Learning to respond differently, even if the thought feels different than before.
5 Minute Read
“This one is different,” said Kelly.
“Most thoughts eventually fade into the background, even the uncomfortable ones–but this one didn’t.”
“Not louder.”
“And not even necessarily more frequent – just heavier,” she continued.
“It feels like it carries more weight than the others.”
“Almost like it actually matters in a different way.”
Then finally she said, “I know that is how these kinds of thoughts work. However, this one feels different this time.”
But This One
If, like Kelly, you’ve spent any time trying to understand intrusive thoughts, OCD, or anxiety, you may have already started to see how the patterns form over time.
But then this thought arrives and something feels different.
“But this one is more serious.”
“But this thought actually matters.”
“But this thought could really be true.”
“But this was something that I actually did.”
“But this one is a lot worse feeling.”
Suddenly, it feels like something new and different, and everything you understood doesn’t fit this time.
Kelly had begun to realize over time what had been occurring in her own thinking.
She could see how certain thoughts would demand more attention and eventually fade.
But then a thought arrived that didn’t feel like before.
“This is different, I can’t just ignore this, I need to figure this out.”
Then, she began analyzing it further and further.
Once that shift began, it became much harder to disengage.
Something Was Different
The thing that was different wasn’t just the thought itself – it was how it was being interpreted by Kelly.
It moved from: “This is a thought” to “This is too large to ignore.”
And then from how she viewed it, to how she decided to interact with the thought.
That’s not to say there weren’t other things that were different about this thought. There definitely were:
The Thought felt more specific
The more detailed the thought, the harder it was to dismiss.
It was no longer vague but filled in.
The greater detail made it feel more convincing and frightening.
The Thought felt closer to her
Some thoughts feel distant. This one wasn’t one of those thoughts.
It felt like the thought somehow related to her in a deeper way.
She felt like it said something about who she really was.
The thought had more weight
This time it didn’t feel random.
This time she felt like it reminded her of something.
The thought felt like it would have consequences and risks if not acknowledged
Other intrusive thoughts now felt far less terrible and frightful.
This was ‘the worst one yet.’
This thought was going to stay in her head bouncing around and wasn’t going to go away.
The Illusion
Even though to her and likely to you this time feels different - there is something very familiar going on.
Almost every new thought arrives with the feeling that it’s the most important thought—the one that can’t be ignored.
A thought that has to be solved or it might “never go away.”
As you read this, you have likely had moments where you’ve said to yourself, ‘This feels different.”
That is the deceitfulness of the entire thing.
Every new thought seems worse in some way than the one before.
And if you engage with that thought, give it attention, and try to disarm it, you will find yourself in something akin to a James Bond film, where every villain seems to be the real threat that just hasn’t shown itself yet.
You will find an endless amount of new combatants that are always threatening your world and its order.
But life is not a James Bond film.
You are able to ignore and not engage with their baseless threats.
Hope For Today
For many, one thing that begins to be helpful isn’t trying to validate that this thought is the same as others.
It’s realizing that the feeling of ‘this is different’ may not be as reliable as it seems.
Kelly had to learn to relabel the thought for what it was—an intrusive thought, not a real danger..
A thought that would lose its strength if, like a bully, it was ignored.
She began to see that sometimes she would have new thoughts that seemed even worse than the ones before.
But she gained freedom from their enslaving tactics by realizing that intrusive thoughts really only have one trick.
And once she figured that out, she no longer was tricked by their sirens.
If you’ve had a thought like this, you’re not alone.
And you’re not missing something others don’t see.
You may be just encountering something that has a new mask and name, but is using the same old tactics.
There is hope and another way forward today.
If you’d like to keep reading, you can find more here → Articles
And if talking it through would help you, you’re always welcome to reach out and schedule a one-on-one meeting to walk through this together.
