Someone help me out. I really suck at reality testing. Am I doing it wrong?
I never trust myself when I reason things out. I always think yes, I know how crazy this sounds. I know this isn’t rational, but I also KNOW I am right.
I can never get past believing the irrational over the rational.
I find telling someone I trust and asking their opinion on it can help. Also sometimes writing it out helps me cause then looking at it I can sometimes go “that doesn’t add up”
The hard part about reality testing is learning to trust yourself. When you know that your thought doesn’t make sense. You have to trust that part of yourself.
I usually think about it like this.
1. What does the evidence say? If the evidence is against me, then I try harder to push the idea aside. If the evidence is for me, I consider why it is. Would the evidence look like it was still in my favor to someone else or am I misreading it?
2. What would a regular person say if I told them this thought/idea? If a regular person would reject it, I recognize it’s probably a delusion and try to let it go.
If that doesn’t work, I bring the thought/idea to a trusted other and let them help me figure it out based on evidence and what would realistically be true.
People I know well will tell me when an idea seems crazy. After having this experience a few times, I learned to hesitate about saying certain things to others. The delusions went below the surface.
So for reality testing, I recommend listening as well as you can to feedback from others. Especially others who love you.
I suck too. I just air on the side of caution. Go with the safest reality. Of course that’s why I’m sequestered in my house all the time so don’t even listen to me.
The key is objectivity. Does the theory hold up to repeated, rigorous testing, or was it something that happened once? If it happened once, and isn’t repeatable, then it’s safe to discard that notion.
Proof is another factor. Is the proof sensible to other people, or does it only make sense to you? If it’s a notion such as “I’m an alien from Pluto”, is there any reasonable way to prove this idea, or is it entirely based on an idea you had once?
Yes I get reality testing from people who love me
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