Agoraphobia Thoughts: Perfectionistic Thinking

Today I will share two more ways that most people with agoraphobia think that sort of compliment each other.

Black-or white thinking (also called all-or-nothing thinking): Viewing everything in terms of absolutes or extremes. Things are either right or wrong, good or bad, with no in between.

Perfectionism goes hand-in-hand with all or nothing thinking. People who think this way are often perfectionists, putting themselves under a great deal of unnecessary pressure with unrealistic expectations, which increases anxiety and fear of failing. If their unrealistic expectations are not met, they tend to label themselves as “bad” or a failure.”

Examples of black-or-white thinking:

I get a chance for a promotion at work and think, “If I don’t get this promotion at then I am a total failure in my career.”

I find out a friend has lied to me one time and I think to myself, "I should have known he really was a bad person all along."

Magnifying the negative: This type of thinking is a close cousin to black-or-white thinking. Magnifying the negative means dwelling on the negative aspects of something and making it seem much larger than the positive aspects. You will often hear people who think this way making statement that start with "yeah, but."

Examples of magnifying the negative:

After winning a baseball game I think, “Yeah, but since I made an error I really didn’t play a very good game.”

Someone tells me they really enjoyed an article I wrote and I say, "Yeah, but I wrote that in a hurry and there were several mistakes in it. I wish I had a chance to edit it better. Next time I will be a lot more careful."

Magnifying the negative compliments black-or-white thinking. If you are a perfectionist who does both, then you are always able to point out a flaw in yourself, your performance, or a situation, which gives you justification for labeling everything as "bad," "flawed," "disappointing," or otherwise short of perfection.

People with agoraphobia lived trapped between the need to reach perfection and the sheer inability to ever perceive anything as such. As you might guess, the tension between these two is part of what fuels the anxiety that underlies agoraphobia.