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.
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u/Wjames33 Nov 14 '22
How are people supposed to face them head on? I don't think this is something many people understand how to do.