I love that idea-- it kind of reminds me of one of the tricks I used to manage a specific compulsive thought that bothered me a lot when I had just started to drive a lot...
from an email I wrote to a friend around that time:
I'm kind of having an issue with that classic childish self-control questioning, where you think things like "well what if I stood up right now and screamed? what if I just let go of the railing and let myself drop? what if I slammed my bike into that pedestrian?" etc. i don't even notice that happening anymore in my head except when i'm driving a car, especially at high speeds on a curvy road, when i am SO aware of how heavy and huge the car is, and SO aware of the consequences of fucking up, that "WHATIFYOUJUSTLETGOANDALLOWEDTHECARTOSLAMINTOTHERAILING??" gets really loud in my head. and i need to be SO attuned to my surroundings and my own driving that i simply can't have even one fraction of my brain in charge of acknowledging and sweeping away those cobwebs.
so while i was driving last time i figured out a way to acknowledge and get rid of those thoughts/fears without recognizing them for as scary and big as they are. what i do is look at the scary black fear in my head (it's black because i'm driving at night and the car is black, btw) and then sort of zoom out a little so i see ALL the scary black variations of that fear dancing around together, they're like a pack of furry black demons, and then i zoom out even farther and see that they are furry black BABY demons and they have a big friendly furry monster mother who is putting them to bed now because they're sleepy and cranky (and that's why they are acting out). it turns my scariest fear into something cartoon adorable, and it's easy to activate quickly in my head so that the whole thing takes about two seconds.
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Date: 2011-05-08 03:05 am (UTC)from an email I wrote to a friend around that time:
I'm kind of having an issue with that classic childish self-control questioning, where you think things like "well what if I stood up right now and screamed? what if I just let go of the railing and let myself drop? what if I slammed my bike into that pedestrian?" etc. i don't even notice that happening anymore in my head except when i'm driving a car, especially at high speeds on a curvy road, when i am SO aware of how heavy and huge the car is, and SO aware of the consequences of fucking up, that "WHATIFYOUJUSTLETGOANDALLOWEDTHECARTOSLAMINTOTHERAILING??" gets really loud in my head. and i need to be SO attuned to my surroundings and my own driving that i simply can't have even one fraction of my brain in charge of acknowledging and sweeping away those cobwebs.
so while i was driving last time i figured out a way to acknowledge and get rid of those thoughts/fears without recognizing them for as scary and big as they are. what i do is look at the scary black fear in my head (it's black because i'm driving at night and the car is black, btw) and then sort of zoom out a little so i see ALL the scary black variations of that fear dancing around together, they're like a pack of furry black demons, and then i zoom out even farther and see that they are furry black BABY demons and they have a big friendly furry monster mother who is putting them to bed now because they're sleepy and cranky (and that's why they are acting out). it turns my scariest fear into something cartoon adorable, and it's easy to activate quickly in my head so that the whole thing takes about two seconds.