How can I move past my negative thinking and self destruction?

Dear JR,

Negative thoughts that lead to self-destruction can be hard to manage. Reaching out for help and being aware of these thoughts are the first steps toward addressing them. I suggest you keep a weekly thought log to monitor events, your thoughts, feelings, and actions. For example, if something like finances is stressing you out, it is important to log the event (ex. Paying a bill.), your thoughts about the event (ex. The cost of living is going up.), your feelings (ex. I am so stressed out right now.), and your actions (ex. Spend the rest of the day on the couch).

After you have kept a log for about a week or two you can begin to track patterns in your thought process. For example, do you always experience a dip in your mood when you need to pay a certain bill? Being aware of how set triggers or stressors affect your thought process and mood helps you know ahead of time what might cause a potential dip in your mood. Being aware of the negative thoughts you have when these stressors come up helps you catch these thoughts more.

Once you know what your specific negative thinking patterns are, the next part is figuring out how to manage them. We all have many thoughts throughout each day that are both negative and positive. It is sometimes helpful to think about thoughts like passing clouds in the sky, as a thought can just be a thought. Thoughts become problematic when we attach certain feelings and reactions to them. For example, if someone is driving on the highway and they get cut off by someone, they can have the thought about the person who cut them off being inconsiderate and even get angry, but they have the choice to act on this thought and the subsequent feeling. Will they just brush the situation off or angrily honk at the person? The crucial moment to determine if negative thoughts are going to lead to self-destruction comes when someone decides to act emotionally on a negative thought.

With all this said, once you are more aware of your negative thoughts and feelings, the next step is managing dips in mood. That is when coping skills are effective. Doing action-based things like going for walks, doing deep breathing exercises, meditating, and journaling are all helpful. Doing other things like holding an ice cube, drinking cold water, snapping a rubber band on your wrist, and identifying things in your setting that you can hear, feel, taste, smell, and touch are also very helpful.

I hope you will find these suggestions helpful. I wish you all the best.

Sincerely,

Jasmine