#badthoughts — Public Fediverse posts

What to do with bad thoughts.
Imagine realizing that you are harboring a bad thought.
E.g. "I just felt uncomfortable/unsafe/whatever at the sight of someone, simply because of what/who/how they are".

What you saw was just the tail of it, slithering under a rock.
The real beast is under there. It's bigger than what you noticed.

If you want to get rid of it, you have to systematically cut off its paths of retreat and force it out into the open.

"Where did it come from" is usually not actually that important.
Unlike in horror/fantasy tropes, it's no secret where monsters come from.
Every-day "polite" society is crawling with them, and we have to keep up walls of opposition to keep most of them out. One or two will get through from time to time, no surprise - don't feel too guilty about that, guilt will only get in your way.

But like with any infestation, getting rid of them is hard work.
Most of all, you have to find out what it feeds on. Thoughts generally don't exist in a vacuum. They rest where they get support from other thoughts, no matter how subtly.
And those thoughts don't even necessarily have to be ones you hold. They can be thoughts you know are held in one of your community.

To get rid of the infestation you need to get rid of those supporting thoughts, or modify them until they no longer support the monster.

Figuring out what works is personal. (Pretty obviously, I lean towards metaphorical extension.)

For me, meeting the supporting thoughts with their opposite to see where the fault lines work sometimes works.

I also use a flame thrower:
I sit with the thought and say I hate this thought. I hate everything about this. And feel that anger and revulsion, and attach it strongly to the thought I want to brand.

I want the stench to stick to it, so I can smell whenever that thought gets linked in the future.

Because that's the awful thing. The brain is not a box where it contains something, and then you can throw it out.

Barring brain damage, thoughts never go away. At best they just get outshone by other thoughts.

So that bad thought will still be in there (it can get in just from realizing that someone else thinks that way), and so will the supporting thoughts.

The best we can do is to make sure the things that feed that beast are not being pulled into our working mind. That they stay down in the storage house of old models that don't get used any more.
Or that you can smell them when they get used.

(I am neither a psychologist, a psychiatrist, nor am I a chartered exorsist, the above is just my amateurish attempts at handling something I think most people have to deal with - feel free to critique or boost, or comment or whatever)

#InnerDemons #BadThoughts

What to do with bad thoughts.
Imagine realizing that you are harboring a bad thought.
E.g. "I just felt uncomfortable/unsafe/whatever at the sight of someone, simply because of what/who/how they are".

What you saw was just the tail of it, slithering under a rock.
The real beast is under there. It's bigger than what you noticed.

If you want to get rid of it, you have to systematically cut off its paths of retreat and force it out into the open.

"Where did it come from" is usually not actually that important.
Unlike in horror/fantasy tropes, it's no secret where monsters come from.
Every-day "polite" society is crawling with them, and we have to keep up walls of opposition to keep most of them out. One or two will get through from time to time, no surprise - don't feel too guilty about that, guilt will only get in your way.

But like with any infestation, getting rid of them is hard work.
Most of all, you have to find out what it feeds on. Thoughts generally don't exist in a vacuum. They rest where they get support from other thoughts, no matter how subtly.
And those thoughts don't even necessarily have to be ones you hold. They can be thoughts you know are held in one of your community.

To get rid of the infestation you need to get rid of those supporting thoughts, or modify them until they no longer support the monster.

Figuring out what works is personal. (Pretty obviously, I lean towards metaphorical extension.)

For me, meeting the supporting thoughts with their opposite to see where the fault lines work sometimes works.

I also use a flame thrower:
I sit with the thought and say I hate this thought. I hate everything about this. And feel that anger and revulsion, and attach it strongly to the thought I want to brand.

I want the stench to stick to it, so I can smell whenever that thought gets linked in the future.

Because that's the awful thing. The brain is not a box where it contains something, and then you can throw it out.

Barring brain damage, thoughts never go away. At best they just get outshone by other thoughts.

So that bad thought will still be in there (it can get in just from realizing that someone else thinks that way), and so will the supporting thoughts.

The best we can do is to make sure the things that feed that beast are not being pulled into our working mind. That they stay down in the storage house of old models that don't get used any more.
Or that you can smell them when they get used.

(I am neither a psychologist, a psychiatrist, nor am I a chartered exorsist, the above is just my amateurish attempts at handling something I think most people have to deal with - feel free to critique or boost, or comment or whatever)

#InnerDemons #BadThoughts

What to do with bad thoughts.
Imagine realizing that you are harboring a bad thought.
E.g. "I just felt uncomfortable/unsafe/whatever at the sight of someone, simply because of what/who/how they are".

What you saw was just the tail of it, slithering under a rock.
The real beast is under there. It's bigger than what you noticed.

If you want to get rid of it, you have to systematically cut off its paths of retreat and force it out into the open.

"Where did it come from" is usually not actually that important.
Unlike in horror/fantasy tropes, it's no secret where monsters come from.
Every-day "polite" society is crawling with them, and we have to keep up walls of opposition to keep most of them out. One or two will get through from time to time, no surprise - don't feel too guilty about that, guilt will only get in your way.

But like with any infestation, getting rid of them is hard work.
Most of all, you have to find out what it feeds on. Thoughts generally don't exist in a vacuum. They rest where they get support from other thoughts, no matter how subtly.
And those thoughts don't even necessarily have to be ones you hold. They can be thoughts you know are held in one of your community.

To get rid of the infestation you need to get rid of those supporting thoughts, or modify them until they no longer support the monster.

Figuring out what works is personal. (Pretty obviously, I lean towards metaphorical extension.)

For me, meeting the supporting thoughts with their opposite to see where the fault lines work sometimes works.

I also use a flame thrower:
I sit with the thought and say I hate this thought. I hate everything about this. And feel that anger and revulsion, and attach it strongly to the thought I want to brand.

I want the stench to stick to it, so I can smell whenever that thought gets linked in the future.

Because that's the awful thing. The brain is not a box where it contains something, and then you can throw it out.

Barring brain damage, thoughts never go away. At best they just get outshone by other thoughts.

So that bad thought will still be in there (it can get in just from realizing that someone else thinks that way), and so will the supporting thoughts.

The best we can do is to make sure the things that feed that beast are not being pulled into our working mind. That they stay down in the storage house of old models that don't get used any more.
Or that you can smell them when they get used.

(I am neither a psychologist, a psychiatrist, nor am I a chartered exorsist, the above is just my amateurish attempts at handling something I think most people have to deal with - feel free to critique or boost, or comment or whatever)

#InnerDemons #BadThoughts

What to do with bad thoughts.
Imagine realizing that you are harboring a bad thought.
E.g. "I just felt uncomfortable/unsafe/whatever at the sight of someone, simply because of what/who/how they are".

What you saw was just the tail of it, slithering under a rock.
The real beast is under there. It's bigger than what you noticed.

If you want to get rid of it, you have to systematically cut off its paths of retreat and force it out into the open.

"Where did it come from" is usually not actually that important.
Unlike in horror/fantasy tropes, it's no secret where monsters come from.
Every-day "polite" society is crawling with them, and we have to keep up walls of opposition to keep most of them out. One or two will get through from time to time, no surprise - don't feel too guilty about that, guilt will only get in your way.

But like with any infestation, getting rid of them is hard work.
Most of all, you have to find out what it feeds on. Thoughts generally don't exist in a vacuum. They rest where they get support from other thoughts, no matter how subtly.
And those thoughts don't even necessarily have to be ones you hold. They can be thoughts you know are held in one of your community.

To get rid of the infestation you need to get rid of those supporting thoughts, or modify them until they no longer support the monster.

Figuring out what works is personal. (Pretty obviously, I lean towards metaphorical extension.)

For me, meeting the supporting thoughts with their opposite to see where the fault lines work sometimes works.

I also use a flame thrower:
I sit with the thought and say I hate this thought. I hate everything about this. And feel that anger and revulsion, and attach it strongly to the thought I want to brand.

I want the stench to stick to it, so I can smell whenever that thought gets linked in the future.

Because that's the awful thing. The brain is not a box where it contains something, and then you can throw it out.

Barring brain damage, thoughts never go away. At best they just get outshone by other thoughts.

So that bad thought will still be in there (it can get in just from realizing that someone else thinks that way), and so will the supporting thoughts.

The best we can do is to make sure the things that feed that beast are not being pulled into our working mind. That they stay down in the storage house of old models that don't get used any more.
Or that you can smell them when they get used.

(I am neither a psychologist, a psychiatrist, nor am I a chartered exorsist, the above is just my amateurish attempts at handling something I think most people have to deal with - feel free to critique or boost, or comment or whatever)

#InnerDemons #BadThoughts