Sometimes when I hear of cruelty, especially towards animals, it sticks in my head and I think back on it. The most recent one is the story of the kitten which was found (alive) in a trash bag. That’s fortunate but the fact that one was found there underscored that this is the way some people would get rid of an unwanted kitten and that this must happen in other cases where the animal is not found. I don’t need to go on about the other ways in which people can be cruel to animals and people.
I can stop cases which occur in my presence but I do wish I could stop myself from thinking about cases I can’t do anything about. Thinking about that doesn’t alleviate suffering, it just spoils my day. The tactic of “Just try to think of something else” has had mixed results. Any tips on how to stop painful/depressing thoughts?
Sometimes thoughts like those are a symptom of depression or anxiety. So that could be helped with medication and therapy, exercise, meditation, or whatever. If that doesn’t apply and you’re just sensitive and more prone to noticing/being bothered by the injustices of life, then I don’t know, but maybe get more sleep, eat healthily, exercise, meditate, do yoga, volunteer- anything you can do to learn to be happy in the moment without worrying/stressing so much.
It takes a little work but you can just think about something else when unwanted thoughts start bouncing around in your head. I’m working on doing this with some ways I used to think that would increase my depression.
Plan what you’re going to think about and use the same thing as much as possible. Eventually it will be almost automatic. When trying to think about my planned thoughts isn’t enough I do math problems in my head like count back from 200 by 7’s. When a problem gets too easy I’ll switch to something else. It’s probably like meditation.
I actually say “quit it” to myself (in my head) and then change the topic of my thoughts.
I have an entire category of bookmarks titled “Cheer Up”. Mostly it’s youtube videos, and silly ones at that. Forbidden X-box commercial, Guinness commercials, funny cats, Viking kittens, and the sort. I start there. Then I hit the heartwarming ones like Where The Hell Is Matt?.
It’s simply a matter of knowing when to look at the big picture and when to look at the little picture. Sure animal cruelty is horrible, but it occurs in nature too. At any given moment thousands of innocent animals starve because of natural things, they get burnt to death by forest fires started by lightning and die horribly due to nature.
Bad things happy, you’re simply seeing everything as all or nothing. Take when you say, It ruins my day. So in other words one thought can spoil a day? It the all or nothing mentality you need to stop.
Learn to say, “I am having a good day, I had a bad thought, but that doesn’t mean the rest of my day can’t be good.”
I agree with you that stories about pointless cruelty can be very disturbing. Another thing that might help would be to try to use those thoughts in a positive way. By that I mean, use them as motivation to try to do something kind for some other person or creature out there. Even though we can’t stop all the world’s evil, we can try to counteract it at least.
I think Phouka has good advice. When I’m feeling disheartened in the way you describe, I’ll look for stories of people doing good things. It helps to restore my faith in humanity. It doesn’t make the bad stuff go away, but it does help.
I’ll also look for comedy. Or take a walk and force myself to notice my surroundings.
It can be difficult to let these kind of thoughts go and sometimes we need help, either with medication or therapy, but there are ways to make it easier.
Good Luck. I hope you feel better. Get some help if you need to.
I feel the same way you do and have been tormented by this kind of thing my entire life. I studiously avoid reading any disturbing stories in the newspaper or on the ‘net - my eyes are trained to skim the headline and pick out key words that alert me to keep movin’. When animal cruelty stories come up on the evening news, I dive for the remote control as if my life depended on it. (Gads - when I was in my 20’s I heard such a horrifying case I was obsessed with it, it was in my head 24/7, and I actually looked up the names of the nearest psychiatrists near me.) But - like anything else, give it time and it will fade a little, day by day. It will be in the background of your mind forever, and you will touch on it gingerly and back off, but it won’t be so very painful, with the passage of time. I feel for you!
Seconding Alice the Goon’s suggestion of meditation. I can’t comment on all types of depression and/or your personality type but I think the thing where you get stuck on something negative that you have no control over is where meditation helped me. Also want to point out, just in case, that meditation doesn’t have to imply any kind of belief system or that you have to get all new agey of any of that stuff. It’s a technique and it might help.
As for me, the best thing I ever learned in dealing with unwanted negative thoughts was giving myself only a limited amount if time to deal with them. Say, I’ll only think about animal cruelty for five minutes then I must change the subject. If it crops up again, I’ll tell myself I’ve already used my allotted amount of time for the day, so it’ll have to wait until tomorrow.
I would agree you need to learn to put things in perspective.
Sure, you can dwell on the story of the kitten, or look at the big picture of kids starving while you throw away food that expired in your freezer.
A more positive reaction would be to do something. If nothing else, as you are obviously a pet lover, send $5.00 to your local no-kill shelter and think of the little bit of good you did.
It is easy to say get away from the dark thoughts, but that is not easy for everyone to do.
Think of it this way - you can go to a cemetery and see the graves of thousands of people and get depressed, thinking about their death.
Or you can think about the thousands of glorious lives and all the wonderful memories they had of the wonderful things they did while they were alive - and you can get the hell out of the cemetery and start leading your own glorious life doing good things.
Instead of keeping negative thoughts out of your head, can you recall/recapture your “peak” moments?
That is what I would like to be able to do…those times when everything is going right, the future is full of promise, and the world is your oyster!
Can you do this under hypnosis?
Here’s something that I heard last week that might help. When these things pop up, just say to yourself “The fruit of negative feelings is endless ignorance and suffering. To remember this is to cultivate the opposite.”
The person that told me that claims that it makes her feel instantly better. I can’t attest to its usefulness, as I haven’t been stuck in any negative loops since then, but it’s in my toolbox to try out.
The way to get depressing or painful thoughts out of your head is actually pretty simple:
Never Do Anything.
Never Meet Anyone.
Never Go Anywhere.
Admittedly, it is not perfect. You will be plagued with depressing thoughts about never doing anything, meeting anyone, or going anywhere. But in my experience of life up to now, it is better than the alternative.
I used to have some pretty severe problems with getting stuck in mental loops. I’d think about something, process the thought, process its ramifications, slot it away in the appropriate memory file, and move on to the next thought - only to discover that it was exactly the same thought. It was like a car spinning its wheels furiously, but never getting anywhere. I could get stuck there for hours. Sometimes it’d spiral up into an anxiety attack, sometimes it’d just persist in the background and suck away half my IQ as I struggled to get on with my day. Of course I never got stuck on pleasant thoughts, it was inevitably quite nasty.
In my case, the answer was/is medication. A mild antidepressant that’s also good against anxiety did wonders for me. At this point I can spot when the ‘cycling’ is getting bad and my dose needs to be adjusted. Life is SO much better now.
You’re the only one who can tell if your experience is pathological or not - most people do obsess on certain topics to some degree. If it’s getting in the way of your life, you might consider talking to a doctor or therapist. Alice the Goon’s suggestions are good. Meditation, therapy, and eating better all help me. Exercise is as powerful as drugs. Getting out in the world and interacting with people is also immensely valuable, particularly volunteering and sharing hobbies with people. The best trick I discovered for coping when I was in the middle of a spiral was to read a book with interesting, challenging material that was emotionally neutral. My favorite was an old textbook on cults. It made me focus and think, but didn’t add to my spirals in anyway. Eventually I’d get focused enough on the book and trying to dissect various bits of Rastafarian philosophy that it’d push the circling thoughts out of my head and I could move on.
Good luck. It’s not fun to deal with, but things like this usually go in stages. It can be improved.
There’s a type of therapy called Cognitive Behavior Therapy that’s designed specifically to help people whose thoughts get in a negative rut. It’s about learning to recognize when you’re dwelling on things pointlessly and directing your thoughts to more rational pursuit.
I’m not saying you need therapy, but you might want to read some of the popular books from CBT therapists like David Burns and Albert Ellis. I found Burns’ book, Feeling Good to be especially helpful.