Wandering through the woods

One of the trademarks of depressive thinking is that it's global -- that is, one thinks "I suck at everything," "I am terrible at all details" -- and so forth, rather than "I made this mistake once, so I need to pay attention to that particular type of error."

The problem with conquering this sort of thinking (and the negative depressive effects associated with it) is twofold:

- Firstly, most managers are AWFUL about not using global criticism. That's because most people are terrible communicators, especially when under stress or when annoyed. Therefore, any feedback you ever get is badly targeted, and likely to simply reinforce global self-criticism.

(I'd like to reiterate that, once more, I think that a tact-and-specific-communications class should be explicitly taught in elementary and secondary school -- so everyone doesn't go around acting assholish ALL THE TIME, which seems to be the case for the majority of people.)


- Secondly, I think I have a really hard time categorizing the type of errors I make at the time. I either dismiss it as a one-off, or think globally. I've been getting better about trying to tell myself that I'll create a specific error-checking mechanism (focusing on fixing the problem rather than on being upset about the mistake or dismissing it), but it's sort of hard. What else do people do to try to avoid the global-thinking error?

I always forget that people are lovely. Responses to my last (locked) post were almost embarassing, because I seem to have this amnesia about the fact that people do care, and it's just in my head how scared I am, but that people are good. I have fantabulously cool people around me. Shoutouts to Seth & Anna & Stephen for walking me through stuff on IM, and to all of you who commented, and to the power of chocolate, which should never be underestimated. Allie the cat says she loves you, too.