What no one has told you about how to manage obsessive thoughts

An obsessive thought has to do with images, memories and/or words whose content is repetitive and intrusive. In addition, there is no control over them, they appear involuntarily, generating a lot of discomfort.

They have no use on the rational plane, since no matter how much our head turns over the same thing, we do not we manage to draw no positive conclusion, if not overwhelm ourselves more and more, increasing our level of anguish.

• Related article: "The 12 Types of Obsessions (Symptoms and Characteristics)"

Understanding obsessive thoughts

I put some examples of obsessive thoughts:

• I'm going to die, this chest pain is not normal, I can't breathe... Why? Will I have something else? Is it a more serious disease? Is it a mental illness?
• I don't stop thinking about whether my life will make sense or not, if I'm okay, if others will see me okay...
• I keep thinking about the discussion with Pilar, what she has told me, how she has called me... Could it be that she should have shut me up?
• I don't know why but I think about killing my boss or I have nightmares that he dies, it scares me to think that something could happen to him.
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• I am very afraid that my mother will die, I can't get it out of my head.
• Has something happened to him? Will it have already arrived? Was he unfaithful to me?
• Why has this happened? Why is it like this? I do not get it. I can't find the explanation.
• I'd throw myself on the train track... Could it be that my life has meaning?
• My body is horrible, my nose looks horrible.

What nobody has told you about obsessive thoughts is that they do have a very specific use, but on the emotional plane.

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displacement

There is a psychoanalytic defense mechanism that we call displacement. Defenses are created in our earliest childhood, to defend ourselves from something or someone who was going to hurt us. Many times they are unconscious, nor do we remember that they existed when we were little. Since that danger was too great for our child minds to handle, that defense became very rigid. The defense was useful in a previous dangerous and/or traumatic context, but in the present moment it is not always so.

displacement occurs when the emotions we feel before something or someone are too uncomfortable or we just don't know how to manage them, so we move them to the head. It's something like, they need to get out somewhere and they're out of control from repressing them so much, so they become ruminative, accelerated and meaningless thoughts. Therefore, working on emotional intelligence will be an extremely important factor in treating these obsessive thoughts.

In my experience as a psychologist, I have seen that the emotions most associated with obsessive thoughts are four: guilt, anger, fear and emotional pain (or sadness). In addition, there is another clear element in these obsessive thoughts: the feeling of lack of control.

But beware, guilt has a trap. It is a parasitic emotion. A parasitic emotion is an emotion that covers other genuine ones that are trying to come out, such as anger, rage, or emotional pain. And why is she there? Because it was useful when we were little, in our family or at school.

• Related article: "Emotional management: 10 keys to dominate your emotions"

examples

I give you examples of this.

When I was little my mother always told me that she was a bad girl when she made me angry, so I learned to feel guilty whenever she tried to express a need or set a limit. Since no one saw and validated my emotion, I began to think about myself: Did I do it wrong? Will I be to blame? Why is my mother like this? Why do I imagine them dead? (because you are expressing rage by "killing" them in your fantasy).

On the other hand, when I was little my mother always suffered hospital admissions due to her cardiovascular disease. No one explained it to me, my father acted like it was nothing so as not to worry me and thus protect me, thinking that it would be good. Invisibility fear and pain made the only way to sustain it was from possible explanations as to why my mother suddenly disappeared: Where did she go? It will be OK? Will I be alright? Will the same thing happen to me as to her? Will I have the same heart disease? Is it wrong if I tell how I feel since my father tries to hide it? (guilt over fear).

Also, when I was little and I got angry, my parents punished me and stopped talking to me for two days. They also punished me by looking at the wall. My anger and my fear that they would stop loving me moved to the following obsessive thoughts: Why do you do this to me? Will they reject me if I get angry again? Have I done wrong in showing them my needs? Am I stupid? (Guilt and anger inside because it cannot be expressed outside) Have I been that bad? Should I die for being so mean? (and, as an adult: Will my partner have already come home? Was he unfaithful to me? Does my life make sense? Why don't I die?).

I can't forget when my family always talked about how well my sister's clothes looked. Even as ugly as my mother's nose was, my father always picked on her a lot. My mother, on occasions, would tell me why she didn't buy me other types of clothes, that she would make me feel better. Watching her go on a diet from time to time made me nervous, I saw her suffering with the whole issue of her weight and her body.

But nobody talked about it at home. Even though they hadn't said anything “direct” towards me or my physique, I began to worry about it. Everything got much worse when at school they started calling me little pig, because of my slightly raised nose. Little by little, as a child, I began to think that I was not well inside or out. So I started thinking: Am I ugly? Do I have to lose weight? Am I a freak? Should I have a nose job? Are my friends prettier than me? Does it make sense for someone like me to be in this life? (guilt and emotional pain).

• Related article: "Cognitive Dissonance: The Theory That Explains Self-Deception"

Characteristics of obsessive thoughts

Obsessive thoughts, therefore, They are usually triggered by situations in which we use the repression of emotions such as fear, anger, or even emotional pain.. And then they move.

We learn to do it in childhood. There may or may not be a parasitic culpogenic component, as I explained. Sometimes a thought or chain of thoughts only hides an emotion without parasites, or several emotions together.

But nevertheless, there are times when such thoughts do not have an external trigger (argument with someone, illness, pain or event) but it can be internal. Suddenly a traumatic memory is activated with very intense emotions that my internal world cannot manage (anger, fear, pain…) and then, suddenly, I can't stop thinking. An example of this is the confinement we experienced during the first wave of COVID. Why did so many people ask for psychological help again? Because the "simple" fact of being isolated gave them more time to spend time with themselves and connect with their inner world.

As such a connection is made and stopped, old memories long since erased may come to mind. time (when I was bullied at school, when my parents beat me, when my puppy...) and activate some obsessive mechanisms difficult to eradicate.

These obsessions can lead us to think excessively about death, about COVID, about how terrible the future can be, about our body, about death... When in reality what is happening is that, far from worrying and obsessing about something real, what is underneath and we are covering up are emotions that need to be processed.

What factors can cause the development of these obsessive thoughts?

These are the main elements that can contribute to the emergence of obsessive thoughts or trigger them.

• Fearful parents in general. Fear of the future, physical or mental illness, etc.
• Hypochondriac parents. Focused on concerns about disease issues.
• negative parents. They think all the time in a catastrophic and hopeless way.
• Parents who have difficulty regulating emotions. They are very mental, rational, focused on solutions and not so much in letting their emotions be felt
• perfectionist parents. They have to have everything under control, perfect, ideal. There is no room for emotions, there is room for what they will say (great importance to appearance) and non-vulnerability, because it is judged as bad and embarrassing. Therefore, there is a very internalized fear of rejection.
• Parents who play with emotional manipulation, victimhood and blackmail. Something like: “daughter, how angry you are, what a character. With everything I do for you. Nothing can be said to you, how much you make me suffer”.
• Personality structure predisposing to the obsessive. Each one has a personality and may be more or less prone to developing obsessive thoughts
• Traumatic events for which the brain cannot find any rational explanation, much less process the experience emotionally. There is a clear lack of control for the individual. Examples of this are accidents, mistreatment, negligence, loss or death, bullying, etc.

How to heal obsessive thoughts?

Accept that it is a defense that in some contexts may not be useful

Going over something carefully to make the best decision can be useful, there is a rational and emotional benefit, but it is not always the case. So identify at what age or in what environment you began to develop this obsessive defense to not get in touch with your emotions.

1. Close your eyes and locate the emotion in your body

Give it a name, and then shape, structure, color... breathe. Notice it in your body. So until it decreases or increases. The thrill will pass.

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2. Is it rage, fear, or pain…?

Depending on the emotion, there will be a different message and action. If it is anger, this will lead us to put limits on the person or situation that has hurt us or to move away from it. If it is fear, we must protect ourselves. If it is pain, we must cry alone or accompanied.

3. Is it an emotion from the present, from the past, or both?

Sometimes, an argument with someone generates in us an anger that we do not understand where it comes from. Perhaps what that person said to me has reminded me of what someone else said (mother, father, cousin, school...) who attacked me when I was little. At other times, like waves of COVID viruses, they can reactivate the fear I felt as a child when my mother suffered from anxiety attacks.

4. Do what the emotion asks of you in the present as long as it is not responding to the past

For example, I can put limits someone who has insulted me, but not getting mad at someone inordinately for the simple fact that they remind me of a person from my past who did do something wrong to me. In that case, I will have to go to therapy to heal my past.

The same with fear; if there is a virus like the one that produces COVID, obviously from there it is functional to feel fear. And I have to protect myself with a mask, with vaccines... but I do feel scared whenever my chest hurts thinking that I have a cardiovascular disease and it is not real, I cannot act with fear, if not breathe it, hold it, and work my past in therapy.

5. Don't focus on obsessive thinking

Accept it and understand it as a defense of the past that does not always work and focus on the emotion. If we let ourselves be carried away by obsessive thinking, we will only be reinforcing this defense. Also do not do any compulsion, that is, something that eliminates the anguish of that obsessive thought.

For example, if your chest hurts and you think you might have a heart attack all the time, don't look online. Internet, do not consult the doctor or a family member... just expose yourself to that emotion of fear by closing your eyes and breathe it in Then reflect on whether that emotion has been activated by some trigger in the present or by a trauma from the past that has to do with hypochondria, as in this case.

Concluding...

In short, he thinks that emotions listened to, processed and emotionally regulated are equal to obsessive thoughts eradicated. However, processing entrenched emotions from the past that have to do with painful memories will require a psychotherapeutic process by a specialist trained in trauma.