DAE have daily cringe attacks like I do?

[Anonymous]

For some reason now that I’m not always on the go after raising kids etc I have what I can only call “cringe attacks” based on looking it up. I originally thought they were just ‘intrusive thoughts’

Like remembering you once sent some stupid all-office email and your coworker approached and whispered “did you mean to do that?”

Or saying something wildly offensive to someone in a group without your knowing what you just did?

Just remembering so much longer, with clarity, even though you brushed it off at the time, that you were the one in the situation that was in the wrong. I have these all the time, and there are like 80 of them, sometimes new ones every day depending on what jogs my memory at any given moment. I have so many.

[Anonymous]

It's called anxiety. Are you a woman in perimenopause? It could be induced by hormonal fluctuations.

I've been an anxiety sufferer all my life, and the cringe attacks were particularly intense when I was a teenager. But now in perimenopause, my anxiety has come back again in the form of panic attacks and insomnia. It's bad. I tried anxiety meds and they made it worse, so I prioritize my sleep (which means sleeping in), go for daily walks, listen to calming music, employ self talk to reason myself out of the worst of it, etc...

[Anonymous]

What??? Whhhhaaaattt????

[Anonymous]

I’m so sorry. I get these, too, but not regularly. Sometimes I just have to talk myself out of it. I struggle with them when trying to go to sleep.

[Anonymous]

YUP. fact, I often inadvertently yelp or cuss when I think of them. Good thing it only really happens when I’m alone (frequently in my car). I feel like labeling them out loud “SHAME THOUGHT” helps to reduce them… but they definitely happen.

Brains are funny.

[Anonymous]

Yes I get them.

[Anonymous]

Yes, all my life! I’m told it’s helpful to try t remember that nobody other than yourself cares about these supposed missteps. But even knowing that I cannot shake the intrusive thoughts. And yes I totally have been known to physically react (grimace, sigh, whatever, at the moment I’m having the shameful thought). It’s really a lot! Following for advice on how to get rid of them (other than the unhelpful advice that I’m self centered and nobody else is thinking about me!).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m so sorry. I get these, too, but not regularly. Sometimes I just have to talk myself out of it. I struggle with them when trying to go to sleep.

This, I get them at night when everyone else is asleep. Usually I just try to distract myself until I fall asleep. Like I'll listen to a podcast while playing a game on my phone so there's no room for the weird shame thought until I just pass out.

I have found that if I have them during the day, it's not as intense and I can usually reason my way out of it, but if I have one at 2am the game will be really intense for some reason.

[Anonymous]

^ shame not game

[Anonymous]

I think having these types of thought once in awhile is fairly normal. It's like someone (maybe not intentionally) reminding you of something stupid that you did years ago or some type of personal failure.

It's not a good feeling and you just have to let the feeling go through you and get on with your day. But what you are experiencing seems much more severe. Just remember that nobody remembers these incidents except you. And just like you, everyone is more focused on what they are doing, not someone else. Don't be so tough on yourself.

[Anonymous]

It’s a species of OCD. If this is happening to you multiple times a day: you don’t have to live like this. Treatment works.

[Anonymous]

I think of it another way, as a good thing.
To me the daily replay of something from 5 or 35 years ago just means that my brain isn’t fighting for survival and it’s using its excess processing capacity to clean up old files.

If I were facing disaster my brain wouldn’t bother showing me film from that time in HS when I unzipped in a bright room while everyone outside in the dark could see me.

Your basic needs are being met, your brain has room and bandwidth to repair corrupted file, it’s not a disorder that needs a name.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, all my life! I’m told it’s helpful to try t remember that nobody other than yourself cares about these supposed missteps. But even knowing that I cannot shake the intrusive thoughts. And yes I totally have been known to physically react (grimace, sigh, whatever, at the moment I’m having the shameful thought). It’s really a lot! Following for advice on how to get rid of them (other than the unhelpful advice that I’m self centered and nobody else is thinking about me!).

I posted earlier. I find that explicitly out loud naming it - “HELLO SHAME THOUGHT” - helps somewhat. I am probably on the OCD spectrum and also have intrusive thoughts about bad things happening. I do the same with those - “HELLO DISASTER THOUGHT” - and it helps tremendously. Shame thoughts are harder to detach from, but I think it does still help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think of it another way, as a good thing.
To me the daily replay of something from 5 or 35 years ago just means that my brain isn’t fighting for survival and it’s using its excess processing capacity to clean up old files.

If I were facing disaster my brain wouldn’t bother showing me film from that time in HS when I unzipped in a bright room while everyone outside in the dark could see me.

Your basic needs are being met, your brain has room and bandwidth to repair corrupted file, it’s not a disorder that needs a name.

Hey, so.

I really felt giant relief at all the thoughts in this thread but this one resonated with me more ... when I'm faced with emergencies these things don't happen at all, but left alone with my thoughts they come back like ... "cleaning up old files" ... I don't think I'll forget that phrase

I'm somewhat glad to find out it's a little normal. Maybe like Ebenezer Scrooge getting re-introduced to all the stuff and regrets or other depictions of elderly people drifting back into their memories because they just have more of them and the time and space to entertain them.

Sometimes I also get reminded today in my mind that while things didn't seem wrong to me in the day, and I largely just kept going, now I look back and realize whether something was just a human mistake or if I really said something wrong. And I guess my mind just has the space to do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think of it another way, as a good thing.
To me the daily replay of something from 5 or 35 years ago just means that my brain isn’t fighting for survival and it’s using its excess processing capacity to clean up old files.

If I were facing disaster my brain wouldn’t bother showing me film from that time in HS when I unzipped in a bright room while everyone outside in the dark could see me.

Your basic needs are being met, your brain has room and bandwidth to repair corrupted file, it’s not a disorder that needs a name.

Hey, so.

I really felt giant relief at all the thoughts in this thread but this one resonated with me more ... when I'm faced with emergencies these things don't happen at all, but left alone with my thoughts they come back like ... "cleaning up old files" ... I don't think I'll forget that phrase

I'm somewhat glad to find out it's a little normal. Maybe like Ebenezer Scrooge getting re-introduced to all the stuff and regrets or other depictions of elderly people drifting back into their memories because they just have more of them and the time and space to entertain them.

Sometimes I also get reminded today in my mind that while things didn't seem wrong to me in the day, and I largely just kept going, now I look back and realize whether something was just a human mistake or if I really said something wrong. And I guess my mind just has the space to do that.

PP you replied to, when the cringe thoughts come on I acknowledged them and then direct my brain to something that really needs solving and most of the time that does it.

For the really stubborn ones I learned this amazing technique that completely overwrite the file and it will never come back again.

When you have your cringe thought think it through completely, then imagine the scene turns black and white but now it’s going to play in slow reverse, once you’ve gone back to the beginning of your memory you are going to fill the scene by adding cartoon characters, woody woodpecker, Bugs Bunny, Care Bears, whatever, now try and let the memory play out again but include your care bears and cartoon characters. The cringe memory loses all power, the file is over written and it will never bother you again.