Do you allow yourself to entertain potentially "bad" thoughts?

[HamburgerBoy]

I.e. do you suppress/chastise/punish certain types of thoughts, regardless of whether or not you feel an urge to act on them? If so, what kinds of thoughts are they, and how do you go about abstaining from them?

 

[SSSnail]

I was raised properly.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I was raised properly.

So such thoughts would never enter your mind to begin? Fair enough.

 

[n7]

Of course not.

All my thoughts are pure and holy.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I refuse to answer this question on the grounds that it may incriminate me.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

FWIW I'm more interested in the how than the what, so if you have a violent pedobestiality walrus fetish, you only need to tell me that you grab for your convenient pocket Bible when such disgusting thoughts enter your mind.

 

[Iron Woode]

this is a very odd question.

as someone with depression and what appears to be adult ADHD, I allow my mind to think whatever it wants for about an hour each day. I have found this to be very therapeutic and allows me to concentrate on getting things done.

 

[l0cke]

Yes. Is there a person on earth who can't stand in line at a bank without thinking up the best way to rob it?

Not like I would actually act on the thoughts.

 

[lxskllr]

Any thought is fair game, and I'll contemplate anything as long as I choose to do so, or until something more pressing presents itself.

 

[sixone]

I usually have a terrible time getting back to sleep after the 3am bathroom run. If I try to sleep, my brain kicks out some pretty morbid stuff. Reading a boring book works very well, keeps my mind busy enough to relax, but not too busy.

 

[SlitheryDee]

I have certain things that I seem to repeat in my mind whenever thoughts that I don't want enter it. These thoughts have to have a certain level of absurdity in order to jar me out of whatever unpleasant thing I was thinking about.

Sometimes I'll be remembering something unpleasant or embarrassing, and to end the thought I'll suddenly interject "I'll kill them all...destroy everything", into the thought. The absurdity of it always lets me know that it's time to think about something else. Another favorite unpleasant thought breaker is "aww he's so cute, so whittle bitty, aww". Obviously that last one is so absurd that I only have to use it in emergencies.

 

[zanejohnson]

i think about what i want to think about... nothing just "pops" in to my head.... i'd see a shrink if you really have no control over what comes to your mind...

i guess maybe i just dont have time to sit and wonder... i think about politics alot, and the state of our existence, and what the future will be like..what the past was like.. but no morbid thoughts, well i guess i entertained the idea of the worship of death as opposed to life for a while, because when my leg was healing... it looked like death...but now, it's healed, and that abyss is gone..

 

[SandEagle]

sometimes the thought of buying a Ford enters my mind.
*shudder*

 

[Moonbeam]

I.e. do you suppress/chastise/punish certain types of thoughts, regardless of whether or not you feel an urge to act on them? If so, what kinds of thoughts are they, and how do you go about abstaining from them?

Once I had a tiger rush up to my face every time I closed my eyes. This continued to the point where I got so tired from lack of sleep I thought I would die. So I decided that would have to be what happens. So I closed my eyes to let the tiger eat me and of course it wouldn't appear.

I have a relative, perhaps genes are involved here, who has compulsive thoughts about surrendering to the devil and was at the time she was going through this terrified she would give in. I believe the compulsion, the emotional force that energizes these thoughts, is some form of guilt, some inculcated taboo, the frustration of some natural urge that brings relief or satisfaction of some kind that becomes perverted, that a person is made to feel they are bad for feeling. Once you make a person feel like they are evil for feeling something that is quite natural to feel, a compulsion to feel that feeling coupled with a feeling that one is doing something excitingly evil, creates a magnetic pull to do that thing.

There are drugs that help with compulsive behavior and psychotherapy is in order, I believe, because when the feeling of evil disappear, so do the needs.

To sum up then, you do not chastise suppress or punish yourself because this only feeds the beast. If you resolve the issue on an emotional level you don't have to abstain because the need that drives will disappear.

 

[mikeymikec]

Any thought is fair game, and I'll contemplate anything as long as I choose to do so, or until something more pressing presents itself.

I agree.

I think if one really could not stop thinking about (insert really dodgy/illegal/sick notion here), then one needs help.

 

[BoomerD]

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I agree.

I think if one could not stop thinking about (insert really dodgy/illegal/sick notion here), then one needs help.

What if the self-regulation does stop the thought, at least for a matter of days/weeks? Starting around ~12 I would repeat "Don't think <inhaling>, bad thoughts <exhaling>" in my mind (sometimes whispered) and after some moments of time I would feel better. Admittedly I began that to ward off physical sickness (nausea mostly), but I've used it for moments of serious negativity and it gets her done.

 

[RocksteadyDotNet]

No such thing as bad thoughts, only bad actions.

 

[zinfamous]

I always wonder what a hamburger boy would taste like.

Though I only consider that a "curious" thought.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

No such thing as bad thoughts, only bad actions.

Objectively bad, sure. But have you never had unwanted thoughts enter your mind, even if in stray?

 

[zinfamous]

Objectively bad, sure. But have you never had unwanted thoughts enter your mind, even if in stray?

you mean like, "I wonder what it would be like to turn towards that innocent stranger next to me, grab his face and quickly bash it into the concrete wall right there, for absolutely no reason. I'm sure it would totally change everyone's bored mood" kind of thoughts?


No, I never have those.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

you mean like, "I wonder what it would be like to turn towards that innocent stranger next to me, grab his face and quickly bash it into the concrete wall right there, for absolutely no reason. I'm sure it would totally change everyone's bored mood" kind of thoughts?

No, I never have those.

No, that's just entertaining fantasy. A better example would be an impulsive nature viciously insult somebody, like hearing an individual minority say something disagreeable (it could be someone you know that is generally a friendly and smart individual) and I'll think "Well, yeah, that's cuz you're a <racial slur here>", and if I'm not facing the person I'll cringe at my thought and think to myself "Kill yourself you stupid fucking asshole".

 

[Dr. Zaus]

No, that's just entertaining fantasy. A better example would be an impulsive nature viciously insult somebody, like hearing an individual minority say something disagreeable (it could be someone you know that is generally a friendly and smart individual) and I'll think "Well, yeah, that's cuz you're a <racial slur here>", and if I'm not facing the person I'll cringe at my thought and think to myself "Kill yourself you stupid fucking asshole".

Understand yourself better and you'll gain agency over your thoughts. There is a guilt that leads to self-hate, and there is the guilt of not reaching your own-post-potential. Let it be the latter guilt so that you can move past; instead of the former guilt that makes you dwell on.

 

[Moonbeam]

No, that's just entertaining fantasy. A better example would be an impulsive nature viciously insult somebody, like hearing an individual minority say something disagreeable (it could be someone you know that is generally a friendly and smart individual) and I'll think "Well, yeah, that's cuz you're a <racial slur here>", and if I'm not facing the person I'll cringe at my thought and think to myself "Kill yourself you stupid fucking asshole".

I explained this all above. Is it that you don't get it or you don't want to? Folk think they are looking for answers sometimes when what they really seek is being better at being sick. You could profit from knowing that you torture yourself about this because you want to. I think you deserve not to be tortured as you obviously are, but you may disagree.

Have you ever seen a person standing watching people with the left hand behind the back and the index finger pointing? That is the finger of blame pointing at those who mirror the self.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

It's not really an issue of me being afraid to express my feelings, though, and the thoughts/impulses are ones that I believe are forbidden (or at least ostracized) in any modern culture. And I'm not saying that I necessarily see anything unusual in my own behavior; the purpose of this thread was more as a survey to see how others control unhealthy mental states, if need be.