Dear Kshitij:

You are very welcome, and thank you for expressing your appreciation!

“I want to free myself from this trauma and suffering, its been too long but I don’t know how to give myself peace and solace among these intrusive thoughts. I know I lack self-compassion, for I at times judge myself for obsessing over these intrusive thoughts“- the function of the emotional experiences of shame (judging oneself negatively) and guilt (judging one’s actions negatively) is to motivate a person to correct certain behaviors that need to be corrected, so to be a better person to oneself, and to others. Once the correction has been made, shame and guilt, having served their purpose, should be resolved and dissolved. When a person is stuck in guilt and shame, it’s like a festering wound in one’s mind and heart, filling the mind and heart with pus. There is no space for self-compassion when one’s mind-and-heart are filled with figurative pus.

Earlier in your thread, you wrote: “there was a point in my teens when I began to feel as if I had nothing good in me apart from my academic“- you felt- feel that you were not a good person, nothing (almost) good in you.

“I do not want to spend the two years of my masters consumed in these intrusive thoughts and struggling with my mental health because of them“- I think that being stuck in shame and guilt has been fueling your intrusive thoughts for a long time.

Earlier in your thread, you wrote: “As my best friend put it for me – ‘you think you need to suffer again and again that’s why you drag yourself back to those thoughts and situations‘“- like your friend said, it is your need to suffer (a result of shame and guilt), that’s dragging you to (fueling) your intrusive thoughts.

Here is more evidence of your shame and guilt (May 23): “I took that anger on myself…  taking some revenge by hurting myself… self-harming behavior (not physical harm) like discontinuing therapy, cutting off all friendships and relations, refusing proper diet and taking care of my physical health and even giving up my career aspirations… I judge myself“- you feel like hurting and harming someone you judge to be a bad person.  You wouldn’t be motivated to hurt, harm and take revenge against a person you judge to be a good person.

May 23: “I sometimes feel that lack of self compassion is the very reason I suffer so much from these intrusive thoughts“-  shame and guilt (the figurative pus I mentioned above) leave no space for self-compassion. Shame and guilt are fueling your intrusive thoughts and causing a mix of despair, depression, rage, hopelessness, and bitterness.

The sermons delivered by your father, was where and how shame and guilt were introduced into your mind and heart, weren’t they?

“I am not being able to tell my therapist about this. She has been so helpful over the last two years…“- I hope that you manage somehow to tell it all to your therapist: you can start by telling her why it’s so difficult for you to tell her.

When your shame and guilt are resolved, so will your unnecessary suffering, unnecessary because you are a good person, and good people should not suffer.

anita

Dear Kshitij:

You are very welcome. Yes, I do believe that you don’t deserve to suffer, very much so!

“Can I send a detailed reply to your thread by tomorrow EOD?“- yes, in the End Of the Day (I googled that, didn’t know the acronym..)

“In the meantime, I have a question- Are these intrusive thoughts that I experience or flashbacks? Or a mix of both?“- both, these are intrusive thoughts (thoughts that disturb you a lot) and intrusive memories aka flashbacks (memories that disturb you a lot). Flashbacks are visual and/ or auditory memories, as well memories that are strictly emotional and physical- no picture and no sound to the memories, only the emotional and tactile re-experiencing of the trauma.

anita

Dear Kshitij:

You are welcome!

“I didn’t understand how my shame and guilt are fueling my emotions of despair, hopelessness etc.?“- to be stuck feeling ashamed and guilty is a terrible emotional experience. If calm and contentment are like the sun gently shining above you, relentless shame and guilt are like thick hail dropping on you from above, hitting you, bruising you. When the hail can drop on you at any time, winter or summer, spring or fall, then you get desperate and hopeless.

“I was criticized for every small thing“- I think of these criticisms as thick hail dropping on you, hurting you, making you bleed.

“I do have a habit of self-loathing, so maybe that is related with my guilt and/or shame related with my intrusive thoughts?“- yes, I believe so.

“Please tell me something I can do to ease these harmful emotions so that I can reach out for help and stop giving so much pain to myself”– to ease and resolve these harmful emotions (shame, guilt, self-loathing), you have to.. heal the shame that binds you. I am using a title of a book I read long ago: Healing the Shame that Binds You, by John Bradshaw.

Here are a couple of quotes from the book: “There is no way you can share your inner self because you are an object of contempt to yourself. When you are contemptible to yourself, you are no longer in you. To feel shame is to feel exposed in a diminished way. When you’re an object to yourself, you turn your eyes inward, watching and scrutinizing every minute detail of behavior. This internal critical observation is excruciating. It generates a tormenting self-consciousness that Kaufman describes as ‘creating a binding and paralyzing effect upon the self.’ This paralyzing internal monitoring causes withdrawal, passivity and inaction”,

“Toxically shamed people tend to become more and more stagnant as life goes on. They live in a guarded, secretive and defensive way. They try to be more than human (perfect and controlling) or less than human (losing interest in life or stagnated in some addictive behavior)”-                  do these quotes speak to you personally, Kshitij?

“I gave a huge amount of effort for my masters, even when I was struggling a lot with my mental and physical health, and all of it was on the verge of becoming zero- I couldn’t do anything. And when I finally got the scholarship, even in that I was just a passive recipient, it just happened to me.  What is the point of putting in your life and efforts when everything is so random?“- You cannot be calm and content unless you experience that you do have control over some parts of what happens to you life, that you can make some desirable things happen and avoid some undesirable things; you have to become active, not passive, when it comes to your life.

“It feels like no matter how hard I try, I can never find mental peace, and even after moving to a better place in life (like getting the scholarship) will bring more trauma“- the difference that will make all the difference for you, is to believe that you have what it takes to handle difficulties and challenges, that you are strong enough and resourceful enough.

For as long as one believes that one has no power over one’s life, no control, no say.. every difficulty can feel overwhelmingly huge.

anita

Dear Kshitij:

“I don’t know what to do to slow down. I think a part of this rushing is also because of my intrusive thought… It is never easy in Oxford“-

– J. Mark G. Williams also studied in the University of Oxford, and is currently a professor of clinical psychology there. He is a leading expert on Mindfulness. I first heard of him in 2011 when I attended psychotherapy (U.S.). My therapist at the time gave me homework assignments that included listening to one of Mark William’s guided meditations every day.  Some of the audios I used to listen to are still online, free of charge (last I checked).

One book he authored is called Mindfulness: A practical guide to finding peace in a hectic world. I just noticed that there are YouTubes available where you can listen and watch him talk. Also, he has his own website.

I read that together with other researchers, he explored the impact of Mindfulness– Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) on intrusive imagery and intrusive thoughts in severely anxious patients, and found that MBCT significantly reduced the frequency, distress and intrusiveness of intrusive thoughts and images.

anita