Hello,
I was just wondering if anyone had good insight into some obsessive thinking patterns, and how to combat them. (when i say obsessed, i am talking about dwelling on particular things that people do not normally dwell on, such as death, fears of things happening to them, dwelling on one particualar subject of discussion all the time, etc) some of this is of a highly personal nature i am sorry i cant be real specific about it. thank you for any suggestions
Dealing with your own personal CD rotation.
You can't change it. And I bet the thoughts come when you're under stress and sometimes from something completely unrelated; or when your alone and nothing really to do. All those thoughts fill up your mind cycling in an unending loop. If they're like mine, then you're probably thinking to yourself, what the devil is wrong with me? It's just the way your brain works. Which of course means there is no way for you to stop the process. I'm sure you'll get a lot of recommendations for prayer, Bible reading, etc. This next part will offend them, but it will help you. They're all good things, but the recommendation for them generally comes from a faulty assumption: do these "X" and you'll be fixed or they'll help mitigate the obsessive thinking. It won't happen. You can't "fix" this. You might as well try to fix your height or skin color.
I and some friends of mine who have the same issues have found these suggestions make the situation worse. Which of course continues the spiral downward. Your brain will obsess on what you focus. Focusing on the bad by memorizing scripture to deal with it, or praying when they occur will offer only momentary relief. Hopefully by the end of this post, and if I've made sense since I'm tired, you'll realize you don't have a
problem that needs fixing, but you have a
gift that needs developing.
This is the way your brain operates. Accept the fact that this will be a "problem" for the REST of your life. You'll obsess over things for your entire life. It will never change. So don't expect it to. This may sound depressing, but it really isn't. Well unless it's your 4th night in a row with minimal sleep (1 - 2 hrs). For the CD rotations of obsessive thoughts, I recommend an alternative.
The following helps me immensely. Doing this I sometimes go months without ever once obsessing over those negative thoughts. Oh they'll still pop up, but they're a nuisance then because they interrupt the important obsessions!
I pick a subject I want to focus on. It has to be something that YOU are interested in and it must be challenging. Because that's the way the CD rotation works. Nothing new going in you default to the bad CD with its screeching harpies of doom. Since obsession is natural, I automatically obsess over the new and interesting subject. Take Presuppositional Apologetics for instance. I bought & listened to almost every course Dr. Greg Bahnsen gave on the subject. Then I bought all of his books. Then I bought VanTil's books. Then I organized the structure of both in a mindmap program called "Personal Brain". This kept me from cycling the bad thoughts for almost a year. Theonomy took up about 4 months. Postmillenialism a month. Memorizing scripture based on these subjects is effective. The verses memorized may have nothing to do with the negative obsessive thoughts, but remembering them changes the CD in the rotation. Become obsessed in memorizing the verses to the point of knowing the punctuation. For this I recommend buying a Cambridge Bible KJV. Write down the info. Because memorization will also become a new CD to put in the rotation. Now it's not memorizing scripture to try and use as a temporary antidote to the thoughts you don't want. You're no longer memorizing onesy and twosy verses. You memorize books and 20 to 30 verses a day. And the obsessive part is to focus on being able to recall visually the page from your Cambridge Bible the verse is on and whether it's left or right column, top or bottom, left or right page. I recommend Romans for this to start. If you get the Cambridge Bible I have you will see it starts on the bottom third of the page while chapter 2 begins near the very end, right column, on the back of the first page on the book of Romans. Your CD rotation will have you wondering whether or not you memorized it correctly and you will need to check. You will actually feel a sense of release after checking it. Which reinforces your new obsession. You can call it the upward spiral if you wish.
For subjects such as theology, physics, calculus, German language, you want to memorize things based upon their loci. What are the loci of theology? What verses go with it? (More memorization.) You can use a Confession & Catechism for this. There's another year long program. Euclidean Geometry in the Elements gives you the loci to begin memorization of Geometry. You'll want to get some software like Personal Brain or Maltego. The goal is to make the connections visually and then like a spider walking her web trace out those connections in your mind with your eyes closed.
Right now I'm really tired from no sleep last night and only about 2 hours the night before because one of the things I'm obsessing over to replace the negative CD is memory techniques from the Scholastic period through the Puritans. Prior to William Perkins' attack on these systems they were quite varied and offered a lot of skills and were taught to many Christians.
To sum up, your brain will ALWAYS OBSESS. So either prepare to spend your life learning new and varied things or having these negative thoughts eat up a great host of your time. If you want, let me know and I'll post a list of subjects and material to help you begin the process. The first subject that helped me was computer programming. But I think you can get the same effect by studying classical logic and informal fallacies.
