The Anxiety Encyclopedia: Your Path to Recovery by Sadan Jotham

The Anxiety Encyclopedia: Your Path to Recovery by Sadan Jotham

Author:Sadan, Jotham [Sadan, Jotham]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Brain-Body Science
Published: 2021-01-06T16:00:00+00:00


Racing, Intrusive Thoughts

Thoughts of going crazy are some of the most common uncomfortable thoughts our emotional brain can make, but they are not the only ones. It can make thoughts that are violent—about driving our car off the road, stabbing our partner, screaming out in class, our family dying in an accident, or of committing suicide in a moment of psychosis. These thoughts can also be nonsensical, indescribable, or unreal—a brief flash of an image so bizarre and unrelated to what we are doing, we cannot explain it in words. These thoughts pop up all the time, but the only ones that we notice are those that resonate with us—thoughts about our friends and family, our religion, our sexuality, and our personal health, to name a few. For the longest time, I was afraid to discuss these thoughts with anyone, even my therapist, in case I really was crazy.

As explained above, intrusive thoughts happen as a result of our emotional brain receiving adrenaline. When it does, it not only produces thoughts that are more intense, but also ones that are less appropriate to our situation. This is why they are called intrusive thoughts—they are unhelpful and unwelcome.

However, as you now know, the part of the brain that creates thoughts and the one that decides what to do with them are separate. An unhealthy brain is one that is not capable of reacting to them at all. If we recognize these thoughts and can make a choice to either ignore them or think further, it means our brain is healthy.

In truth, everyone has bizzare and nonsensical thoughts from time to time. We do not often talk about it, but the sudden urge to scream out in a meeting or randomly drive off the freeway is totally normal, as weird as it may seem. In fact, the French have a phrase for it: l’appel du vide—the call of the void—the urge to do something violent or depraved, but with the choice to never act on it. If just having these thoughts meant we would act on them, our business meetings and freeways would look much different.

Those who do not worry about their health choose to ignore intrusive thoughts when they come up, so they slip by without a problem. When we do worry, however, it leads our body to make adrenaline, causing these thoughts to come up more often and more intensely. The way we fix this is by doing what the others do: let them come and go without checking for their presence, using the four Rs as our method.

If we have gotten to the point where we can handle all other physical and mental symptoms besides intrusive thoughts, it is a sign we are getting close to full recovery. Thoughts take much less adrenaline to produce than symptoms like nausea and jitters, so if they are our only problem, it means our adrenaline levels are almost back to normal.



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