What look to us as irrational thoughts do not necessarily look like that to the person experiencing them. We can't judge another's life, what makes "sense" in that life based on what makes sense in ours.

I could not sleep when my husband was away on business trips because I felt that "bad guys" were going to break into the house at any moment. I was hyper aware of the settling sounds the house made and listening for doors or windows opening and afraid to go down into the basement lest I find someone breaking into the sliding glass door down there.

My head knew that it wasn't any more likely that someone would break in when my husband was away than when he was home or on X night rather than Y, but the "experience" of what I was feeling was different from what I was thinking.

I was in therapy at the time, and am smarter than the average bear but that didn't help me get to sleep. "Deciding" not to let it get the best of me was an intellectual decision and there were many days I had to go to work the next day very short on sleep or call in "sick". It was a long hard struggle in therapy (9 years) with what was "really" bothering me and some creative makeshift physical changes that helped in this one instance, in the end, but I'm not sure everyone "could" do what I did in their own situations.