Hey @JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff
I think that your “rabbit holes” are my “thought spirals”- you get sucked into darker and darker places....
In a broader sense, and on a day to day basis this is something I relate to.
I wonder if this will help...
For me, my intrusive thoughts began as passive (ie something bad would happen that I couldn’t control) and as I got more unwell, I began to worry/ obsess that I would actively do something bad i.e. lose control and commit an act of harm.
I started therapy, and at first the intrusive thoughts - both active and passive- subsided dramatically. I understood that the intrusive Thoughts were a psychological mechanism to keep me “alert” and “on guard” for danger (I was always in danger from a stepparent as a child- often blindsided by violence - it would come out of nowhere- so I learned never to relax). In my experience - parents can be dangerous- or they stand back and let bad things happen- hence my own obsessions- effectively “will I be like them”.
Once i knew this, I understood I was traumatised, I was a wonderful
Mother, and this was my maternal instinct in overdrive- my way of keeping my baby safe- imagining dangers/ trying to predict dangers amped up to the extreme, so I was never “blindsided again”.
The thoughts were still there, but I was able to laugh at them, mostly, as nonsense- things that would never happen, and just stuff I was making up to “keep alert”.
Then, after a short break, they came back (I think triggered by separating from my partner)- but the nature of them changed. they were more disturbing, more deviant, more “arresting”- they stopped me in my tracks and made me feel physically unwell. They were so dark I could barely talk to my therapist about them.
Work with my therapist brought me to realise that the reason for this was that the “old style” thoughts simply had no power anymore. I could think and dismiss them easily.
The traumatised part of me though, was still in that constant “alert mode” and so determined to elicit a “fear response” from the rest of me, that the thoughts became correspondingly darker, to get a “reaction”.
Does this resonate with you- the idea that it’s almost a relief when you “let yourself” think the darkest, worst thing- and then melt down? That’s certainly how I felt sometimes.
For me, the answer has been to recognise this pattern, and to remember that the “thoughts” do not become more real, or more representative of you, the further down the “rabbit hole” you get- the content of the thoughts is just as “unreal” and “not you” if it’s imagining eating a 1000kg chocolate cake naked, or witnessing/committing an extreme act of violence against a loved one.
No matter where you are in the rabbit warren- what you find in there is not important- it’s why you’re there that you need to address.
Does that make sense? I’m not a therapist btw- this is one sufferer to another, in good faith and with best intentions.