if I stop trying to suppress or review horrible intrusive images, am I not just telling my brain that is okay to have those thoughts? Can my brain start to perceive horrible things as normal? Maybe I'm reaching.
I'd like to know the this as well so thank you for asking what I've been wanting to ask
From my understanding, more focus that you give the intrusive thoughts and image the brain will see as scary. The less focus, the brain will see the intrusive thoughts and images as not scary. I hope what I wrote is understandable haha. Also, you got this!
By not suppressing or reviewing / ruminating about them you tell your brain it's OK to have the thoughts (that's the goal). Not the content of them, just the process of having them. Our brains have random thoughts pop up, just as random as dreams are when we sleep. It's just a thing. That's what you're trying to tell your brain. It's just a thing and not a threat. The more you practise that, the less you'll have. It may spike for a bit at first but that's a normal brain response. To emphasise, you won't perceive the content as normal unless you think the lack of intrusive thoughts mean that. If you need any of that made clearer, let me know. There's a lot of misunderstanding with this. Hope it helps
are they truly intrusive thoughts or am i thinking and creating automatically graphic images that i dont want to think? i think it happens because it's too easy once you're anxious abt it. i dont enjoy it. i just saw a trigger and had a graphic disturbing se&ual image in my head.
i saw a trigger. and immediately imagined something se&ual that i really dislike and dont want. and now i feel horrible, because even if i didnt like it, i still imagined it. yes, it was an egodystonic intrusive image, but the moment i saw the trigger i knew i was going to have an intrusive image, i could have blocked it, i could have tried, but instead it happened automatically, the same type of se&ual image that is the same specific kind for any trigger, just now i was thinking abt it and it immediately appeared in my head. i dont know how much control do i have in it, because as i think abt it, it gets automatically visualized, but i'm the one who still gives the imput. i wonder how much responsibility do I have in this. because the unwanted image is sudden and automatic, but is like im conceding, im allowing it, like giving it up. it's some kind of self sabotage, it's not ocd creating the intrusive images, it's me imagining automatically and immediately once I see a threat what i don't want to think because i'm so used to, to sabotage myself and it feels horrible, especially if the trigger is a real person. it's like self sabotage. im not receiving passivly, im somehow actively thinking it automatically, i don't know how to explain it. i think abt how can't look at their parents eyes because they would be disgusted by me. no parent would be okay if someone had such images of their triggers even though it was intrusive and unwanted. and that feels defeating.
i saw a trigger in a instagram reel. i noticed the face immediately, i guess that's because she had a unique beautiful face and that's precisely what ticked me and made me alerted. and my brain started telling me that meant something, the cuteness and so on the potential danger that i felt, it seemed like a cue that something was there. and my brain started testing me with intrusive se&ual images. and im afraid that they weren't completely distasteful to my brain even though i didnt want it and i was freaking out. im afraid there might be of component of truth that makes something in my brain wrong. why did it feel like there was a potential "allure" in those intrusive images? why did it feel like i could like it? was it because the more taboo is something the more it feels "alluring" automatically? something in those se&ual intrusive images felt affine, akin, feasible to maybe my preferences? was it the association between intrusive pretty face + the intrusive image of a private area overlapping in meaning making me think that there could be some likeness? some potential attraction towards it? or is it really true and i have something in my brain that ive been in denial this whole time? maybe i'm a danger. im utterly worried abt this. why was i able to feel like there was some affinity towards those se&ual intrusive association-images? please if somebody knows, tell me, because until then i don't think i can rest in peace. and it's not a matter of uncertainty, this is something untolerable. i cant live like a guilty person and act like im innocent and that is all ocd. it feels perversed.
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