The Faces of Cognitive Distortions

Cognitive distortions are the shortcuts a brain takes when it’s tired, anxious or overwhelmed — and they feel exactly like the truth while they’re happening. Drawn as characters, they’re much easier to catch in the act.

All sixteen faces

• All-or-Nothing Thinker — split straight down the middle. Perfect or worthless, nothing between.
• Blamer — pointing outward, always.
• Catastrophizer — wearing the sky, because it’s falling.
• Conclusion Jumper — deerstalker and magnifying glass, case closed before the evidence.
• Denier — fingers in ears.
• Downplayer of Positives — shrugging off a crowd of pluses to hold onto three minuses.
• Emotional Reasoner — weighing the brain against the heart, and the heart keeps winning.
• Fairness Judger — blindfolded, gavel and scales, measuring everything against how it should be.
• Fortune Teller — hunched over a crystal ball, predicting the worst.
• Labeler — wearing a tag, because one mistake became an identity.
• Mind Reader — turban and closed eyes, certain they know what you’re thinking.
• Negative Filterer — arms crossed behind dark glasses.
• Personalizer — surrounded by arrows all pointing in.
• “Right” Fighter — boxing gloves labelled YOU’RE and WRONG.
• “Should” Stickler​ — clipboard in hand, checking you against a list you never agreed to.
• Uncertainty Hater — spinning, surrounded by question marks.

Why these show up so often with ADHD

None of these are exclusive to ADHD. What ADHD adds is frequency and volume. A brain that already struggles to regulate emotion meets these shortcuts more often, and with less of a gap between the thought arriving and it feeling like fact.

The useful thing about seeing them drawn is that it puts a shape and a name on something that otherwise just feels like being correct. Catching yourself mid-Fortune-Teller is much easier than catching yourself mid-“I already know how this ends.”

When the should-stickler wins

Most planners are built by and for the Should Stickler — streaks, rules, a system to fall off. The Anti-Planner is the opposite: strategies you open based on how you actually feel that day, with nothing to fail at.