Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy (21 page)

Most people with a tendency to depression choose the sad route. You
automatically
conclude the critic is right. Without any systematic investigation, you jump to the conclusion that you were in the wrong and made a mistake. You then magnify the importance of the criticism with a series of thinking errors. You might
overgeneralize
and wrongly conclude that your whole life consists of nothing but a string of errors. Or you might
label
yourself a “total goof-up.” And because of your perfectionistic expectation that you are supposed to be flawless, you will probably feel convinced that your (presumed) error indicates you are worthless. As a result of these mental errors, you will experience depression and a loss of self-esteem. Your verbal responses will be ineffectual and passive, characterized by avoidance and withdrawal.

In contrast, you may choose the mad route. You will
defend
yourself from the horrors of being imperfect by trying to convince the critic that he or she is a monster. You will stubbornly refuse to admit any error because according to your perfectionistic standards, this would be tantamount to admitting you are a worthless worm. So you hurl accusations back on the assumption that the best defense is a good offense. Your heart beats rapidly, and hormones pour into your bloodstream as you prepare for battle. Every muscle tightens and your jaws are clenched. You may feel a temporary exhilaration as you tell your critic off in self-righteous indignation. You’ll show him what a no-good piece of crap he is! Unfortunately, he doesn’t agree, and in the long run your outburst is self-defeating because you’ve poisoned the relationship.

The third option requires that you either
have
self-esteem or at least act
as if you did
. It is based on the premise that you are a worthwhile human being and have no need to be perfect. When you are criticized, your initial response is
investigative
. Does the criticism contain a grain of truth?
Just what did you do that was objectionable? Did you in fact goof up?

Having defined the problem by asking a series of non-judgmental questions, you are in a position to propose a solution. If a compromise is indicated, you can negotiate. If you were clearly in the wrong, you can admit it. If the critic was mistaken, you can point this out in a tactful manner. But whether your behavior was right or wrong, you will know that you are
right
as a human being, because you have finally perceived that your self-esteem was never at issue in the first place.

What’s your IQ? I’m not interested in knowing how smart you are because your intelligence has little, if anything, to do with your capacity for happiness. What I want to know is what your
I
rritability
Q
uotient is. This refers to the amount of anger and annoyance you tend to absorb and harbor in your daily life. If you have a particularly high IQ, it puts you at a great disadvantage because you overreact to frustrations and disappointments by creating feelings of resentment that blacken your disposition and make your life a joyless hassle.

Here’s how to measure your IQ. Read the list of twenty-five potentially upsetting situations described below. In the space provided after each incident, estimate the degree it would ordinarily anger or provoke you, using this simple rating scale:

0—You would feel very little or no annoyance.

1—You would feel a little irritated.

2—You would feel moderately upset.

3—You would feel quite angry.

4—You would feel very angry.

Mark your answer after each question as in this example:

The individual who answered this question estimated his reaction as a two because he would feel moderately irritated, but this would quickly pass as soon as the train was gone. As you describe how you would ordinarily react to each of the following provocations, make your best general estimate even though many potentially important details are omitted (such as what kind of day you were having, who was involved in the situation, etc.).

Traditionally psychotherapists (
and
the general public) have conceptualized two primary ways to deal with anger: (a) anger turned “inward”; or (b) anger turned “outward.” The former solution is felt to be the “sick” one—you internalize your aggression and absorb resentment like a sponge. Ultimately it corrodes you and leads to, guilt and depression. Early psychoanalysts such as Freud felt that internalized anger was the cause of depression. Unfortunately, there is no convincing evidence in support of this notion.

The second solution is said to be the “healthy” one—you express your anger, and as you ventilate your feelings, you presumably feel better. The problem with this simplistic approach is that it doesn’t work very well. If you go around ventilating all your anger, people will soon regard you as loony. And at the same time you aren’t learning how to deal with people in society
without
getting angry.

The cognitive solution transcends both of these. You have a third option:
Stop creating
your anger. You don’t have to choose between holding it in or letting it out because it won’t exist.

In this chapter I provide guidelines to help you assess the pros and cons of experiencing anger in a variety of situations so you can decide when anger is and isn’t in your best self-interest. If you choose, you can develop control over your feelings; you will gradually cease to be plagued by excessive irritability and frustration that sour your life for no good reason.

“People!

Shit!

I’m fed up with them!

I need a vacation from people.”

The woman who recorded this thought at 2:00
A.M.
couldn’t sleep. How could the dogs and noisy neighbors in her apartment building be so thoughtless? Like her, I’ll bet you’re convinced it’s other people’s stupid, self-centered actions that make you angry.

It’s natural to believe that external events upset you. When you’re mad at someone, you automatically make them the cause of all your bad feelings. You say, “
You’re
annoying me!
You’re
getting on my nerves.” When you think like this, you’re actually fooling yourself because other people really cannot make you angry. Yes—you heard me right. A pushy teenager might crowd in front of you in line at the movie theater. A con artist might sell you a fake ancient coin at an antique shop. A “friend” might screw you out of your share of a profitable business deal. Your boyfriend might always show up late for dates in spite of his knowing how important promptness is to you. No matter how outrageous or unfair others might appear to you,
they
do not, never did, and never will upset you. The bitter truth is that you’re the one who’s
creating
every last ounce of the outrage you experience.

Does that sound like heresy or stupidity to you? If you think I’m contradicting the obvious, you may feel like burning this book or throwing it down in disgust. If so, I dare you to read on, because—

Anger, like all emotions, is created by your cognitions. The relationship between your thoughts and your anger is shown in Figure 7–1. As you will note, before you can feel irritated by any event you must first become aware of what is occurring and come to your own interpretation of it. Your feelings result from the meaning you give to the event,
not
from the event itself.

Figure 7–1.
It is not negative events but your perceptions and thoughts about these events that create your emotional response.

For example, suppose that after a hectic day you put your two-year-old child to sleep in his crib for the night. You close his bedroom door and sit down to relax and watch television. Twenty minutes later he suddenly opens the door to his room and walks out giggling. You might react to this in a variety of ways, depending on the meaning you attach to it. If you feel irritated, you’re probably thinking, “Damn it! He’s always a bother. Why can’t he stay in bed and behave like he should? He never gives me a minute’s rest!” On the other hand, you could be delighted to see him pop out of his room because you’re thinking, “Great! He just crawled out of his crib on his own for the first time. He’s
growing up and getting more independent.” The event is the same in both cases. Your emotional reaction is determined entirely by the way you are thinking about the situation.

I’ll bet I know what you’re thinking now: “That example with the baby is not applicable. When
I
get angry there’s a justifiable provocation. There’s plenty of
genuine
unfairness and cruelty in this world. There’s no valid way I can think about all the crap I have to put up with each day without getting uptight. Do you want to perform a lobotomy and turn me into an unfeeling zombie? NO THANKS!”

You are certainly right that plenty of genuinely negative events
do
go on every day, but your feelings about them are still created by the interpretations you place on them. Take a careful look at these interpretations because anger can be a two-edged sword. The consequences of an impulsive outburst will frequently defeat you in the long run. Even if you are being genuinely wronged, it may not be to your advantage to feel angry about it. The pain and suffering you inflict on yourself by feeling outraged may far exceed the impact of the original insult. As a woman who runs a restaurant put it, “Sure—I have the
right
to fly off the handle. The other day I realized the chefs forgot to order ham again even though I had specifically reminded them, so I exploded and threw a cauldron of hot soup across the kitchen floor in disgust. Two minutes later I knew I’d acted like the biggest asshole in the world, but I didn’t want to admit it, so I had to spend all my energy for the next forty-eight hours trying to convince myself I had the right to make a jackass of myself in front of twenty employees! It wasn’t worth it!”

In many cases your anger is created by subtle cognitive distortions. As with depression, many of your perceptions are twisted, one-sided, or just plain wrong. As you learn to replace these distorted thoughts with others that are more realistic and functional, you will feel less irritable and gain greater self-control.

What kinds of distortion occur most often when you are
angry? One of the greatest offenders is
labeling
. When you describe the person you’re mad at as “a jerk” or “a bum” or “a piece of shit,” you see him in a totally negative way. You could call this extreme form of overgeneralization “globalizing” or “monsterizing.” Someone may in fact have betrayed your trust, and it is absolutely right to resent what that person
did
. In contrast, when you label someone, you create the impression that he or she has a bad essence. You are directing your anger toward what that person “is.”

When you write people off this way, you catalog in your mind’s eye every single thing about them you don’t like (the mental filter) and ignore or discount their good points (disqualifying the positive). This is how you set up a false target for your anger. In reality, every human being is a complex mix of positive, negative, and neutral attributes.

Labeling is a distorted thinking process that causes you to feel inappropriately indignant and morally superior. It’s destructive to build your self-image this way: Your labeling will inevitably give way to your need to blame the other person. Your thirst for retaliation intensifies the conflict and brings out similar attitudes and feelings in the person you’re mad at. Labeling inevitably functions as a self-fulfilling prophecy. You polarize the other person and bring about a state of interpersonal warfare.

What’s the battle really all about? Often you’re involved in a defense of your self-esteem. The other person may have threatened you by insulting or criticizing you, or by not loving or liking you, or by not agreeing with your ideas. Consequently, you may perceive yourself in a duel of honor to the death. The problem with this is that the other person is
not
a totally worthless shit, no matter how much you insist! And, furthermore, you cannot enhance your own esteem by denigrating someone else even if it does feel good temporarily. Ultimately only your own negative, distorted thoughts can take away your self-respect, as pointed out in Chapter 4. There is
one and only one
person in this world who has the power to threaten your self-esteem—and that is you. Your sense of worth can go down
only
if you put
yourself down. The real solution is to put an end to your absurd inner harangue.