“If you’re thinking without writing, you only think you’re thinking.”—Leslie Lamport
Declan Molony
Karma: 1,684
A meta-awareness of metacognition itself: that affected me when I first began labeling my thoughts. I would wonder if a particular thought was disordered. But eventually, like the Pilates OCD therapist mentioned:
if you’re spending time wondering if a specific thought is OCD related, it probably is. I have found that to be true every time.
If someone with OCD was monitoring their thoughts and it gave them anxiety, then I would suggest non-judgmentally watching their thoughts. Dr. Bruce Tift’s book Already Free has some good suggestions for that.
Updated the links, thanks. Short version.
Having OCD is like living in North Korea (Here’s how I escaped)
Overcoming OCD
My mind’s default state is to ruminate all day long if I let it. For most people, short-term rumination (even if it’s all day long) isn’t all that bad. But if you’re beating yourself up for days, weeks, or years, then it certainly qualifies as a problem worth addressing.
I’ll DM you on the side.
Reading this with Mozart’s Requiem playing elevates this post to a whole nother level:
Thanks for bringing this up! I just added this line to the post to make things clearer for others:
Or if you’re unsure exactly what you believe, I’d recommend just writing down everything you do with respect to the problem. That’ll reveal what you believe about it.
If “beliefs” seem too opaque or undefined, I’d recommend just writing down everything you do with respect to the problem.
The simping was a clear example of that in my opinion—the nerd kept doing the same thing over and over; that was his entire interaction with the cheerleader. If he can recognize his behavioral pattern by observing what he consistently says/does, that gives him the opportunity to try something else.
Adopt a debugger’s mindset to solve your recurring life problems
or any number of other ineffable signs subtler than an em dash.
I just started using em dashes (at the recommendation of my older brother) in my writing circa 2022 before I even knew about LLMs. I like using them—I’m not giving them up!
I thought about your comment for a few days, especially the line “You are fighting ghosts.”
That’s probably more true for prisoners than most. To be locked in a cell for the rest of your life, wondering, ruminating, if things could have been different...
How lucky the rest of us are to merely ruminate over a lost love, or from upsetting a friend.
For prisoners, their mistake was serious. It’s not just in their heads. They’re haunted.
Rumination is a habit (and you can break it!)
The book ‘Death with Interruptions’ is a 2005 speculative fiction novel written by Portuguese author José Saramago.
Because of this post, I checked out ‘Death with Interruptions’ from the library and read it this month. Wow, a really good read—thanks!
“All cats are equal, but some cats are more equal than others.”—George Pawwell, Animal Farm
“If you’re thinking without writing, you only think you’re thinking.”—Leslie Lamport
“I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want catnip.”—Aldous Clawxley, Brave New World
I am the ultimate rationalist! My willingness to sacrifice for someone follows a perfect distribution along kinship genetic similarity:
Siblings: share 50% of their genes, so I’d be willing to take a 50% chance of dying if it meant their genes could potentially live on and reproduce
First cousins: share 12.5% of their genes, so I’d be willing to take a 12.5% chance of dying
So what about for a random friend? If they could just take a quick DNA test, then our genetic relatedness would determine my willingness to sacrifice for them.
Supposing that I die while saving them, I would want a guarantee that they propagate their genes in proportion to our genetic similarity:
Siblings: I would want them to have at least 2 kids
First cousins: I would want them to have at least 8 kids
Random friend with 1% genetic similarity: That’s right! 100 kids please! 😉
Great post, and great cat philosopher quotes :)
“To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others...unless it’s concerning that dastardly neighbor cat.”—Albert Cameow
If you would be willing to experiment, I’d like to know if your experience of dreaming is affected by screen usage before bed.
You could just copy what I’ve done, which is eliminating screen time 1-2 hours before bed, then report back here any qualitative/quantitative changes in dreaming. I’m curious what you’ll find! (even if there’s no change)
^For OCD, this is true. I was reading an example of a guy in Brain Lock: Free Yourself from Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior (by Jeffrey M. Schwartz, MD with Beverly Beyette) who repeatedly had the intrusive thoughts for years and years that his fingertips had razorblades in them. So he compulsively avoided touching anyone, even his wife. That kind of thought doesn’t need to be debated, especially when you’ve been having it for years on end. Once he identified it as a manifestation of his OCD, he was able to relabel the thought as intrusive and stopped engaging with it. His symptoms then improved.
^I think this is a case of the Typical Mind Fallacy: “The typical mind fallacy is the mistake of modeling the minds inside other people’s brains as exactly the same as your own mind. Humans lack insight into their own minds and what is common among everyone or unusually specific to a few. It can be often hard to see the flaws in the lens, especially when we only have one lens to look through with which to see those flaws.”
I think extrapolating from my post to think about general anxiety is potentially interesting, but that’s not why I made the post. The post’s target demographic is not for people with general anxiety, it’s for specifically helping people with OCD.