Generalising/personalising

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It takes all day or a few days to do that though. Basically they come and go on their own.

I've been googling it and apparently this is normal with SA or GAD. I have social anxiety so it's "normal" to have intrusive thoughts about societal type things.

One of the recommendations says to acknowledge it as what it is - an intrustive thought not an objective reality - then move on, not trying to shift it too hard from the head and suppress it but not giving it any credence either.

I'm not sure if that works or not.

One thing which has been helping the last 6 months is being incredibly careful about what media esp social media I take in. But (as someone who doesn't work for medical reasons) it can be very hard to avoid comments like 'people who don't work are workshy/useless'.

Since I started doing this, I've been a lot less stressed.

I tend to avoid horror because my mind has a habit of getting stuck on a scene and replaying it when I see something tangentially related that reminds me of it. The only horror I can stomach is if it has some comedy and it doesn't get too gruesome, otherwise it can takes weeks to get over. When people ask me if I like horror, I usually reply "nah, I prefer sleep thanks".

When I have reoccurring nightmares, it's usually about the third nightmare where I say enough is enough and I am able to take control of my dreams again, in the first two I am too shocked. Lucid dreaming comes easily to me unless something particularly shocking happens.

Me and my dad have that reaction with different media to each other. My dad's favourite genre is true crime & horror works like it does with you. For me, I like supernatural horrors (it's like an adrenalin rush which doesn't latch onto real life fears and gives my anxiety a safe place to 'go') but I hate true crime for the same reason you two hate horror.

(My dad's schizophrenic so it's not anxiety with him but paranoia but it's still mental illness related negative emotions).

I think it's all about figuring out what sets it off and avoiding that for yourself.

I'm going to try that technique of reminding myself it's not real, since I know it works for you & some people, then.

Good.
You don't have to take ownership of every thought that comes your way,

I also hid my mistakes as well because everyone assumed I did things on purpose. But I always got caught anyway and me being in trouble just made me lie even more because they always proved to me, have an accident, you are in trouble so being honest about it or lying about it didn't matter. I was in a kafka trap in my own perspective.

Looking back I realize I was only in trouble for my behavior, not for the accident. If I had been following the rules, obeying, this wouldn't have happened and this is what I was in trouble for, not for the accident. But I just simply didn't understand then what I was in trouble for. I also understand now that being honest about your actions does not exempt you from a consequence but honesty may make your consequence be less severe. Lying makes it more severe. But I didn't understand this as a child.

I have to remember I was not a "normal" child. Just because this was me as a kid doesn't mean my kids will be this way.

I also thought I was a bad kid, bad kids always get into trouble.

My stepdad told me 'just because it's an accident doesn't mean it's not your fault' and 'well who's fault is it then if it's not yours?'

He was simply being literal but it annoyed me so much.

Also, not a 'who', a 'what'. It was dyspraxia's fault I spilt things.

Yeah, I get that in a sense. I remember being told about this art piece for a community event a group of kids made as a school project. Everyone was saying how cute it was, but one question kept bugging me - did the children actually want to make it? People were gushing about how much the kids clearly cared so much, but it was difficult for me to not assume that it was the teacher's idea and that the children just made it because that's what they were supposed to do. I couldn't bring myself to pretend that I found it cute, instead I was disinterested in the work and sad at the thought of the kids potentially being dragged into the project; it came across as insincere. When I met the teacher, I had to stop myself from blurting out such questions or saying "yeah, I bet they do" sarcastically when told that the children care about the event so much. I do have a habit of assuming that most kids are miserable and anxious. Sometimes I have to remind myself that maybe some of them genuinely care and like school.

My guarded cynicism can mean that it can be difficult for me to show happiness when parents or teachers tell me about minor events or achievements. Such as "My daughter / son got a good personality description on their report!" and I have to stop myself from going into a conversation about how reports can just be mass produced cut and paste garbage most of the time and that this tells me nothing. I remember getting a report and they never proof-read the thing because it kept changing names mid-paragraph and the feedback about me being cheerful was pretty funny because I was very much the brooding teen.

I find it pretty difficult to act impressed or happy if I'm not. Especially if I'm socially exhausted. I remember my mum wanting to buy a piece of art she liked and the artist was stood next to us. Now, I knew I shouldn't be too rude about it, but my first thought was 'alright, it's an enhanced photo, is this really art? I could easily make a dozen of these but I wouldn't charge so much, where's the emotion in this? Sure, I could imagine myself in the scenery but everything is so calculated and lacks livelihood or any sort of character, the composition is so dull' and when asked by my mum about it I said it was alright (which the artist understandably grimaced at). The issue is, if I do try to be enthusiastic and I don't actually mean it then it just sounds sarcastic. Nodding can be a work around but it only works to a certain extent.

Learning to let go and to stop judging everyone's childhood based on mine is an ongoing process. I've still got a long way to go with that.

I don't subscribe to left-wing 'logic'.

To me, this suggests a no-fault situation.
Getting pregnant, on the other hand, may suggest culpability because of the choice of sexual activity.

Diving a car, however, is usually a necessary part of modern life, where shite happens without fault, all things being equal.

A rather deceptively complicated concept.

How is that left wing?

You do know what a kafka trap is right? It means you were guilty either way so either step I would have chose, I was still in trouble either way. This was a kafka trap. This has nothing to do with right wing or left wing.