|
Do you have intrusive thoughts? I do. They used to come around and set off huge spirals of self-recrimination over the most pointless bullshit that everyone except me has forgotten about for decades. One day, after reading John Elder Robison's books and self-diagnosing and spending some time in introspection, I don't know exactly when it started but I started doing what my wife describes as "Tourettes shit" when those thoughts would come - squawks, chirps, little dances, disconnected verbal outbursts - and over time, I found that they were dulling the effect of the intrusions, till eventually the intrusive thoughts had basically no power anymore. They still happen but I just Tourettes them away, for lack of a better word. The best comparison I have come up with is, the thoughts are like John Nash's roomie and the little girl and the other one at the end of A Beautiful Mind, they flee to a 50 foot distance as soon as they appear, because my squawks scare them off like dementors or something. I have had a lot of thoughts about this as regards just what is going in inside the heads of people like me, but I'm not trained in it so I don't think I'd be taken seriously if I tried to share them. My tics made some of my friends (in some cases, former friends) very uncomfortable. Another thing I realized during that period is that I don't care - I previously had cared quite a lot, but I have completely detached from that, it seems. Those same friends (the ones who didn't like the new me) brought either no real value to my life, or else were a net drain in terms of negativity, small mindedness, lack of ambition, etc. Life is better without them, I have more time to do really cool stuff. I make cartoons for a living now. That came after I did all the above, not before. Just try to look inside your real self and allow it be. It could take years, be patient. |
I'm unsure if it emerged as a coping mechanism or if I never associated the tics with the intrusive thoughts. It wasn't until I had a round of CBT I even realised why I was doing it. Like you, I'll make an out-of-context sound, click my tongue, roll my hands, double-tap my shoulder, etc.
Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for sharing this. I'm going to check out John's books this weekend.