troubles, then self-doubt will only be fixed, ”the psychotherapist states.

To notice distortions in our own thinking, those places where logic, consistency and operating with facts fail us, you can use paper and a pen.

Write down thoughts and pay attention to where they jump and where facts are garbled. Inside our head, we can skip the gaps and illogicality, but when we write them out on an external medium, it is easier for us to see the delusions that we sincerely believe in and that prevent us from living.

“This layout is already useful in itself. It helps to see where you are confused, where there are distortions, where you see what is not there, how justified thoughts are, how much they are confirmed by facts and experience. But you need to understand that there is no simple solution. You won’t be able to read a mantra for deliverance or come up with a visualization of success and wake up happy the next morning. You have to learn to analyze yourself, and this is some work.

In the original book by Alan Milne, Winnie the Pooh was always in a hurry and fell out of the house. He rolled down the stairs (“bumkal”), and he was in pain. He promised himself not to be in a hurry, but he “bumbled” again and again. Any habit requires alteration, replacement with a counter-habit and its training. If you try to push the habit, it will still break through, but in a more sophisticated form, ”recalls Dmitry Kovpak.

How to help the “eternal loser”?

What about those who are close to such a disaster person? After all, you are involuntarily drawn into the cycle of his problems, and an attempt to help is stopped in the bud.

No banal advice from the “pull yourself together”, “do not fuss” series will help here. A person believes in something, and, like any believer, he cannot be convinced in a nutshell. What can be done?

“Accept him the way he is. Any rejection of him will cause rejection. Any violence and pressure will increase negative energy and feelings. All this contributes to further fuss, disorganization, twitching, which will increase the likelihood of trouble. A “walking nuisance” will definitely break something for itself or others,” advises Dmitry Kovpak.

Disaster Man requires total acceptance. And this will reduce his problems. Such a person is most afraid of being rejected. If we want him to calm down, we should not demand this from him – calm down first of all yourself.

Just offer, but don’t impose, help or a solution. Ask him: how can I be useful, what can I do? And then he will be more aware that there are no such strict requirements for him that he has learned to make to himself, fearing to be rejected.