![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
juushikaI have this anti-anxiety "visualization" that I use to compartmentalize my obsessive thinking. Visualization is an approximation because I don't have visual images, so instead I focus on detailed imaginings of physical actions.
I imagine the negative thought as a physical object directly in front of me, and then imagine confining that object—sometimes I kneed it into a small ball, sometimes I put it in a box with a lid, sometimes I tie it up with string. Then I take the small, contained object and I put it way, way behind/beside me, somewhere over my right shoulder, too far back to see in my peripheral vision. If the thought reoccurs—which happens—I revisit the new location to remind myself that thought has been set aside.
I have many (albeit justified) hangups about the idea of being rid of my obsessive thinking—that it is pervasive and unremitting is core to my anxiety, and I won't let that be denied. This doesn't deny it: it recognizes it, and then sets it aside. It's one of the only ways I find relief.
I've been all over the place since Mama died, predictably. I miss her frequently, in a way I don't often experience loss, simply because she was so present and now she's not: not when I feed cats, not when I count heads dozing on beds, not there to visit me when I wake up in the morning. And I keep catching myself wanting to take those thoughts, bundle them up, and set them aside.
I have no idea if I should. Almost everything I ever feel is awful—illogical, constant, pointless awful, like being trapped forever in that 3am feeling of failing to sleep while successfully reliving that humiliating thing you did in tenth grade that everyone has forgotten but you. Those aren't thought process I've ever been able to work through and put to rest, so I know that putting them aside is healthy—it's sure healthier than endlessly experiencing them. I don't know what healthy mental processes feel like. I don't know what healthy grief feels like. Would compartmentalizing these feelings prevent me from working through them? I don't want to treat Mama's memory like the other stupid stuff I obsess about; I want to keep her alive in me and to remember, and fondly, all the things that I miss right now. But my brain is fragile—how much backlash do I risk if I let myself spiral into grief?
I end up vaguely paralyzed, holding that thought, that constant missing, as a solid object in front of me, unsure where to put it, where it should go. I miss her.
I imagine the negative thought as a physical object directly in front of me, and then imagine confining that object—sometimes I kneed it into a small ball, sometimes I put it in a box with a lid, sometimes I tie it up with string. Then I take the small, contained object and I put it way, way behind/beside me, somewhere over my right shoulder, too far back to see in my peripheral vision. If the thought reoccurs—which happens—I revisit the new location to remind myself that thought has been set aside.
I have many (albeit justified) hangups about the idea of being rid of my obsessive thinking—that it is pervasive and unremitting is core to my anxiety, and I won't let that be denied. This doesn't deny it: it recognizes it, and then sets it aside. It's one of the only ways I find relief.
I've been all over the place since Mama died, predictably. I miss her frequently, in a way I don't often experience loss, simply because she was so present and now she's not: not when I feed cats, not when I count heads dozing on beds, not there to visit me when I wake up in the morning. And I keep catching myself wanting to take those thoughts, bundle them up, and set them aside.
I have no idea if I should. Almost everything I ever feel is awful—illogical, constant, pointless awful, like being trapped forever in that 3am feeling of failing to sleep while successfully reliving that humiliating thing you did in tenth grade that everyone has forgotten but you. Those aren't thought process I've ever been able to work through and put to rest, so I know that putting them aside is healthy—it's sure healthier than endlessly experiencing them. I don't know what healthy mental processes feel like. I don't know what healthy grief feels like. Would compartmentalizing these feelings prevent me from working through them? I don't want to treat Mama's memory like the other stupid stuff I obsess about; I want to keep her alive in me and to remember, and fondly, all the things that I miss right now. But my brain is fragile—how much backlash do I risk if I let myself spiral into grief?
I end up vaguely paralyzed, holding that thought, that constant missing, as a solid object in front of me, unsure where to put it, where it should go. I miss her.
