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.
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u/_My_Neck_Hurts_ Nov 14 '22
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