Dear Nick:

You wrote: “That said, I don’t think I’m 100% there yet”- and “facing the same thoughts again of ‘If these thoughts/incidents weren’t there, my life would be perfect'”-

You practiced what I suggested. Did it work for you sometimes? If it did, keep practicing. It is the expectation of perfection that will trip you, trap you. As long as you expect something to work 100% of the time, you are having an unrealistic expectation. When you expect perfection, you are inclined to give up on the practice when it is not successful.

Healing and managing distress is about continuing the practice of what works in spite of distress. It is about enduring lack of perfection and distress and adhering to the practice through the distress.

anita

Dear Nick:

Welcome back to your thread. I will answer your questions, but with this note: I am not an expert on sexual abuse or sexual teasing. I am not a psychotherapist or a doctor of any kind or a professional of any kind. So keep that in mind.

You asked: “why do you feel the mind fixates on things?”- anxiety, that is ongoing, unsettled, unresolved fear is happening in part of your brain (I am simplifying here), let’s call it the-feeling-part of the brain. Another part of the brain, the thinking-part, is trying to settle the anxiety in the feeling-part. The way it tries to settle the anxiety is by locating a problem and solving that problem. So it finds a problem and tries to solve it. When it fails to solve the problem it located, in absence of locating another problem, it fixates on the one it has.

(I don’t see the fixation as a defense mechanism here but as the brain trying to solve a problem so to settle the anxiety).

“.. the body issues always bother me the most… Do you think talking to my family will help me out?”- no, I don’t. The family members who created your problem by teasing you are not the people to go to for a solution.

“Do you think that the incident with my mother is a symbol of sorts…”- I didn’t understand, a symbol of what? Maybe what she did bothers you more than what your father or sister did because she was/is your mother. A boy’s mother is more powerful in a boy’s life than a sibling, and in sexual issues, maybe more powerful than the father because she is female and you are male, and so it feels even more awkward to be teased by your mother than by your father.

“How common is to have the types of experiences I described?”- I think they are unfortunately common enough. Your parents, and sister, individually expressed an excitement that people commonly have about sex, curious and excited to see other people’s naked bodies, and to find out people’s sexual practices. It is that common excitement and curiosity people have about naked bodies and sex that fueled the teasing you described, I think.

“Would they be classified as sexual abuse or assault at all, or just teasing?”- In my view, what you described is sexual teasing. There were no sexual acts performed on you or such performed by you on family members. The teasing consisted of words said to you with a tone of voice and facial expressions indicating that common sexual excitement people have about sex. And so I won’t call it sexual abuse. I would call it sexual teasing that harmed you.

“Will it be possible to forgive, forget and move on?”- it will help with those things if you moved away from all the people who teased you. When you see the same people who teased you as often as you do, the sight of them, the sound of their voices and various things about them remind you of the teasing. If you don’t see them, don’t hear them, it will be easier to not remember as often as you do.

anita

Dear Nick:

If you’d like, you can elaborate on the following:

How did your parents encourage you to strive for your best, can you give an example or two?

How did they let you know that it is okay to make mistakes, an example or two?

You wrote that your parents were mainly gentle with you. When they were not gentle, how were they, what kinds of harshness did they display at those times when they were not gentle?

* I will be back to the computer in about fifteen hours. Take care, Nick.

anita

Nick,

It’s a persistence thing.  Like anything, it’s a practice.

There is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as well as mindfulness among other practices.

Mark

Hi Nick,

I have experience with Intrusive Thoughts and they can truly be debilitating.

It’s helpful to understand what an intrusive thought is and why we have them. It may also be comforting for you to know that the most common topics of intrusive thoughts are religious and sexual of nature. You didn’t divulge the extent of your intrusive thoughts and I wouldn’t want to press upon your sensitivities, but just know that no matter how dark your thoughts are, you are not alone and it is very common.

Do know that I have experienced what you’re going through and the solution that helped me, may be surprising.

Firstly, Intrusive Thoughts are a component of OCD and are most common in people with extremely high morals. If we have a thought we fundamentally disagree with, we push it away out of repulsion. But, the act of resisting a thought actually causes those thoughts to come back. It can be incredibly distressing. Particularly when the subject matter is of a highly sensitive nature.

Stress is a precursor Intrusive Thoughts. The brain perceives a threat to your survival and therefore signals to you that you’re in danger, by way of intrusive thoughts. You then get trapped in a totally illogical cycle because the only ‘danger’ you’re in is the distress produced by the thoughts your brain is producing!

Here’s what transformed my experience:

Managing stress levels, respecting my limits and pulling away when things get too much. Exhaustion and poor quality sleep increase anxiety and therefore intrusive thoughts, so getting enough rest is paramount.  Eating foods rich in probiotics (Your gut is your second brain and regulates mood). Interestingly, the Solar Plexus chakra, while a mental chakra actually regulates emotions, so when the Solar Plexus chakra is inharmonious (closed or chaotic), it indicates extreme emotional conditions.

Not resisting the thought. What you resist persists. It’s extremely difficult but if you allow yourself to have the thought and not react to it, disenaging completely, you allow the ‘life cycle’ of the thought to complete, therefore breaking the cycle.

Inner Child work. Active dialogue with the intrusive thought. I came across this quite naturally and found that I resolved many root beliefs that fed into my Intrusive Thoughts, in doing this. When I dialogued with the Intrusive Thought, I’d be transformed to the originating scene in my childhood and be able to comfort and reason with my inner child.  However Robert Johnson, a jungian pyschologist, asserts caution with this method and potentially working with a therapist to do this, as some of the imagery that comes up can be intense. His book Inner Work is an interesting look at working with subconscious imagery.

But here’s the crucial part:

The ‘topics’ of intrusive thoughts that I’d fed an extraordinary amount of fear into (family related also), were stored within my energy field, creating form and density. In the same way trauma is held physiologically, so too are thoughts and emotions, if their proper flow is interrupted and they become stuck.

I was working with an incredible healer who quite literally saved my life twice, during intense episodes of intrusive thoughts. She removed the fear based energy from my energy field and from that point forward those topics never bothered me again. I was totally clear of them. She inspired me to become a healer because I had first hand experience in how powerful and transformational it is.

Manging Intrusive Thoughts is a holistic process which must be approached from many different angles. But please, if they become too much please seek professional medical help as medication can at least pacify them to some degree. Meditation doesn’t resolve them but is necessary to get through the rough patches.

I hope some of this is of some help!

Emma

http://www.emmavergara.com