Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with thoughts

Thinking my way to recovery from an ED

Anonymous — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:19:16 -0800

Help me take control of thoughts that make me feel like an ugly giant. I'm recovering from an eating disorder and I'm really struggling. I've been referred to a psychologist and had my first appointment yesterday (after a long wait), and I know it's going to take quite a long time to make any real progress there. In the mean time, I'm looking for any help I can get.

I've gained 7kg and am now at a "healthy weight" but sometimes I feel disgustingly huge, even though I can rationally tell myself that at my old weight I didn't have periods, my hair was falling out etc, despite the fact that I didn't feel that thin. Some days I look at myself and I look quite pretty and healthy and I feel great, other days I look absolutely massive and awful and feel embarrassed to go out, and then of course I can't bring myself to eat since I'm "already so big" and then I start getting physically weak and realise that I have to eat even though I don't feel hungry, but get really anxious about actually eating and don't want to do it, or feel really guilty when I do, like I'm a fat kid stuffing her face with cake, even though I'm only eating natural, whole foods. Often I regret having eaten and try to burn it off with excessive exercise.

Obviously my appearance can't be changing that dramatically from day to day, so I know it's got to be in my head, but it's hard to keep that in perspective when with my own eyes I'm seeing someone very large and lumpy. I've been trying to fill a blank book with resources to help me when I get stuck in that bad mental headspace. For example, last time I was too emaciated to get out of bed, I wrote a list of all the things I like doing that I can't do when I'm skinny, but can do even when i'm fat, so that's in the book, (as is that "fantasy of being thin" article), which I try to flick through when I start feeling yuck. I guess I'm looking to crowd out my unhelpful thoughts with other ideas so that sensible logic wins out and I can enjoy my life. When I cut down my eating my hormones go all funny and I get hot flushes and night sweats and disturbed sleep, and feel too exhausted to socialise/go to work etc - I don't want to live my life like this anymore!

Any suggestions for things I can tell myself, or that I can write down/print out for my book, would be much appreciated. In particular I'm looking for help in breaking the "you're disgustingly huge, why would you be needing all those calories?" line of thinking and help to see my appearance more consistently every day but anything you think would be helpful would be welcomed.

NEGATIVE THINKING IS ALL AROUND ME

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 17:14:24 -0800

How do I ignore negative thoughts without suppressing them? I've been having a hard time focusing lately. Here are a few facts about my life:

I smoke pot at least once a day.
I am 22 years old and still going through my sophomore year of college.
I feel physically shitty most of the time.

Since going home for the holidays, I've been feeling very insecure about myself. I had a lot of tough talks with my mom, my sister, my girlfriend and other such people who have awakened a sense of despair in my soul that I haven't felt for months.

Getting back to my question, how do I ignore negative thoughts without suppressing them? I know that I'm feel crappy because I'm thinking crappy right now. I've been too damn introspective these days and have a lot of trouble expressing myself without letting my demons get in the way. How do I let myself be?

Avoiding Energy Sapping Thoughts

parallax7d — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:17:25 -0800

I've discovered one of the mechanisms of my laziness. When it comes time to do something, I start thinking about how boring or tedious it will be to do it. Thinking this very effectively zaps all my energy and will to do this thing. The interesting thing is, if my mind is occupied with something else, say a book or conversation I've recently had, then those negative thoughts don't pop into my head, and I can work away like a happy little smurf. How do I avoid these negative thoughts, so I can "Just Do It"?

Funny like Jack Handey.

therubettes — Mon, 26 May 2008 08:49:47 -0800

If you saw two guys named Hambone and Flippy, which one would you think liked dolphins the most? I'd say Flippy, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong, though. It's Hambone. I love the writings of Jack Handey. His Deep Thoughts (beware sound!) and his articles in the New Yorker. I would love to hear recommendations of similarly funny writings. I can re-read his writing without it's losing any of it's impact or ability to make me laugh.

I know humour is subjective (and doesn't dissect well), but a few of the things I love about his writing are:
The fact that its all punchline no filler (short attention span), not nasty just surreal and perhaps most of all it's his stupidity, petty concerns and dumb/skewed observations that get me.

David Sedaris has come up in searches for similar so I know about him. For those of you who haven't heard of Jack here are two of this thoughts and two articles:

Basically, there are three ways the skunk and I are a lot alike. The first is, we both like to spread our 'stink' around. The second is we both get hit by cars a lot. The third is stripes.

If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.

....there are hundreds of others.

Ideas for Paintings
Tatoo

De-stressing/Re-Focusing

isoman2kx — Wed, 07 May 2008 13:07:43 -0800

Help me de-stress and refocus my moods. How do yall refocus after being extremely stressed for short bursts on end? Any activities, tips, thought patterns you think, stretching exercises, exercises in general??

I try to take deep breaths with some self talk and/or exercise, but it seems to work only about half the time.

I'm also a huge tea drinker as well, but that works sparingly sometimes.

People are not Pokemon. Stop trying to keep them all.

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:36:59 -0800

How can I reign in jealousy? I am in a happy long-term relationship and we are planning our marriage.

An old flame recently contacted me after 3 years of non-contact and we have begun a friendship. Whenever he mentions individuals he is attracted to, I become jealous. I am not interested in romance with this man, we were unsuited in the majority of areas and I am engaged to my soul-mate.

It feels almost like an "well, if I couldn't have you, no-one else will!" reaction to his having romantic relationships with other people. I don't understand this emotional reaction -- my cognitive approach to exes is usually of the "I wasn't perfect for them, and so it is best for them and me that they find someone that is" ethos.

I feel that this jealousy is unproductive because it is preventing me from being friendly with my ex and it is beginning to intrude into other areas of my life through rumination and anxiety.

Any advice on how to "talk down" this jealousy or rephrase my thoughts, CBT-style, would be much appreciated. I have good knowledge and experience with CBT but have never rephrased jealousy-type emotions.

The rain in spain falls mainly on the plane

Samuel Farrow — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 21:05:01 -0800

What is the shortest sentence that would highlight differences in dialects and accents in the English language? I am looking for some thinking about accents. Ideally ideas about the way we sound.

Awesome would be language quirks in particular groups within each country (such as the rolling r NZ has in Southland.).

Including English quirks in areas where it is spoken as a second language, and why.

How can I get a handle on the negative thoughts running through my mind constantly

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 10:11:55 -0800

To those who have successfully treated their depression using CBT or are in the process of doing so: How did you/ do you handle the constant barrage of negative thoughts and self evaluations? I am always comparing myself to others, ruminating on the past and on 'could have been's, beating my self up about missed opportunities and so on. All this not only makes me feel quite depressed but also leaves me feeling very discouraged about my future. I want to change this. For good.

CBT makes a lot of sense to me but I'm finding it very hard to constantly monitor and counter very single thought that I have (It doesn't help that most of my feelings and thoughts about myself at this point are pretty negative).

Solutions like distracting one's self, trying to rationally challenge them work but only temporarily.

What can I do to make the changes in my thinking long lasting? How did you do it?

How to focus?

greta simone — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 21:25:26 -0800

How can I compartmentalize my thoughts/life in order to be productive? Let me start by saying that I suffer from no disorders such as depression or OCD or ADD or anything that might cause me such problems as I experience.
I have always (since high school) had a problem compartmentalizing my thoughts and this causes me to not be able to accomplish simple goals sometimes. I cannot seem to separate my emotions from my actions. Even if I am suffering from the most minute emotional stress, I seem to focus on that so much that I cannot seem to get much work done.
My most common example involves being preoccupied with love interests which renders me unable to be productive, which I find to be presently relevant: I am involved in a casual relationship that really is quite unstressful, but I find that the tiniest concerns overpower my mind to the point that I can't get myself to focus on studying the GRE. Today I just sat around thinking about romantic mountain views and essentially daydreaming and I couldn't manage to retain any information studying.
This has been a common pattern in my life-- if everything isn't totally in order, everything is thrown out of whack. I can't push out distracting thoughts in order to focus on pertinent tasks.
How do you do it? How do you get work done when you have other things going on in your head?
Feel free to recommend books, essays, anecdotes, personal tips, anything-- I just need to get my study on without fighting my (sub)conscious.

Thoughts into Reality

miltoncat — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 02:44:43 -0800

I read that "You always get more of what you focus on in life." I am wondering if we can truly manifest what we want in life by first manifesting it in our thoughts/minds. For example, say you want to make more money. Instead of thinking "Man, I'd sure like to make more money," you think "I AM making more money. I AM getting what I want." The belief behind this way of thinking is that by thinking as if what you want is already happening, it will eventually come to pass in your life.

Thoughtful sleep

LadyBonita — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 06:45:34 -0800

Do you think differently depending on which side you're lying on? For instance, do you have more practical thoughts while lying on your left side, and more fanciful/creative thoughts while lying on your right side? Or vice versa? I experience this while in bed, going to sleep at night. Just curious if anyone else has the same experience.

How differently do people think?

pwally — Sun, 06 Mar 2005 14:25:08 -0800

Richard Feynman described thinking as basically just talking to yourself. Then a friend told him to picture a part of a car and then asked him how he explained to himself what the part looked like. He then realized that you can see when you think as well. Then later on he tried counting up to 60 and seeing how accurate his perception of time was. He usually counted to around 48 by the time 60 seconds had gone by. Then he figured that he could count pretty much all of the time and not get distracted, but he couldn't talk and count at the same time. (+) When talking with one of his friends he brought up his problem, and his friend told him that he could talk and count at the same time. He did it by watching the numbers fly by in his head. Try counting both ways if you dont know what I mean. This got me to thinking about how other people think. Some people say that when they see a word, some of the letters are different colors, or numbers are different colors. Does this happen to you? Do succesful artists see something in their mind that facilitates the painting process, and if people that can't paint as well (me) know the process of of how good painters paint, can I maybe start painting a whole lot better? What are some ways that you think while doing random actions?

How much does CD packaging add to your enjoyment?

davebush — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 19:37:17 -0800

CD packaging: How much does it add to your enjoyment of the music? Does it influence your listening experience to any degree? Feel free to mention both positive and negative examples.

The universe is huge: books that make you philosophize, reflect and shiver?

Jaybo — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 02:04:59 -0800

You know that feeling you get when you contemplate how big the universe is? (Java) Or when you see a picture of the earth from space? Or you hear a piece of music that always makes you feel just a little bit happier? (MIDI) What are some books that can inspire that same reflective/philosophical/shivery state of mind? I'm looking for any type of book - not just science or philosophy (though those are good too) but anything - non-fiction, fiction, poetry, children's - that will "make your head spin" while reading it.

The locality of thoughts inside the head

swift — Mon, 24 Jan 2005 17:44:04 -0800

Why is that thoughts seem to occur in the physical place inside one's head? Do blind or deaf people experience the physical locality of consciousness in the same way that others do?