Anxiety? need to know...

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hi again everyonea while ago i voiced an issue i was having, that bothered me then, and is now bothering me worse than ever. basically, my brain will make me visualise anything i desperately dont want to. it can be all sorts of things, mostly mental images of a sexual nature of friends, and family. obviously its quite disturbing, but the more i try to not think about it the worse it gets. one minute itll be all i can think about, and really freak me out, and the next minute it wont seem like an issue. but its always there, and i want to rid myself of it. its mostly, to be honest, and this isnt some kind of weird post im getting my kicks from, mental images of my mom of a sexual nature. these appear most, i imagine, because obviously that is the thing i would least want to picture. but its gotten so bad now i cant feel normal around my mom. i dont like to be around her because i feel like a freak. i know i dont want to have sex with my mom, or sister, but im naturally an obsessive person. this is really getting to me, and i just want to know the best way to get through it healthily. any advice, i would really appreciate. keep in mind this is not a joke and its seriously affecting me now i mean im always obsessing about something, theres always something eating away at me inside and making me miserable and keeping me awake, but id prefer most things to this. -ak

It's good to see you again, Africa. I was wondering how you were doing.This problem with what my daughter calls "feral thoughts", thoughts that are exactly the opposite of the ones you want, is I think an anxiety problem. The way the brain works, the deep imagination throws up all sorts of ideas (a sort of brainstorming), and then the higher parts of the brain filter them, rejecting nearly all of them. I think the problem arises if the brain gets distressed about this and makes a big deal of it and channels to the consciousness what is normally subconscious.I think this may be closely connected with OCD - thoughts you know are wrong, but cannot for some reason simply throw out of the brain. Have you talked to someone about this? If necessary, SSRI medication can help with obsessive thoughts.

If you have obsessive thoughts in general, medication may be a great help in many aspects of your life. Short of that, as disturbing as it may be, do you think you can accept your thoughts for what they are, and thereby, give them less importants and just kind of brush 'em off. I mean, by making a big deal about the shit that pops in your head, the more it's going to weigh on your mind and the more it's going to be showing up there.If you truly need medication, this may not work but I figured it was worth suggesting.

i cant talk to anyone about this out loud. i just couldnt bring myself to do it. i have an amazing, amazing supportive friend, i told her i was bi curious and had experimented before anyone else. i feel i can tell her anything, but with everything there are limits and my fear is that i will tell her and shell never see me in the same way again. i do often get the feeling that this is just my mind fucking with me. when i brush it off i feel normal for a while, but it tends to creep back. i just need to know that i dont want to have sex with my family. i need to be sure of that. the idea of it repulses me, i would never do it, but even having that want implies serious stuff, yknow. i just cant feel normal and i cant be around my mum and feel normal. i dont want to be a freak. can anyone recommend any method of theraputic thinking, or meditation, or anything that could ease this?

If something like that keeps bothering you, I would agree with the others about the medication. If the medication doesn't work/isn't the right thing, it's possible that your subconscious is trying to tell you something (don't take this the wrong way). A good friend once told me "Thinking about doing something and actually doing it are two different things".Believe me, I think about doing something in particular that if I actually did it. It involves something that's looked down upon and just plain wrong and it would follow me for the rest of my life. I know I don't want to do it but I still think about it.As long as you don't act on those feelings you have, you should be fine. Try not to worry about it by saying "ew" or "what's wrong with me" and all that stuff, it just makes you think about it more.I'm not sure if that helped, but I tried.

The important thing to recognise is that this does not mean you really are especially sexually attracted to family members. If you were, the thoughts wouldn't distress you this way (they might still distress you, but in a different way). The thoughts you are feeling have their power because they are particularly distressing, because they are lies. You are horrified that the thoughts exist, and their existence generates fear, and the fear then generates more thoughts.So the existence of the thoughts doesn't mean this is something you want to do: it means this is something you don't want to do. The thoughts are just plausible enough that at some point something can bubble to the surface; your horror and fear are then enough to keep the thoughts simmering. (In my daughter's case, they were racist thoughts.)If you can accept that having these thoughts doesn't mean anything is bad about you, that will help a lot.