what should i do if specific thoughts come up

Hello and I am glad that you posed this question. It can be quite distressing to be caught off guard with disappointing outcomes/news/feedback when you thought everything was sailing along and feeling good about your situation. There are many ways in the course of therapy that we can address these experiences both in how you think & feel about yourself and also in how you choose to manage these feelings.

We can also support you to approach disappointments/failures as learning opportunities for growth. In this sense, we can make the negative experiences meaningful by using them to inform your future choices and actions. For example, if you felt you were doing pretty ok and were shocked to learn that wasn't the case as you wrote, I would support you to reflect and understand more about what informed your determination that you were doing pretty ok. Additionally, we would look at what was going on that brought you to the situation of not doing well with grades. In this process though sessions together, we would support you to look for evidence to inform your assessment of your performance and make a realistic evaluation of where you stand. This would help with the feeling of despair associated with failure and help you become more able to tolerate the distress as you get more comfortable with the understanding that failure is a part of life and it is actually the path to growth. 

I support folks to see failure and mistakes as "growing pains" so that we expect it to feel uncomfortable while remaining focused on the learning opportunity to keep from making the same mistakes in the future. When we see failure as an expected part of the human experience, not something to be avoided or labeled as a deficit, it becomes easier to focus on what you want to do differently next time, rather than be stuck in the regret, shock, and shame of having the rug pulled out from under you when you thought things were going fine. It also helps to normalize this experience so that you feel less like a complete failure and gain the understanding that making a mistake or failing does not reduce your worth as a person.

Helping you to have a balanced and informed way to measure your progress and effectiveness in tasks that are important will also assist in having appropriate and realistic expectations. If you expect to get grades that are "pretty ok" and you found out that wasn't the case, I would support you to adjust your expectations based on the latest information (I.e. I have at least a 70 average in all my classes and my assignments have been turned in = I feel pretty certain I am "doing pretty ok").

In therapy, I would support you to look for evidence in your environment to give you the appropriate expectations. If you start here, then you will likely be able to expect more positive outcomes and less surprises as you will be able to take action on things that could jeopardize your success before it becomes a failure (i.e. I am doing pretty ok but I have 2 outstanding assignments and a 65 in one subject so I will need a near perfect score on the final exam to come out with an average that is 70 or higher).

Finally, I would support you to be kind to yourself and take action in the current moment as often as possible. I would support you to identify your goals and assess with you in therapy what you are doing to either get you close to your goals or further away; then we would work on generating options and choices based on your desired outcomes. Through this process, you will be able to achieve more postive outcomes and learn that you are able to achieve whatever you decide you want to with the abiility to critically assess your choices and actions in this way. This means that you will be able to tolerate failures with less distress overall. I would also give you real time tools to cope with intense emotions and improve your ability to self soothe in the moment.

I hope this was helpful and I welcome the opportunity to connect for therapy if you desire. I appreciate the chance to be part of your journey in this way and wish you all the very best.