7 replies to this topic

[azul]

I post this here because I think it might be something some of us can relate to.

 

Even when I'm happy, thoughts will just randomly come up and bite me in the ass. I could be doing something completely innocuous like brushing my teeth and then my mind will go, 'hey, remember that time you farted in front of class?' or 'hey, remember that <insert mildly triggering event here>?' and I'll feel terrible, but it'll just go away after I ignore it, and won't come back.

 

It's been doing that lately, and it turned a simple thought into a huge to-do. I thought about nearly everything horrible that my sort of girlfriend and I had ever done to one another, and that made me a ball of unhappiness, because I let it take over me, and ruminated about it.

 

Does anything like that ever happen to you?

[ohmcgee]

All the time. Every thought seems to fork off into a negative or depressing thought.  No wonder I'm always depressed.

 

Similarly, I can be doing something mundane like you said, brushing my teeth, and a horrible thing will flash into my head, like a loved one dying in some graphic way, or something happening to one of my children.  It disturbs the hell out of me, but I try not to linger on them because of how super irrational and illogical they usually are. 

[azul]

That is exactly what I'm talking about! It's also the weird irrational thoughts, like "oh god the minute my mom steps out of the house she'll be hit by a bus" "gf is going to get run over by a train" and it's ridiculous and I thought I was nuts, but also normal at the same time, because it always happens to me. Always. Oh god, I'm glad I'm not the only one.

[pa_canuck]

Me too all the time.  It's like a running loop in my head which if I can't stop will bring me to panic episodes and most certainly tears.

 

I hate it.  It feels like that I need to punish myself for every stupid thing I've ever done.  Just to reinforce everything I've been made to believe about myself.

 

I use grounding techniques to stop.  It mostly works.

[amy5000]

Yep. Pretty much me, all the time. I can really just make myself crazy or start to panic by ruminating because one negative thought just leads to more. I will remember something stupid I said in an email 4 months ago to a classmate that I speak with every day, and then assume that only now do they hate me because of my stupid email from months past. They are also totally irrational, too. "What if today is the day I die? Oh no, now that I'm putting energy into thinking that, it MUST be the day I die. Shit... I'm going to die today, and now I can't stop it because it's just going to be my own self-fulfilling prophecy....." etc etc. Like I think because I think the thought it will happen. Gah. 

[azul]

I also forgot to mention that the thoughts made me nearly want to leave my almost gf. Does anything like that ever skew YOUR perception of things?

[Titania]

Sometimes these thoughts can be classified as intrusive.

 

The mind works on patterns and reinforcement, if rumination occurs, it encourages more thoughts of that nature. Thoughts that create an intense emotion or that are reinforced tend to become more common. The stress of that compounds the issue, round and round it goes. The feeling of not being in command of your thoughts and the fear of it happening again etc make it worse.

 

DBT teaches about mindfulness, which is a skill of gently bringing your mind back to a focus (without self judgment and condemnation) in a way that works for you. Meditation is a fancier version of this, but mindfulness is pretty accessible. Being able to step back and acknowledge a thought can help break the cycle. The mnd works along that track for everyone, healthy people get less of those thoughts and they are less stressed by them. It's not a sign that anything has gone badly awry, the approach most people find helpful is to see it as something that happens that they can notice.

 

Maybe you'd be brushing your teeth and a trigger memory would come up, and you would notice it, mentally wave at it say 'I am having a thought of X' and then bring yourself back to teeth brushing.

[BlurredBoundaries]

Just wanted to say I have these intrusive thoughts too.I actually started a thread about it in the OCD section because I was curious if it constituted obsessive compulsive behavior (because I have the morbid thought-then I feel like I have to knock on wood 2 times,to make sure the thought doesn't come true) I get these thoughts everyday...somewhere between 5-50 times a day.