Thinking is Not a Problem. Obsessive Thinking is a Problem.
Thinking is not a problem. It is a useful process that helps us make sense of the world around us. Thinking helps us reason, solve problems, make decisions, and understand the relationship between two things. Thought produces more thoughts that create stories. We all have stories, good ones and not so good ones. Below is a story of how thinking can become a problem.
Sarah is not a real person. The story was created to demonstrate an example pattern of obsessive thinking and its impact.
The Story
Sarah was thinking about how she was going to get through another stressful workday tomorrow. This was the daily replay in her head. She wondered if her thoughts had become obsessive. Sarah folded laundry as she contemplated this new but uncomfortable thought. Obsessive? She had become so used to thinking the same repetitive thoughts that this new one annoyed her. She didn’t want yet another distressing thought to take up space in her already crowded head. She looked down and realized she was still doing laundry while lost in her thoughts. This happened often. As she continued, she felt slightly better for a moment because of the way she went about this particular chore. She organized the clothing in a way that helped her feel as though she had control over something. She now knew that she could find relief from her anxiety with the order and symmetry she had adopted while doing routine tasks.
Sarah worried about many things. She worried about work, her family, her health, the state of the world, money, her career, her children’s safety, her aging parents, the problems with her siblings, how tired she was, what her boss thought of her, germs, forgetting something important, losing her spouse, losing her friends, losing her purse, losing her mind. She wouldn’t allow certain thoughts to enter though, such as losing her kids, because those kinds of thoughts would send her right over the edge. Each day she would replay a familiar cocktail of thoughts but sometimes worrying about one thing more than another depending on any ‘evidence’ she found to confirm a particular distressing thought.
For a long time, Sarah didn’t do anything about her intrusive thoughts. She accepted them as ‘normal’ and validated herself by saying “we are all stressed and everyone else worries about many of the same things I worry about”. It wasn’t until she really began noticing her behaviors. Her need to arrange and order things in a particular way had become stronger. She often cleaned and would get irritated if someone in the home disrupted this process. She also noticed she was checking locks more often and, on more than a few occasions, would return home after leaving the house to make sure the garage door was closed even though she was sure she looked before she drove away. Checking was important because not checking was very distressing to her. Those were just a few problematic behaviors. She had others.
One day, Sarah went online and read the following.
‘Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a disorder in which people have recurring, unwanted thoughts, ideas or sensations (obsessions) that make them feel driven to do something repetitively (compulsions)’. – psychiatry.org
She read more but just this first sentence made her cringe. There it was, the confirmation she didn’t want but needed to see. She knew she had anxiety but was concerned it had become more than that. What she was constantly thinking about was obsessive (and often irrational) and what she was doing about it was compulsive. Although she read that a diagnosis of OCD requires specific criteria, she did know she had a problem she could no longer ignore.
The discomfort and pain the anxiety caused was bad enough. But, underneath her anxiety, and what bothered her the most, was the persistent doubt she had in herself and the outside reassurance she would often seek. “What happened? How did I get here?” It made her feel sad to ponder these questions. She also begrudgingly realized she was crushing her own dreams to make room for her worries and perceived responsibility to her thoughts.
The next day, Sarah took action and developed a plan.
Sarah’s Plan
Get Help. Sarah’s first order of business was finding a therapist. She didn’t know if she truly had OCD but she did know her obsessions and compulsions were affecting her quality of life. She was scared but had much to talk about. She didn’t know exactly how it would go but she knew she needed help.
Practice Acceptance and Surrender. She also decided to accept where she was, generally unsure and very tired. She surrendered the idea of having any ideas. Her thinking process had not only become unreliable but unproductive. She also accepted the possibility that her thoughts may be lying to her which provided some immediate relief.
Take Responsibility for Myself. She made a commitment to her well-being. What she would later discover in therapy is her tendency for pleasing behaviors. Sarah tried hard to take care of others but didn’t know how to take care of herself very well. People in her life would tell her she needed to do this but it was just so easy to come up with excuses. She had become an expert at it.
We don’t always know what is lurking beneath our anxiety. Sometimes we think we know based on the story we have been telling. When the story is distressing and starts to play in a loop, it is pretty clear there is a problem. Obsessive thinking is common. Common but not normal.
So, Sarah came up with a plan to try to end the loop.
Was it a foolproof plan? No.
Would it work? She didn’t know for sure.
Was it a good start? Absolutely.
Thelma Franco