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
Input please. Whenever I have a thought or come across something like news about pedophilia or other awful things, I feel like I try to make it okay in my head. Like I am trying to explain it away, excuse it. And when I look at that from a more compassionate lens, I think maybe I am just trying to process something bad. Maybe I am trying to make something horrific feel a little less horrifying so I can keep existing in a world where it happens. Because the truth is, whenever I hear about something terrible, it does not just go away. I do not have that ability to shove it aside and move on. I have to live with it. I carry it. I live my life alongside these awful things that exist. But then, when I look at it through a different lens, it gets darker. Maybe I am not trying to process something bad. Maybe I am actually trying to justify it. Maybe I am trying to convince myself it is not that bad… because deep down I agree with the people who do it. Or maybe I am afraid that if it were not so stigmatized, I would somehow be okay with it. And that thought worries me. I know that why someone holds moral values is not as important as the fact that they do. I know that what matters is your actions and your commitment to being a good person. It still scares me. I keep asking myself: am I trying to justify something awful just so I can mentally survive it, or am I trying to justify something awful because some part of me agrees with it?
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.
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