My answer to a lifetime of those is: "I see you. Yes, that'd be
interesting wouldn't it? Ok, bye bye now!" It's about the only
way to deal with them. Can't stop them. == Oh I know. They don't
go away. I just keep smiling inside and telling them "bye bye
now!" and find another thought to grab onto. It's not easy. It's
practice. Lots of practice. Sometimes I have to lock them in a
monster box with a padlock. Sometimes I have to cast them into
the shadows where they lurk and murmur. The battle is
neverending and for anyone who is never able to win, my ultimate
sympathies. I'm very very lucky. I've been able to structure
certain things in my life that feed the OCD just enough to keep
it happy but not enough for it to overpower. The words "No, fuck
you!" are in my head so much to those thoughts (it's not always
"bye bye now!"), it's probably why I rarely say them aloud to
anybody else. Did you ever hear the Psalm that has the line,
"Dash the children against the rocks?" The oldest existing
interpretation of that Psalm, passed on from Judaic times and
refined heavily during the times of the Desert Fathers in the
Eastern Church was this: Thoughts. The children are not real
children, they're inner thoughts. The bad ones. The intrusive
ones. Dash them against the rocks. The whole inner prayer thing
is/was all about this type of stuff. People have spent lifetimes
fighting. 1500 years before Psychology entered the scene, how
did people DEAL with these things? They had ways. OCD's as old
as humanity. Intrusive thoughts are as old as humanity. When you
discover all of the creative and interesting ways peoples
through the centuries have found to deal with them, you can
learn a lot about what's possible. There's many methodologies
out there. === You won't likely get techniques from too many
official places beyond medicine. You're tossed on your own to
find other methodologies. The thing is: these methodologies have
MOSTLY been tied up in religions.. VERY FEW have made it out
into the secular world yet. That which has is... weak. Very
weak. How do you deal with guilt? Stop thinking about it? No.
Doesn't work like that. Talk about your mother? Eh, shifting
blame. Might as well blame the Devil or stick it on a scape goat
and cast it out into wilderness. It's the same thing. The very
same thing. Some people turn to magical meditation. Meditation
isn't magical: introspection with focus and relaxation, however,
is. and if you study them and remove the religious context and
see them from a productively psychological point of view, you
can see their power. Anyway, I was being flippant with the "bye
bye now". I almost said, "Let them pass like dark clouds". But
that's the oversimplified version. The reality is a lot darker
than that when it's an ongoing fight. It's why I was heavy into
learning about this stuff through the years. Coping skills. It's
all about coping skills. If you have access to medicine that
works, that's a coping skill. The stuff doesn't go away
regardless, just tamed a little. Yeah, I was wrong to make it
sound so easy. A lot of people like hearing easy answers so I
gave one. But you're wiser than that. The depth of the struggle
is quite real. == Let's say, [1]Jay Maranda - you were in 5th
Century Egypt. You're you. No different. No Canada. No meds.
What do you do? What tools are available? You've made it through
childhood and your education. You're an adult. You've been
coping as best you can. But then, you can't. It's 5th century
Egypt and you've got a problem. There's answers. I'm not saying
"turn to religion" - not at all. What I'm saying is: Our secular
world is SHIT when it comes to managing the inner mind. It's
shit when it comes to managing emotions. It's shit when dealing
with inner thoughts. Just shit. Pisses me off. I look back in
history, they had all SORTS of great ways to handle this stuff.
Thousands of years of humans had ways that worked well enough
for them. Why did I get "I'm ok / you're ok" growing up? I mean,
I'm glad for it. Very useful in other ways. But for inner
thoughts? For things that go beyond where I can just "toughen
up"? "deal with it?' Zip. Where do kids turn? Adults turn?
Music. They drown their thoughts in music. Obsessions. Habits.
Hobbies. Socializing. Movies. Romance novels. Talking to people
online. ANYTHING to get away from this: Being alone with your
thoughts and no distractions available. Terrifying to modern
humans. Terrifying. I suspect it's always been terrifying. ==
Well, now you just have to go into writing sci-fi or something
smile emoticon I compared different libraries. We have a bunch
in our county. I was looking to see what was bigger: Fiction or
Non-Fiction. Who wins? Fiction, by far. Food for thought: In a
sense. fiction is insanity. Yet... a glance through the
non-fiction section of the library and you'll see just as much
fiction masquerading as fact. I mean, there's some facts of
course and some very good but a lot aren't quite as factual as
to quite deserve the label of non-fiction. Just something to
consider smile emoticon == To be honest, I find most human
efforts to be insanity though, so I'm biased smile emoticon ===
References
Visible links
1.
https://www.facebook.com/jay.maranda.7?hc_location=ufi
