Stuck on awful thoughts

I am struggling with a fixation on physical suffering, dismemberment, burns etc. I particularly find the images of animals suffering to be distressing. I find that I count in my head - random patterns, until it "feels right", and touch things as well, in an attempt to "ward off" inviting such things upon others. I fear that by thinking these things I am somehow going to invoke them. Logically I know this is absurd, but clearly a small (and very stubborn!!) piece of me believes it.

I still haven't really found a pattern as to why some days are worse than others... I mean from what I gather it is an anxiety response, but I don't feel like I have anything in particular I am anxious about.

Does anyone else struggle with this type of thing, and if so, is it caused by anxiety or what? What do you do to get out of the thought loop?

I also fixate on thoughts of torture and such. I have pure O so don't use rituals (except as a kid I had a few rituals). The biggest help has been therapy, and in my case not the usual CBT, but psychodynamic with really just a warm and caring guy. The warmth and concern seems to be what helps relieve awful thoughts. I have been slow to figure out how to help myself in the same way he helps me, but I'm getting there.

Interesting - yeah I've tried a lot of CBT for various things and find that I can only get so far... Doesn't work much for this cause I already understand thatmy thoughts are faulty. I'll investigate psychodynamic therapy.

I would agree that warmth and concern does have a positive effect on the thoughts; usually ends up making me cry, but after that my mind seems to switch gears and release the thought(s)...for a while at any rate. Thanks!