Labeling Intrusive Thoughts as Bad

This was a hard one for me, too. One thing that helped was being around some people who made irreverent jokes and took life lightly. I realized that they were saying all kinds of horrible things on purpose. My intrusive thoughts are not on purpose. I need to lighten up. I felt more “free” after realizing that.

OK so the ones that are awful are ego dystonix. They clash with your values and you go down this Ruminating rabbit hole to figure out why they were there. I didn't try this myself but after seeing a few people on here with their issues I came up with an idea. Have a little note pad and every time you notice yourself having a random nice thoueor a day dream, no matter how miniscule it is, write it down. Revisit it in a few days, maybe a week and see if you remember them all. If not, try and understand why you let these ones flow by and let the negative ones stay. They're all equally automatic and random. It's the Ruminating that's not. If you try this I'd like to know how it went if you're OK being a Guinea pig for it 😅

Thought or daydream*

If you don't want to try that, this may help. Look at Wegner white bear experiment or ironic process theory. It will help you understand

Observing them goes like this even if you feel completely distressed by them: hey I’m having an intrusive thought, it’s a thought that’s not even necessarily true and most likely not, all ppl have these kind of thoughts happen, I don’t need to answer the thought or continue to think about it, I also do not need to be alarmed. It is a thought that yes currently I might be feeling distressed but I don’t need to be. You said it yourself that you have an awful reaction to them. So when they happen we must do what we can to not react to them. Also, when it says we must let them pass there are plenty of thoughts we all have both intrusive and non that eventually they just come and go. Kind of like you’ve been through cycles of OCD episodes and it just shows that it does eventually go away even if it’s a few hours, minutes, days, etc. The pushing away part is kind of weird to me personally, but it’s like we must not be so alarmed as in “omg here’s this thought I must get rid of it because if I think it I’m terrible or I’m just going to feel so awful because it’s real”. It’s amplifying it because we attach “I’m terrible” or “ I must not think this”. Where when we become less reactive to then we don’t care and we just ignore it because it doesn’t just mean we should think about all our negative thoughts and keep them there it’s really more of practicing acceptance that they are there or can come. Like a combination of facing them directly and also avoidance. Because we don’t want to raise our own alarm but we also don’t want to just sit here and be like “bad thought so I just will let it play in my head”, let it play be aware of it and then go about your business as if it’s not even there. Hope this helps