"untangling my Self from these intrusive thoughts"

originally created October 26, 2022 ✦ republished February 9, 2025

(Originally posted on Instagram. This retroactive post is adapted from the Instagram post.)

Okay, so it was therapist appointment #4, not #5, that I had today. And ultimately, I had lots of questions confirmed and new strategies to practice! But in addition to having a new understanding on how to handle intrusive thoughts, which seems to be effective in making them feel less strong and will surely result in them weakening over time, there are also some things I'm starting to realize on my own.

I think previously, it was just that the anxiety/OCD was very intense, and so at first it was difficult for me to think of anything other than trying to combat those intrusive thoughts, and later on to just bear with the intense thoughts and emotions while trying various remedies and doing my best to get back to work, or "back on track". Up to this point, the uncertainty that's been plaguing my thought process of "is this the right understanding? Is this the healthy way to go about things? Am I understanding this right?" has been gradually dwindling, and I'm starting to remember some of those things from those spirituality books.

Something I recognized is that lately, I've been very caught up in any strong emotions that have popped up, and I think it's because of paying them too much attention. I tried something different with this drawing, which is similar to that blue brain-haze one, in that the background is a solid color and has a face outlined in different shades on top. The emotions and thoughts are represented by the magenta swirls; they feel scattered and numb in the back, and tumultuous when they come to the forefront of my attention. The cyan streaks that form a little bit of a hand shape represent the little spark of awareness that's slowly coming out, and where it feels like it's coming from.

My hypothesis is that the reason this anxiety feels so intense is because of the mentality that it's MY anxiety, it's happening to ME, despite the fact that it's just an emotional pattern caused by stress that isn't actually attached to me! I won't blame myself for not realizing this just because of some wish for something that happened in the past, but similar to last year, I've been relying on external remedies like breathing exercises and meditations in the hopes of finding some cure to stop the anxiety, and forgotten to rely on my willpower and to think through things holistically.

There are many perspectives to view this from. It's okay that I didn't realize this sooner; everybody has moments of weakness sometimes, and there's no use in dwelling on the past when it's already happened. The best approach is to forgive yourself and keep going, because you are not a thought, or an emotion, or an action, or an anxiety or depression, so don't let it define you. Thinking about the past only feels like a bitter pill to swallow because of this constant thinking about it, which creates attachment, which creates strong emotions.

Anxiety, intrusive thoughts, and body tensions are just signals. You are not your thoughts or your body that these things need to be urgently "fixed" or else. There is no goal to get rid of any thoughts you don't like, for example. These are all symptoms. If the traffic light is red, you don't try to climb up to the lights and try to open the light machine thingy and tear out wires hoping they'll make the signal turn green; it's a signal, so don't mistake it for the cause itself. If the light is red, it just means that there are other cars that need to cross the intersection, and you should just wait for the light to turn green. In the same way, anxiety is simply a signal that there's a lot of stress, and that you should rest to de-stress and figure things out, then get back to work and personal projects.

I could go on, but I'm losing my train of thought here, and it's already 10:20 PM on a school night. The key is to wake up the will, as far as I understand. Where this uncertainty is coming from, and what the appropriate response should be, are things that don't need to get figured out immediately, but that I'll figure out by sticking with that aim. Soyeah, that's today's incoherent essay!!!!! anyways g'nite 🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙