How To Stop Obsessive Ideas From Making Us Doubt Ourselves
A couple stands side by side waiting for the subway to arrive, just behind the security line. The train is arriving, and for a moment, the idea of pushing her girlfriend onto the tracks crosses his mind, which, needless to say, would mean certain death for her.
But he loves her, and would never consider harming her. Why then did this idea cross your mind?
If our protagonist of the story is a person like many, he will think that one does not always control the things that come to mind, he will not give it much importance, and will continue with his life as always. Maybe he will marry his partner next year, or maybe they will fight and each will continue on his side, remembering the relationship in a more or less positive way, but without a single memory of any violent incident of any kind. .
If this is from another group, also very large, This idea will possibly torment you for days, months, or even years. “Why would I think this? Maybe I’m a potential murderer? Would I be able to do something like that?” In many cases, you may even avoid getting as close as possible to the security line at subway stations, or even try to move as little as possible with your partner using this means of transportation, deciding to walk (you may consider this an unwanted waste of time). or using other means, such as taxis or Uber (which undoubtedly means financial losses).
But we will focus, above all, on the psychological aspects of the matter. Is our protagonist a psychopath? Do you feel impulses that one day will become uncontrollable and push a loved one to certain death? With a certainty that can never be 100% absolute (like everything), we can say no.
The most likely thing, by far, is that you are paying more attention than necessary to some intrusive ideas which are annoying and generate anxiety and feelings of guilt.
The nature of the appearance of thoughts
As said before, one does not permanently control the ideas that come into one’s head. But if You can control what you do once these ideas appear.
Some decide not to give it much importance. Maybe it makes them uncomfortable to think about something like that for a moment, and then forget about it and continue as if nothing had happened. Others may, in a desperate attempt to prevent these thoughts from coming true, start endless dialogues in their head to prove, over and over again, that they are not what they fear, and that these thoughts are wrong. Looking for “that” answer that leaves them alone.
And many times they find it (after wasting considerable time, which could be used for more productive things)… So that later the thought comes even more strongly: “What if one day I can’t control myself and I push my girlfriend to get hit by the train?”
In the same way, great anxiety can appear when he meets his girlfriend waiting for the subway, so he decides to avoid this situation by ordering an Uber (which also generates momentary relief, but does not solve the underlying problem).
Fortunately, there are extremely effective treatments. It is not the idea to do a complete review here of how a case of this type would be worked, but a couple of key concepts can be mentioned.
The main thing, I consider, is to generate an attitude of acceptance towards these thoughts.
It may seem counterintuitive, but the endless dialogues that one has internally to reduce anxiety, and make annoying thoughts disappear, in the short term, as we said, can achieve their goal. But in the long term it only reinforces the behavior that, precisely, every time a thought of this type appears, what should be done is waste time, over and over again, daily, fighting it with logic. Only for it to keep appearing perpetually.
Likewise, avoiding taking the subway is not going to solve the problem in the long term, and will surely cause us to waste money and time.
By accepting that these ideas can come, we take away the power they have over us. The mind constantly communicates things to us, often contradictory to each other. It’s a useful tool we have for life, but it’s not all we are. Once the idea appears, instead of starting any ritual, internal or external, or any type of avoidance, what we want to do is accept this idea as something that our mind communicates to us. Accept, in turn, the anxiety that this generates.
In conclusion…
It’s not bad to feel anxious, it’s not bad to have unpleasant thoughts. They are inevitable things that happen to all of us. What is avoidable is what we do once they appear.
This may sound lame, perhaps even counterintuitive. But I invite you to listen to me for a week, and only in this aspect: do not start internal dialogues to look for proof that these ideas are wrong. If after a week the anxiety and the frequency of these ideas decreased, you are on the right track.
As a last point, Obsessive ideas and the anxiety they generate are not something that can be “cured”. We can relapse until the end of our lives, and this is okay. What is important is the degree to which they affect us in our lives, be it in time, energy, health (of all kinds) and in the pursuit of our goals. In any case, it is possible to live by significantly reducing its effects on us.
