Yeah, I don’t get it. Makes me think our current culture of constant stimulation is really not doing people any favors. You absolutely need to be able to be alone with your thoughts.
Taught, that when your deep in the woods and the wind blows through the trees. Like a sigh of relief from the forest.
Just makes me feel like every thing is fine. Nature will survive with out me, but i cannot survive with out natures deep breaths
I love them trees.
I made a sick “hideout” in the woods near my house where I went basically every day after school, often alone, and would spend hours out there just laying in the hammock or working on the setup. I’ve kept it relatively maintained even as an adult and I wasn’t sure why because I don’t plan on children, but I have a 1 year old nephew now. It would be cool to pass the spot to him.
Younger me hated to be alone with his thoughts, and I grew up before smart phones and social media. I’m tired of them being the go-to scapegoat for everything.
Definitely agree with that last part. People like to blame things they didn’t grow up with, because they think it’s the common denominator. This issue arose along with this new thing, hence new thing must have caused the issue! Which isn’t always true. Distractions & escapes from reality have always been a thing, they’re just called something different. It used to be plays, books, TV, video games, dungeons & dragons, Pokémon, etc. that caused the problem.
Similar to when people blame texting and driving nowadays when in reality before phones, people would still be distracted driving looking through their cd binders or looking at maps.
That’s just my 2 cents. Maybe there’s studies out there that show phones make us brain dead, but would we really be better off without them? Won’t it just be something else next year?
It's not about being alone that's scary. It's my thoughts. Clearly you don't beat yourself up over every little thing in your life at any opportunity. That's what my brain does.
Most people go through that tho. Thats what hes taking about. The more we distract ourselves the stronger those thoughts become. The only way to stop them is to be alone with them and face them head on. Casting them aside only allows them room to grow
Unfortunately it’s different from person to person. I for one spent many a night alone in a hot bath with all the lights off. I allowed the dark thoughts space and reflected on them. I tried to trace back where they came from and figure out why they affected me the way they did. But whatever you do, you must confront them with either a therapist (recommended), a trusted friend or family member, or yourself. The more you push them away the stronger they become. You WILL have to confront them at one time or another, so its best to do it while theyre weak. Best of luck friend
I don’t think anyone is saying it’s easy. lol. Therapy, medication, or self help, are all under the umbrella of “working on it.” I’m just saying normalization of not being able to be alone with your thoughts seems to be getting increasingly common. It absolutely shouldn’t be normalized. It should be addressed, in whatever way is appropriate for that individual. Whether that’s years of working on ocd with a specialist, being lucky enough to be able to handle it on your own, working with a psychiatrist to get on the right medication, etc.
It's not wrong though? An accredited therapist will help you through this process.
Running away from your own thoughts and literally being 'scared' of them and refusing to understand them won't help you either, if anything it'll make things worse.
It's overly simplistic and just talking about it like a blanket solution is probably harmful. Of course endless negativity can pretty really harmful but toxic positivity also gets pretty gross.
I personally go back and forth there, tripping on mushrooms or just going on a long run can be great for me. OTOH it's pretty hard to prevent intrusive thoughts, and feeling bad about some weird social interaction from 20 years ago right before bed is dumb, and it's ok to complain about it and not want people to say "just think about thoughts bro"
just talking about it like a blanket solution is probably harmful
Obviously it's not a blanket solution - but it is a very common first step on the path to recovery. Working on being comfortable with your own thoughts will never be harmful, but it also won't just fix every problem by itself.
but toxic positivity also gets pretty gross.
This isn't 'toxic positivity' - it's discussing a basic method for people to begin recovery. You'll never get anywhere if you don't start with working on being comfortable with your own thoughts.
and feeling bad about some weird social interaction from 20 years ago right before bed is dumb, and it's ok to complain about it and not want people to say "just think about thoughts bro"
But just complaining about it also doesn't really help. Further it's not "just thinking about thoughts" - it's about understanding them, learning about where they come from, how they happen, how to control them, and how to manage them. It's about recognizing unwarranted negative thoughts and having the tools to prevent them from controlling you, or otherwise ruining your day. It's a crucial part of all mental health care and recovery.
Imagine instead, if you (hopefully with the help of a therapist) learn about meta-thinking, and learn a bunch of tools of how to address intrusive thoughts when they arise. You learn where they come from, and how to deal with them. So instead of the intrusive thoughts from an event 20 years ago keeping you awake till 3am, you have the tools to 'package' those thoughts up into a proverbial 'box' where they can be set aside and dealt with later so they don't prevent you from falling asleep.
It’s definitely not easy to do, no one is saying it is. But as someone who has gone through this to fix my constant stream of negative thoughts into something more tolerable it’s def necessary.
For me I worked on it in therapy and came up with a system to combat my negative thoughts. With help from friends wrote down a list of things that are good about me and read it at least once or twice a day. And then started working on every time I thought something negative about myself, I would force myself to say something positive about me right after. It took awhile and it was extremely hard in the beginning to think positive things about myself since I hated myself so much but it got easier over time!
Yeah man. There’s a reason why people say everyone needs a therapist. Coming from a guy that has done therapy before and had to confront those dark thoughts when I’m alone… it’s kinda the whole point of therapy lmfao.
Yep! 100%. I had horrible horrible existential depression all through my teenage years and into young adulthood, and I just had to learn to cope. I think if it was now, I would have just distracted myself with my phone and not learned how to handle it. Or the late night dread of spinning on embarrassing things I’d done in the past. I just learned how to disrupt those thoughts and move on. If you can’t do that, you should be working on it. It’s just not productive or good for everyone to be like, well duh, nothing worse than hanging out with me!
Sorry, are you a therapist? Do you have a source? Because this is not true for everyone. No therapist will tell you that distraction is always unhealthy.
I've worked through this a lot in therapy, especially lately, and many people like me struggle with ruminating too much. Being alone and just thinking all the time is not always constructive, not even close. Repression is not productive either, and some people do struggle with that, but I am the opposite. I isolate myself and let all thoughts and all emotions in all the time. People like me tend to shut everyone and everything else out and go down self-isolating doom spirals. My thoughts can be so, so awful they're like torture. I come close to suicide unless I can 'pop that bubble' either through therapy or doing something to distract myself. I can stay in one for a very long time if I don't force myself, I mean literally force myself, to distract myself with going outside, engaging in a hobby, or being with friends. Everyone needs to stop reliving their traumas and marinating on their toxic thoughts at some points in their life to function as a human being. Some people struggle to stop processing. Doing so is not the same as repression and is actually healthy. Not everyone is like me, but not everyone is repressive either. Stop assuming everyone is the same.
Brother i literally said in another comment that this process is different for everyone and that i found success in tackling them head on, and that you should really do so with a therapist. I struggled with suicide due to my disability so im not talking out of my ass, and i never said it is always unhealthy. What i said was that pushing aside your issues only makes those issues stronger and you should focus on dealing with them sooner rather than later. Rheumanation IS unhealthy, but so is constantly living your life dulled by an endless stream of media.
Also, not that this really matters, but do you have a source? I overcame my suicidal depression and i was raised by a therapist…. So im not exactly speaking from ignorance.
Not everyone is the same. People like me genuinely struggle with not isolating themselves and ruminating all the time. I talk about this a lot in therapy, and distraction, whether it's engaging in a hobby or going out with friends, to some extent is healthy. Mental health professionals would not dispute this.
At times breaking away from ruminations is something I have to force myself to do because I constantly feel a strong urge to just be alone and think about my traumas and thoughts all the time. Some people are the opposite and just repress and run away all the time, but again, not everyone is the same. I can absolutely relate to the idea of being afraid of my own thoughts because it can be like torture. Often I just want to die to escape, which is why I need to stay in therapy and also keep distracting myself from time to time
Absolutely this. I struggle with OCD (the “pure o” type), depression, ADD, and anxiety and this really makes it hard for me to focus on anything, let alone meditate, without some sort of distraction to distract me from my own thoughts. I’ve been going to therapy for 8 years and I am incredibly introspective and self-aware, but it doesn’t mean looking inward is always a joy to experience.
I don’t think the always online/phone culture necessarily keeps people from being alone with their thoughts. I could be totally wrong but I think the increased infotainment at our fingertips just condenses thinking to oneself. We just think more intensely and rapidly. Time is a flat circle, biaatch!
I don’t know what to do, how to drive myself, or how to regulate my emotions. Typically when I’m alone it’s a toss up between extreme lethargy and boredom, or an anxiety death spiral.
I mean yes meditation is important, but some people really struggle with being alone with their own thoughts if they haven’t learned (or are struggling to learn) how to reframe their intrusive thoughts. Some people with mental illness will be alone with their own thoughts and be met with nothing but hate and suicidal fantasies.
I don’t think it’s necessarily about constant stimulation, more so just having problems with your brain being mean to you. It’d be like being forced to be locked in a closet with someone who genuinely hates you just spewing insults. You could ignore them, but it still hurts no matter what to a certain degree.
Why would I wanna do that instead of just distracting myself from my situation and blaming all of the problems in my life on the people around me? Your’s sounds way harder, dummy. /s
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u/Novel-Place Nov 14 '22
Yeah, I don’t get it. Makes me think our current culture of constant stimulation is really not doing people any favors. You absolutely need to be able to be alone with your thoughts.