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Having lived most of my life with severe bipolar disorder, I’ve known a lot of crazy. I can tell you all about the inside of locked and padded psychiatric wards, the aftermath of suicide attempts, the frayed outer edges of sanity. But harrowing as my experience on this Earth has been, I think 2020 has to rank as the all-time craziest year I’ve ever known.
It’s not just the pandemic and the politics; it’s the way reality itself seems to have taken on a shape-shifting quality. For someone with a mental illness like me, who genuinely needs to worry about losing touch with what’s real and what isn’t, this is incredibly disturbing. But it must be even more upsetting for people who aren’t used to the fluidity of bipolar disorder, who expect to wake up in the morning and have today be relatively akin to yesterday.
I feel it’s necessary to say something because I’m very worried about what I see happening to people right now, as well as to myself. We’re making what’s already bad even worse.
I think I’ve got the credibility to sound this alarm. I’m not just personally versed in mental illness; I’ve written three books about it. As a mental health advocate and attorney, I speak about the subject nationally and internationally. At this point, I can readily recognize the signs and symptoms of trouble in others—and in my opinion, we’re not just in peril of losing our balance; we’re in peril of losing our rationality.
What I’m witnessing is the rampant spread of cognitive distortions: biased, illogical ways of thinking about ourselves and the world around us, which invariably lead to fear, anxiety, depression, resentment, and interpersonal conflict. Just google the phrase “cognitive distortions,” and you’ll get a list of the 10 most common ones, which seem to be second nature to most of us these days. For example:
- Black-and-white thinking, where every issue and every person is either right or wrong, good or evil
- Catastrophizing, where the future is forever doomed
- Mind reading, where we assume that we already know what others are thinking, without the need to inquire
- Globalizing, where everything is awful, and nothing makes sense
Sound familiar? Fortunately, there’s a lot we can do about it. Cognitive distortions are the province of cognitive-behavioral therapy (“CBT”), which many studies recognize as the most effective form of talk therapy practiced today. While it’s ideal to have an expert guide one through the process, there’s much we can do on our own to combat our faulty thinking.
Just being aware that your thinking may be skewed is a tremendous start. In fact, the core strategy of CBT is to identify the distortion and challenge the thought. For example, if you realize you’re engaged in black-and-white thinking, make yourself come up with a statement in a shade of gray. Or if you’re catastrophizing, force yourself to imagine one positive counter-argument that contradicts your negativity.
Don’t just assume that what you feel must be true: Look for solid empirical proof. It’s hard at first, but it becomes much easier with practice. And it’s essential if we ever want to start thinking clearly again—as a country, and as individuals.
Then cut yourself some slack. No one chooses to think irrationally. Cognitive distortions arise as a response to stress; they’re a flawed way to cope with dire events, and Lord knows, we’ve had our fair share of dire this year. But they’re counterproductive, they leave us feeling miserable, and on a cost-benefit analysis, they’re just not worth the effort or the space they’re taking up in our heads and our national conversation.
We need to be re-taught how to think. It’s that simple. We can’t change the circumstances we’ve been faced with in 2020. But we can change the way we look at them in 2021.
