Hello, intrusive thoughts!

Have you ever been minding your own business, living your life, and your brain suddenly asks you, “what if we drove into oncoming traffic?” Or, “what if you threw your phone in the ocean?” (Tempting, actually–maybe not the best example). These thoughts are completely normal, although they can feel extremely distressing. They’re called intrusive thoughts, a charming symptom of anxiety or OCD.

For some people, they’re just random and fleeting. Of course you aren’t going to swerve into oncoming traffic; silly brain! For others, intrusive thoughts aren’t fleeting at all. They stick around; they repeat; they destabilize. Worst, they feel incredibly shameful, which only makes them louder.

One “cure” for anxiety–inasmuch as there is one–is talking about it out loud. Everything sounds worse in the echo chamber of your brain. When you share your scary, shameful thoughts aloud, they lose some of their power over you. An example: I used to have a terrible intrusive thought about accidentally throwing my dog out the car window. I would never actually do this, as I love my dog. But the thought would come every time we drove somewhere with the dog and it was, as you can imagine, incredibly distressing. When I finally screwed up my courage and told my best friend about it, she laughed out loud. She immediately apologized but actually her laughing was helpful! It was a ridiculous thought! The second I named it and she laughed, it became just silly instead of frightening. And now I have it rarely, if at all.

The point of this self-disclosure is that sharing our fears is actually one way to diminish them. Intrusive thoughts trick our brains into thinking there is danger when there is none. Checking those thoughts by telling them to someone else takes away their power and allows us to accept emotionally what we may know rationally: our thoughts cannot hurt us unless we let them.

I don’t mean you should minimize or diminish your thoughts, intrusive or otherwise. Rather, try meeting them with curiosity instead of fear. Try sharing them with others instead of letting them echo in your brain. You might find you can let them go. And if you can’t, that’s ok too; that just means it’s time to talk to a therapist.

You know where to find me.

Your grief in the dark, dreary days of winter

Listen, I am naturally an optimist. I really do see the silver lining the majority of the time. However. Here in Southeastern Pennsylvania, it has been dark and dreary and rainy for what feels like years (I also can be a little dramatic). When the weather is like this, it’s nearly impossible to remember that the days are actually getting longer; that soon we’ll spring forward; that winter actually does not last forever. Don’t get me wrong, all of those counter thoughts can be helpful. After all, nothing hard lasts forever!

That being said, this is a really difficult time for a lot of my clients.It’s especially difficult for those who are sick or old or grieving (or all three), isolated by those circumstances and the addition of bad weather. The usual self-care suggestions fall flat this time of year. Go outside! It’s disgusting out, no thank you. See friends! People can’t always drive in inclement weather. Or they don’t feel particularly social when they’ve been hanging on to a chest cold for a month. Exercise! Ugh. Don’t even get me started.

I don’t mean to say you should avoid all those things and hibernate for the winter. If you can find the energy and motivation to do that stuff, then you’re in better shape than me! Go forth on the journey. For the rest of us, let me just validate that it’s harder to do the usual self care stuff when the weather is bad, as it has been here. When it’s harder to make ourselves feel better, we can get caught in a shame cycle: “I should be doing X but I don’t feel like it, I’m useless/lazy/awful/whatever.” I’m here to tell you, you are not useless or lazy or whatever other horrid adjective you want to use to describe yourself. You are a normal person having a normal reaction to a very long and dreary time of year.

And if you are grieving, whether it’s the first year or the fifth or the fifteenth, you may find that your grief is heavier than usual. No matter how long it’s been, that is normal. Grief can be exacerbated by any number of things, including but not limited to post-holiday blues, gross winter weather, and increased isolation.

So if you are having a harder than usual time right now and all the usual coping skills are falling flat, I have good news: the days are getting longer. Soon we’re going to spring forward. Winter doesn’t last forever. And neither will this hard time. While it lasts, consider reaching out to someone—a friend, a therapist, some nice strangers on the internet—and let them share the burden. You don’t have to do this alone.

Holiday creep

A colleague of mine recently referred to this time of year as the therapist Olympics. Most of our clients are a little more… unhinged than usual. Rightly so! Days are shorter and colder. Families of origin repeat patterns that range from frustrating to harmful. Sobriety is tested. Finances are tight. Grief is magnified. Caregiving is harder than usual. Basically The Holidays amplifies whatever was already difficult to navigate. While the culture at large insists upon sparkle and glamor and gratitude and consumerism and food and booze in excess, some of us are struggling. 

There are any number of lists out there about how to combat the holiday blues. Of course I agree with most of them: be mindful of how much you're drinking; keep moving your body; make time for yourself, etc. But I also want to add my usual caveat: it's ok to be struggling. In fact, many people are at this time of year. I bet if you admit to someone close to you (or even someone in line at the grocery store honestly) that you aren't filled with joy right now, they would agree. You’re not alone if you’re not feeling sparkly.

If you feel like you are alone in those feelings, it's tempting to self isolate. People are often afraid of spreading their anxiety or sadness to others and instead opt to keep it to themselves. Sometimes time alone does help, and if that helps you, go nuts. But also remember that distress and grief and anxiety are better shared with others. It lightens the load to let someone else know that you aren't filled with the Spirit of the Season. It's ok if holidays are a tough time for you; they’re tough for a lot of us. Take a chance and let someone know you need support. 

(Also make sure you keep your appointment with your therapist).