My answer to a lifetime of those is: "I see you. Yes, that'd be
   interesting wouldn't it? Ok, bye bye now!" It's about the only
   way to deal with them. Can't stop them. == Oh I know. They don't
   go away. I just keep smiling inside and telling them "bye bye
   now!" and find another thought to grab onto. It's not easy. It's
   practice. Lots of practice. Sometimes I have to lock them in a
   monster box with a padlock. Sometimes I have to cast them into
   the shadows where they lurk and murmur. The battle is
   neverending and for anyone who is never able to win, my ultimate
   sympathies. I'm very very lucky. I've been able to structure
   certain things in my life that feed the OCD just enough to keep
   it happy but not enough for it to overpower. The words "No, fuck
   you!" are in my head so much to those thoughts (it's not always
   "bye bye now!"), it's probably why I rarely say them aloud to
   anybody else. Did you ever hear the Psalm that has the line,
   "Dash the children against the rocks?" The oldest existing
   interpretation of that Psalm, passed on from Judaic times and
   refined heavily during the times of the Desert Fathers in the
   Eastern Church was this: Thoughts. The children are not real
   children, they're inner thoughts. The bad ones. The intrusive
   ones. Dash them against the rocks. The whole inner prayer thing
   is/was all about this type of stuff. People have spent lifetimes
   fighting. 1500 years before Psychology entered the scene, how
   did people DEAL with these things? They had ways. OCD's as old
   as humanity. Intrusive thoughts are as old as humanity. When you
   discover all of the creative and interesting ways peoples
   through the centuries have found to deal with them, you can
   learn a lot about what's possible. There's many methodologies
   out there. === You won't likely get techniques from too many
   official places beyond medicine. You're tossed on your own to
   find other methodologies. The thing is: these methodologies have
   MOSTLY been tied up in religions.. VERY FEW have made it out
   into the secular world yet. That which has is... weak. Very
   weak. How do you deal with guilt? Stop thinking about it? No.
   Doesn't work like that. Talk about your mother? Eh, shifting
   blame. Might as well blame the Devil or stick it on a scape goat
   and cast it out into wilderness. It's the same thing. The very
   same thing. Some people turn to magical meditation. Meditation
   isn't magical: introspection with focus and relaxation, however,
   is. and if you study them and remove the religious context and
   see them from a productively psychological point of view, you
   can see their power. Anyway, I was being flippant with the "bye
   bye now". I almost said, "Let them pass like dark clouds". But
   that's the oversimplified version. The reality is a lot darker
   than that when it's an ongoing fight. It's why I was heavy into
   learning about this stuff through the years. Coping skills. It's
   all about coping skills. If you have access to medicine that
   works, that's a coping skill. The stuff doesn't go away
   regardless, just tamed a little. Yeah, I was wrong to make it
   sound so easy. A lot of people like hearing easy answers so I
   gave one. But you're wiser than that. The depth of the struggle
   is quite real. == Let's say, [1]Jay Maranda - you were in 5th
   Century Egypt. You're you. No different. No Canada. No meds.
   What do you do? What tools are available? You've made it through
   childhood and your education. You're an adult. You've been
   coping as best you can. But then, you can't. It's 5th century
   Egypt and you've got a problem. There's answers. I'm not saying
   "turn to religion" - not at all. What I'm saying is: Our secular
   world is SHIT when it comes to managing the inner mind. It's
   shit when it comes to managing emotions. It's shit when dealing
   with inner thoughts. Just shit. Pisses me off. I look back in
   history, they had all SORTS of great ways to handle this stuff.
   Thousands of years of humans had ways that worked well enough
   for them. Why did I get "I'm ok / you're ok" growing up? I mean,
   I'm glad for it. Very useful in other ways. But for inner
   thoughts? For things that go beyond where I can just "toughen
   up"? "deal with it?' Zip. Where do kids turn? Adults turn?
   Music. They drown their thoughts in music. Obsessions. Habits.
   Hobbies. Socializing. Movies. Romance novels. Talking to people
   online. ANYTHING to get away from this: Being alone with your
   thoughts and no distractions available. Terrifying to modern
   humans. Terrifying. I suspect it's always been terrifying. ==
   Well, now you just have to go into writing sci-fi or something
   smile emoticon I compared different libraries. We have a bunch
   in our county. I was looking to see what was bigger: Fiction or
   Non-Fiction. Who wins? Fiction, by far. Food for thought: In a
   sense. fiction is insanity. Yet... a glance through the
   non-fiction section of the library and you'll see just as much
   fiction masquerading as fact. I mean, there's some facts of
   course and some very good but a lot aren't quite as factual as
   to quite deserve the label of non-fiction. Just something to
   consider smile emoticon == To be honest, I find most human
   efforts to be insanity though, so I'm biased smile emoticon ===


References

   Visible links
   1. https://www.facebook.com/jay.maranda.7?hc_location=ufi