Your brain naturally presents you with thoughts of scenarios that would bring danger or great distress to you or your loved ones. There’s an evolutionary purpose in it that isn’t necessarily a secret or slight desire for it to happen.
And, of course, if you have OCD, the feature is broken and plays like an uncontrollable spam-fucking stream of intrusive thoughts that escalate as you try to dismiss them. Also isn’t an indication of secret desire or anything like that. Just that specific mechanic of your mind being on the fritz due to a lack of serotonin.
If you want the intrusive thoughts, the calls-of-the-void to go away, simply acknowledge the thought, thank it for keeping you safe, and move on.
Yes, you can talk to your thoughts, you can freeze them and interrogate them, ask them why they’re there and what they’re doing. This is called cognitive diffusion, part of ACT therapy. Eventually, you will find a reason to thank the thought and move on, it’s strange but hugely effective. Works on any type of thought.
I genuinely wonder if it’s something that’s meant to aid our development of things like empathy too. I only mention it because I remember when I was a child having an intrusive thought, while fishing, of splatting a fish against a cinderblock I could see poking out of the water and actually followed through on it. Hit by INSTANT regret and sorrow. It was a very shitty thing I did but since it still sticks with me I think it did teach me something about the value of animal life. So I wonder if that plays a part–getting kids to do stupid things to learn from them.
Yeah, my wife has particularly severe OCD in that regard and was constantly dealing with either little things that were somehow going to lead to one of our deaths, or that “danger function” presenting her with a veritable buffet of self harm options.
Funnily enough, when she finally found a combination of meds that got her OCD more under control we found out that it had been masking pretty bad ADHD her entire life. That was a wild time. Like, it’s not that she didn’t believe me about my own ADHD symptoms, but it hits different when you’re actually experiencing them yourself y’know?
Oh she had to go on a bunch. It was like the Max daily doses of both Prozac and Buspar to get it down to only occupying like 4-6 hours of her day, then they added a tiny dose of Abilify and all that’s what finally got it to shut up in all but the worst days.
Not as much as it sounds honestly, to her massive credit. She’s done a lot of work managing it and I work with her trying to keep it manageable. But that’s what partnership is right? She helps me where I struggle, I help her where she struggles.
Your brain naturally presents you with thoughts of scenarios that would bring danger or great distress to you or your loved ones. There’s an evolutionary purpose in it that isn’t necessarily a secret or slight desire for it to happen.
And, of course, if you have OCD, the feature is broken and plays like an uncontrollable spam-fucking stream of intrusive thoughts that escalate as you try to dismiss them. Also isn’t an indication of secret desire or anything like that. Just that specific mechanic of your mind being on the fritz due to a lack of serotonin.
Yep, it’s a warning.
If you want the intrusive thoughts, the calls-of-the-void to go away, simply acknowledge the thought, thank it for keeping you safe, and move on.
Yes, you can talk to your thoughts, you can freeze them and interrogate them, ask them why they’re there and what they’re doing. This is called cognitive diffusion, part of ACT therapy. Eventually, you will find a reason to thank the thought and move on, it’s strange but hugely effective. Works on any type of thought.
I genuinely wonder if it’s something that’s meant to aid our development of things like empathy too. I only mention it because I remember when I was a child having an intrusive thought, while fishing, of splatting a fish against a cinderblock I could see poking out of the water and actually followed through on it. Hit by INSTANT regret and sorrow. It was a very shitty thing I did but since it still sticks with me I think it did teach me something about the value of animal life. So I wonder if that plays a part–getting kids to do stupid things to learn from them.
Yeah, my wife has particularly severe OCD in that regard and was constantly dealing with either little things that were somehow going to lead to one of our deaths, or that “danger function” presenting her with a veritable buffet of self harm options.
Funnily enough, when she finally found a combination of meds that got her OCD more under control we found out that it had been masking pretty bad ADHD her entire life. That was a wild time. Like, it’s not that she didn’t believe me about my own ADHD symptoms, but it hits different when you’re actually experiencing them yourself y’know?
I have a similar problem with OCD, what medications did she find helpful?
Oh she had to go on a bunch. It was like the Max daily doses of both Prozac and Buspar to get it down to only occupying like 4-6 hours of her day, then they added a tiny dose of Abilify and all that’s what finally got it to shut up in all but the worst days.
Gosh that sounds like a bull-ride! Huge relationship tax, too…
Well done riding through it
Not as much as it sounds honestly, to her massive credit. She’s done a lot of work managing it and I work with her trying to keep it manageable. But that’s what partnership is right? She helps me where I struggle, I help her where she struggles.
That’s exactly it! Great team work