@CANDC, thank you for the response. Yeah, I agree- they pop into my head quite frequently during the day, and it's taken a long time to get the severity of that down somewhat. And that seems to have happened more as a matter of just time passing, and me not posting online for a long time. Like to make the boundary clear. I finally found a description recently from Jerry Wise Relationships Systems on YouTube where he talks about "systems stress" or "systems emotions" which is kind of matching what I've been experiencing. But he calls it the "WiFi" of the group you're plugged into, and how when we go no-contact, the systems stress of the toxic group will sky rocket. That's when they start trying to re-hoover you, smear campaigns, etc. So when I first exited these groups, the invasive thoughts were crazy. Now, it's not as bad as it was, but I still struggle to focus all throughout the day. I usually cope with the anxiety by spending too much time mindlessly scrolling, and then my whole day ends up going to waste, so I agree the mindfulness is the key part here. I think I will look first at the smartphone app and try that. I notice how I start my mornings tends to shape the rest of the day (that's why the nightmares are so irritating :/ ), so maybe if I try some of the exercises instead of going on YouTube, it'll start me off right. Because once I start to spend too much time scrolling, my anxiety just tends to snowball and then it's hard to get it back down all day even when I try.