One of my favorite internet memes is of a frog holding a gun to the viewer, with the text “Don’t you ever put me in a situation,” and nothing else. I think there’s something universal about that joke: the anxiety over having to endure literally anything else on top of what’s already on our plates. Because if there’s one misfortune we all seem to share, it’s that we’re usually right in the middle of at least one thing we wish we were out of.

Our society projects so many expectations on us, one of the most insidious being the notion that everything needs to be seen through to the end in order to leave it behind with dignity. We’re taught that life is a meritocracy where you can only get out what you can put in, and that hard-lived experiences will always lead to hard-won wisdom. This is commonly known as the Heaven’s Reward Fallacy, and it’s been a tool for exploitation big and small for as long as people have been around.

Whether it’s a troubled home, a bad relationship, an unhappy work environment, or countless other bad situations, sometimes the most beneficial thing you can do for yourself, and others, is pull out before it’s too late. They say the only way out is through, but far too often it seems that the only way through is out.

We’ve all fallen victim to cognitive distortions, the irrational thought patterns that lead to us perceiving the world as being governed by rules that aren’t actually there. They’re a natural by-product of living in a world that’s always been just a little more complex than our brains can fully grasp. Often these different distortions work in concert with each other to convince us that change is the enemy, and that honoring the way things are now is the only way to avoid being seen as weak, ungrateful, or wasteful.

The Five Fallacies That Could Be Distorting Your Mind

Some of the cognitive distortions that can lead to remaining in unhealthy situations are:

• Heaven’s Reward

The belief that what goes around invariably comes around, no matter what. The world is ultimately fair, and any hard work we do for the right reasons will eventually be acknowledged and rewarded.

• Sunk Cost

When we continue behavior that has proven to be all loss, no gain, by arguing that we’ve already invested too much time in behaving this way to quit before a hypothetical “payoff” makes the whole ordeal worth it.

• The Fallacy of Change

A way of coping with a lack of control in our lives by believing the well-proven regular behavior of others will change to suit our needs if someone loves us enough or if we are good enough people. (The Fallacy of Change)

• Black-And-White Thinking

Interpreting a situation as consisting of two diametrically opposed sides, instead of taking in the multitude of possibilities and points of view that arise from living in our extremely multi-faceted world. (Black-And-White Thinking)

• Emotional Reasoning

The belief that because you feel something is true deep within, this feeling must be
reality and those who argue against it are avoiding the objective truth.

The High Cost of Sinking

The most potentially dangerous of these may be the Sunk Cost Fallacy. When we fall victim to this line of thinking, we can begin living our whole lives in service to justifying the work we’ve already put into a hopeless situation.

For some of us, we convince ourselves that the pain of admitting defeat and accepting what has been lost would be far greater than what we’re going through now. It’s not egotistical or weak to avoid damage to how we see ourselves or are seen by others. Most of the fiction we’ve created over the course of history, both drama and comedy, in some way centers the human desire to avoid social stigma, so if losing face with your peers feels like a fate worse than death, you’re far from alone.

A belief that’s far more dangerous to our well-being, however, is when we convince ourselves that staying in a hopeless situation is, in itself, an end to strive for. We suffer in silence because we think that even if our sacrifices are in vain, they have a value that will give it all meaning when you look back on your life later. In times like this, Sunk Cost, Heaven’s Reward, and Emotional Reasoning team up to convince you that as long as you keep patching up this leaking dam, the water will hold.

This is not an inherently bad thing: not all failure is shameful, just as not all victories are noble, and many seemingly hopeless causes have been won by attrition through the sacrifices of people who often died long before a light at the end of was ever visible. The key difference here is between the struggles of a community and the struggles of an individual: Your neighborhood pushing back against the construction of businesses that will raise the property values too high for your families to continue living there is an uphill battle worth fighting. Sacrificing your emotional well-being for a volatile partner who has proven they will never get themselves in order is not.

Therapy

Are you getting the feeling that enough might finally be enough with something you’ve been struggling with? If you need help finding the strength within yourself to break out of a situation you should no longer have to endure, then Empowered Connections has got you! Make an appointment yourself here or send us a contact form, and our administrative goddess can connect you with someone who can help guide you out of the woods!