This is the #1 symptom of my OCD: intrusive thoughts. Disturbing ones. Sometimes I have to wait for them to pass on their own and in my case it has, at times, meant locking myself in my room, more or less, for days or weeks at a time because in my intrusive thoughts I'm the one inflicting the damage, and I'm afraid I'm actually going to do it because it's so real it seems like an impulse and it terrifies me. However sometimes I can disrupt the thoughts. One thing I learned in DBT is this mindfulness exercise - there's a million ways to do it - but essentially you pick something nearby - could even be something like your shirt, or a book you're reading, or your backpack, or something on your desk - and mindfully describe it to yourself. Not necessarily out loud, though if that's what you need there's no harm in it. But just going through all of its qualities and attributes in your mind: colour, texture, size, how it feels when you touch it, etc. And if your mind starts to wander, just bring it back and start again. Do it as often as you need to. Another thing that some people do is keep an elastic band around their wrist. And whenever they get an intrusive thought that doesn't go away, they snap the band against their skin, not hard enough to leave a mark or anything but just enough to disrupt the thought. Sometimes they have to do it several times. Another one is visualizing a stop sign. As in, stopping the thought. Might sound absurd or simplistic but I know tons of people who swear by it.

It's really a matter of what works for you. I am super sensitive, and I'm an empath, and I cannot handle the violence in this world. I literally cannot. Whether it's happen to people I know, or just knowing it's happening to millions of people all over the world that I'll never meet, I can't handle a single bit of it. Same as imagining people and places and things after my death. Or my life after the deaths of people I love, which I have experienced a lot of, so the imagining of that pain is far from fantasy. It's rooted in reality. So I also have to limit my exposure to certain things. Somtimes I can't handle movie or tv violence. Sometimes I can't handle movies or tv at all because the violence is so ingrained in media. Sometimes it doesn't really bother me in the sense that I can watch it. But when something bad happens to someone I almost always cry. Sometimes uncontrollably. It's something I've learned to accept about myself. It's not a weakness; it's a gift. But managing it can be difficult and even painful, and most certainly exhausting.

If you ever need anyone to talk to about this stuff feel free to message me. I don't trigger easily. Take good care.