Res Ipsa wrote: ↑Wed Mar 08, 2023 8:38 pm
Prime example of how obsession and cognitive dissonance can affect self control:
DT: “ You don't have to ignore me, I am done. Really.”
And the very next post is by DT.
The brain does all kinds of things under the hood — out of sight of our consciousness. It can form powerful patterns of thoughts and emotions without conscious intent or awareness. And, given the right circumstances, it can probably can happen to any brain.
I watched a friend go through through a similar process with intrusive thoughts. He is an evangelical. At some point, he either has a dream that included a violent image or a violent image just popped into his head one day.
He began to obsess over that image and became very anxious about the notion that the image was a sign he was a bad or evil person. And the more he worried about what the image meant, the more it popped into his head.
Every conversation we had over two or three weeks was dominated by that image and what it meant that he kept seeing it. He went to talk with his pastor several times. He talked with other friends and acquaintances whose opinions we valued. We all told him the same thing: weird thoughts and images pop into peoples brains from time to time. The image that popped into his mind just meant that he was a human being — nothing else.
After reading up on intrusive thoughts, I talked to him about how the simple act of trying to figure out what it meant would signal to his brain that the image was important and lead his brain to picture it more. He would also try to actively push it out of his mind, and I talked to him about how that could also reinforce the importance of the image to his brain.
When he started being unable to sleep, I encouraged to talk to a therapist. I know he did at some point, but may have been for a different reason.
Then, he just stopped bringing it up. I got the impression that the feedback he had gotten from family and friends had led him to conclude that seeing the image was not any indication that he was evil and became less anxious. Or he was simply distracted by something else that captured his attention. At any rate, once he managed to disrupt that feedback loop, the obsession evaporated fairly quickly.
The things brains can do are both amazing and scary.