Intrusive thoughts?

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Hope do people stop them from keeping you awake?

It'll be fine, I'll be sleepy then the wind is blowing really strong and I think imagine if the from door blew open. It's go downstairs nearly naked to close it. Imagine I saw someone there, is run back up the stairs. Which child's room would I hide in when he chased me? DS, he's less likely to kill the little ones in the other room isn't he?

And then I realize there my brain is at.

The other night I thought what if DH hurt me or tried to force me to have sex, I'd run out and lock myself in the babies room. But you can't close the door there because if the cupboards. I wonder if I can move them and still keep my weight on the door. Perhaps I should move the cupboards tomorrow.

DH has never done anything to indicate he would ever do anything to hurt me physically, we have a happy marriage I was just letting in bed not fancying sex and he was lying in bed going to sleep because I'd turned him down.

They don't distress me as such, they're just not very nice thoughts. So I tell myself up stop thinking about them and if course that doesn't really help because it's hard to purposely not think of something when you're trying to go to sleep.

So I end up here on here to distract the thoughts.

I don't sleep great as it is as the babies don't sleep through and then D's is on my room at 7 so I'm constantly tired.

But I don't know how to distract myself I'm ways ths don't end up waking me up more

If my mind wanders into more like "catastrophic thinking" I say to myself "stop", and that technique seems to allow me to cut the ever growing over thinking process off early, or earlier.

I can tell myself to stop but my brain will just go off somewhere else or I'll be having an internal dialogue about not thinking about this stuff which of course is thinking about it.

It takes practice. Understanding your brain is acting this way is a first step.

My mind used to race such that the end product was almost always someone dying. I had to learn a coping strategy. Stop works for me but it took time. Sometimes I have to say it over and over. Whatever it takes to not allow my mind to go into overdrive.

Theres probably other techniques out there. I think its called catastrophic thinking. Well thats what mine was called.

I remember describing it like tree branches. Cut one off with stop, and id go down another branch. Just have to chop that one off too!

Thanks for your experience

I found a book that for me was a total game changer.

Written by experts that understand why we have the thoughts, where they come from and how to deal with them (surprisingly simple).

The book costs about £10 and is called 'Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts'.

I just wanted to let you know about it because I know how awful these thoughts can be and this book was life changing for me. Really hope it could help other people too.

Sorry should have said it's written by Sally M. Winston, PsyD & Martin N. SEIF, PhD

Self trained through using a physical hand swiping motion and saying "Beetlewing. NO" I believe I heard Paul McKenna say something similar on a podcast interview. He's good. I occasionally still get intrusive thoughts but the motion is ingrained now.

I used to get this, suffered badly for 10 years. I’d be at work and start envisaging something horrendous like one of my children getting to the bleach and drinking it. Then I would cry at work. I was suffering from chronic stress in various areas but wasn’t addressing it so I think it came out in this way.

I ended up having EMDR therapy after a traumatic experience and an unexpected side effect was that it completely cured my intrusive thoughts.