We have to learn to separate the fact from the story.
Podcast: Neil Pasricha: Happy Habits [The Knowledge Project Ep. #72]
"I failed the biology class" is different from that "I failed my parents." The first one is a fact, and the second one is a story. "I'm an alcoholic" is different than that "no one will trust me again." The former is a fact, while the latter is a story.
Separating fact and story is exactly like the REBT's ABC Model I learned in Weekly I/O #25. In the ABC model, our activating events (A) is the fact, our belief (B) is the story.