Have you ever experienced obsessive thinking about somebody?

July 27, 2009 10:45 AM

Have you ever experienced obsessive thinking about somebody, or about yourself (note: not OCD!)? How did you deal with it?

This is a long story that I've kept short, so please bear this in mind when you answer (i.e. you're not getting the whole story).

I met somebody. I obsessed about her. The relationship ended, partly because I obsessed about her. In the time since I've been obsessing about both her, and my own development. It's like I have to have some human subject to obsess about all the time.

No more than 10 minutes go by when I don't think of her, and I've been spending practically all my waking hours reading spiritual guides (The Road Less Travelled etc). I am actually making significant progress on a personal level, but I'm just spending too much time at it. An hour or two in the evening: good. All day long? Bad. Very bad.

I know it's not healthy to be like this, and it's actually very mentally fatiguing. I don't like it at all. But I can't switch it off! If I lose myself in something else, it comes right back into my mind. Sustained concentration is impossible.

I'd be interested to hear any perspectives. I'm not looking for relationship advice, though, so please tread carefully! Thanks.

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posted by anonymous to Human Relations (16 answers total)

My first guess would be that you're using obsession as a way to avoid addressing something else in your life, either a lack of direction, or disenchantment with your career -- something that's missing but that you can distract yourself from by obsessing over her, or yourself.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 10:49 AM on July 27, 2009 [4 favorites]

Two things come to mind that have helped me:

1. Accepting that you're just like that. I have the hunch that part of what's fueling your obsession is you actively trying not to think about this -- and it's just like any don't-think-of-an-elephant paradox. the more you try to squelch these thoughts, the more they come up. If you find that this is so, then maybe tryingto just accept a little bit of thought about the object of your affection -- not intentional indulgence, mind you, but more that, if she pops into your mind, just an inward shrug that, "oh, well, it has only been [number of months] since we broke up, it's logical she'd come to mind now and then still" and then just letting your mind wander -- and more likely than not it will wander away into other territory pretty soon.

2. What would help with your mind wandering away into other territory is simply finding other things to do with yourself. It's a lot easier for your mind to wander away into thinking about something else if you've got a cool new hobby: "ah, there I go again, thinking about Giselle. Ah, yes, Giselle, I remember how she liked vine-ripened tomatoes -- oh, wait, tomatoes. That's right, I got those tomatoes at home because I wanted to start learning how to make pizza from scratch. Ooh, I wonder what I could do with the sauce for that? Do I even need to make sauce? Hey, what if I did THIS with the tomatoes..." You get the idea.

I get a little over-thinky about things myself, but I've found that just sort of an inward shrug of "ah, there I go again" rather than trying to "SUPPRESS! SUPPRESS!" works better for me.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:53 AM on July 27, 2009 [2 favorites]

My comment here (and that whole thread, probably) is relevant to this. Short version - EmpressCallipygos is right. Don't attach so much weight to it, and let those thoughts just pass by.
posted by restless_nomad at 11:02 AM on July 27, 2009

As long as your obsessive thoughts aren't violent (toward her or yourself), then everyone else is right. You'll get over it eventually, especially if you don't beat yourself up about it.

If you find yourself going into stalker territory (physically tracking her movements, having violent fantasies), though, get yourself to a therapist ASAP.
posted by oinopaponton at 11:10 AM on July 27, 2009

Have you heard of or looked into this being limerence? This sounds a bit like that.
posted by fiercecupcake at 11:14 AM on July 27, 2009 [1 favorite]

I have similar tendencies--I have certain thoughts that I keep circling back to, even though I am rather tired of them and they never come to anything. My feeling is one of "Am I seriously going to spend more time on that thought?"

So I've turned it into a little reflex text/creativity game. A somewhat morbid one, admittedly. Whenever that thought pops up, I see how quickly I can imagine myself being killed in a creative and decisive way.

In my case, the obsessive thought is just a phrase that pops into my head, with a certain snide inflection, whenever I can't decide what to do with free time. What have you. The phrase is "You can do whatever you want!" As in "You can do whatever you want, asshole!" Which would be an annoying thing for someone to say to you--doubly so when you can't stop saying it to yourself. Anyway. Now as soon as I find myself starting that phrase in my head, I see how quickly I can get myself killed, thereby snuffing out that inner wiseacre.

At first, my manners of death were simple and effective. For instance, the thought would begin: "You can do whatever you want!" Then I would pause for a second. And then *pip!* a sniper's bullet hits me in the chest. Or "You can do whatever you want!" and *thwump* an arrow fired from a longbowman on top of a nearby building skewers me through the clavicle, and out my lower back.

These days, with practice, I'm getting even better at it. Just the other day, my brain only got two words in: "You can---" before a squadron of bombers screamed over and dropped a significant tonnage of high explosive on my head.

This is my example. It may not work for you. The theory being, just like with any obsession or addiction, you must learn to replace the undesired behavior. The technique I use is super easy, requires no money or time, or speech, or movement, or anything. Over time I've become more concerned with how quickly I can come up with a new and interesting grisly demise, and less about the thoughts I was obsessing over to begin with.

Make it into a game, then get good at the game.
posted by Darth Fedor at 11:22 AM on July 27, 2009 [7 favorites]

Obsession is about something inside of you. It's not about the object of obsession. As you've already observed, the person you obsess about is interchangeable.
posted by i_love_squirrels at 11:25 AM on July 27, 2009 [6 favorites]

When I find myself dwelling on unwelcome thoughts (I come from a long line of worriers), I interrupt them with a sensible voice that says, "You're free to ignore that, you know." That works pretty well for me.
posted by Ladybug Parade at 11:54 AM on July 27, 2009 [2 favorites]

I've found that it helps to pay even more attention to your thoughts. Learn to recognize when the thought starts and move past it then. Wearing a rubber band around the wrist and giving it a good snap actually helps, or even saying (out loud if you can) "let's move on," or "we're not thinking about that right now." Have another thing to think about ready - a physical project, even an ongoing story that you create new mental chapters for. It takes mindfulness and training to stop thinking about things on demand, but it can be done.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 12:08 PM on July 27, 2009 [1 favorite]

In my own case, I find that intrusive, obsessive thoughts are a symptom of general anxiety and depression. When I treat the underlying causes, the obsessions fade away. Is therapy an option for you?
posted by balls at 12:35 PM on July 27, 2009

Obsessive thoughts can be indicative of other maladies, rather than just OCD.
posted by P.o.B. at 12:44 PM on July 27, 2009

My first guess would be that you're using obsession as a way to avoid addressing something else in your life, either a lack of direction, or disenchantment with your career -- something that's missing but that you can distract yourself from by obsessing over her, or yourself.

Repeated for emphasis. The first person who told me that was my aunt, a psychology professor. It really helped. Think about other bad things, in other words.
posted by Ironmouth at 12:45 PM on July 27, 2009

Don't write off OCD so quickly. There is a category of OCD called "Pure Obsession" that is when you just can't stop thinking of something. The symptoms are basically that you have some anxiety (in this case a thought pops into your head about the former lover), then you have some relief-compulsion (in your case introspection) which provides temporary relief, only to let the anxiety come back stronger.

One common tactic is to just let the thoughts wash over you. Don't worry that you're thinking too much. Seek to simply not add fuel to the fire. You may have an initial flood of negative thoughts, but there will ultimately be a net reduction of obsession.

There's a few other techniques. If you want there's also therapy, in particular cognitive behavioral therapy. CBT works by undistorting your beliefs which may be causing these blown out-of-proportion anxious thoughts.
posted by philosophistry at 1:38 PM on July 27, 2009 [1 favorite]

Love is, chemically very similar to OCD. In fact, OCD may be the system that is involved with love and childrearing gone too far and focused on the wrong objects. Examining people in love, at least one study found similar brain imaging patterns to those seen in patients with OCD. So, obsessions aren't always "distractions" from other things-- it could just be unrequited love plain and simple.

If you have a tendency in general towards OCD, love may push that over the edge into clinical territory. CBT is a good idea--and if you aren't averse to medication, SSRI's are quite good at reducing obsessiveness,though some people need large doses for it to have this effect and that can have unwanted sex-drive reducing side effects.

Anyway, it does sound like it's passed beyond ordinary obsessiveness and if you are finding that simply allowing yourself to have the thoughts (rather than trying to avoid them or beating yourself up for having them) isn't helping, it might make sense to see someone.
posted by Maias at 4:23 PM on July 27, 2009 [1 favorite]

Wear a rubber band on your wrist. Whenever you get on a train of thought you don't want to be on, pull back the rubber band and let go so it snaps against the inside of your wrist, and visualize a stop sign in your head. This should clear your mind and let you get back on track.
posted by buriednexttoyou at 4:40 PM on July 27, 2009 [1 favorite]

Ladybug Prada: "You're free to ignore that, you know."

Along the same lines... I was suffering this problem. Obsessing about an ex-boyfriend who I hadn't seen in over 18 months just at the time I was enjoying a new and wonderful relationship. In fact, I was going to ask a question about it here last week. Instead I asked new man if he ever had a problem with obsessing over his exes. He said yes. How did you stop? I asked. When the thoughts come in, he said, I tell myself it has nothing to do with me.

This is my new mantra and I'm obsessing much less now.
posted by Kerasia at 5:50 PM on July 27, 2009 [3 favorites]