Yep, it's a warning.

If you want the intrusive thoughts, the calls-of-the-void to go away, simply acknowledge the thought, thank it for keeping you safe, and move on.

Yes, you can talk to your thoughts, you can freeze them and interrogate them, ask them why they're there and what they're doing. This is called cognitive diffusion, part of ACT therapy. Eventually, you will find a reason to thank the thought and move on, it's strange but hugely effective. Works on any type of thought.

Yeah, my wife has particularly severe OCD in that regard and was constantly dealing with either little things that were somehow going to lead to one of our deaths, or that "danger function" presenting her with a veritable buffet of self harm options.

Funnily enough, when she finally found a combination of meds that got her OCD more under control we found out that it had been masking pretty bad ADHD her entire life. That was a wild time. Like, it's not that she didn't believe me about my own ADHD symptoms, but it hits different when you're actually experiencing them yourself y'know?

I genuinely wonder if it's something that's meant to aid our development of things like empathy too. I only mention it because I remember when I was a child having an intrusive thought, while fishing, of splatting a fish against a cinderblock I could see poking out of the water and actually followed through on it. Hit by INSTANT regret and sorrow. It was a very shitty thing I did but since it still sticks with me I think it did teach me something about the value of animal life. So I wonder if that plays a part--getting kids to do stupid things to learn from them.

Honestly I think these thoughts are normal to have at any time, at least for me. I ratitonalize it like this: I'm not considering doing something; I'm thinking about something that could happen. They're intrusive!

I'm a system and can confirm that any direct suppression is gonna go wrong. I have the benefit of actually being able to directly talk to those background thoughts' origin points, and work things out from there instead of chaining the regions down. It's how solving a lot of personality disorders works (mostly BPD in our case). It's how we even turned a lot of those regions into forces for good.

Be kind to yourself--not just others.

24/7 stream of this trash

Why should we want them gone? They're fun!

Imagine being horrified of your own thoughts. They're you. Just welcome them & delight in their wild machinations.

Just try doing nothing at all for a little bit, let your brain rest.

Make up your mind. My ADHD and anxiety-ridden thought processes are at their MOST hyperactive, self-referential and -blaming when I try to do nothing.

Trying to do nothing with no distractions is just about the most stressful thing you can do to some atypical neuros.

the thing that mentally exhausts me the most is guilt - guilt of undone chores, guilt of unfinished projects, guilt of unfulfilled "potential". attempting to rest when surrounded with guilt is exhausting too

i'm working on it of course, but it's a rather slow climb, with plenty of holes on the way. and if it was just internal that'd be half the problem it is, because on top of all the personal guilt i also need to push back against the culture of grind and constant productivity (which is, in itself, a big source of guilt)

the only way is through ~~unless i give in to the temptation, fake my death, and join a buddhist monastery in tibet or something idk~~

til i'm always mentally exhausted

I'm sorry mate but I'd be resting 24/7 then. I just kinda let them flow and not act on them

That's just not true. I have intrusive thoughts whether I am rested or not.

Trump's intrusive thoughts are looking at him, horrified.

The way it was explained to me -

I'm walking on the roof of a building, carrying my baby. I get the intrusive thought to yeet the baby over the edge. Result - I recognize the horrible thought, causing me to hold the baby tighter and remove us from the roof, thus keeping us both safer.

Yeah it's one of those "things that separate us from (most) animals. We can ask "what if" and simulate the probable result with a decent amount of accuracy completely internally. It's a really cool feature if you know what to do with it, it's just sometimes it runs some really weird simulations "just in case."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLx2VEx0LmA