intrusive thoughts...punishing myself through starvation and restriction

[overthinker]

i wud say what the intrusive thoughts are but they are shameful and have been written in other forums

anyways i have has a good few months without them or just being able to dismiss them as irrational intrusive thoughts now im stuck analysing them again analysing myself and the posibility of me responding to them

Also constantly seeing if i feel suicidal just so i know i dont want them i do feel suicidal about them

i look at my tutor and friends and family and i feel i have let them down as they think im such a nice girl

maybe im evil and deserve to die i dont know my fears are there is an afterlife and im going to have to explain myself to my passed away family members and god himself i feel they wont understand and i will go to hell

i dont know what i want but i wish it could be clarified that these are 100% intrusive thoughts so i can move on and not want to punish myself

iv lost lots of weight as starving myself is my way of punishment i have anorexia but recovered now iv relapsed and i know its because i feel low about myself and these thoughts therefore its a form of punishment

i just want to die !!

[Spy]

Hi Overthinker,

I know its hard to put these thoughts in perspective when they are racing around your head and there feels like there is no barrier between what you are thinking and what you are going to do. But they are just thoughts, and thinking them doesn't make you bad. It helps to write them down and then think of other more positive ones to replace them. Not eating well will have an impact on your ability to deal with these thoughts, if you can its really important to eat healthily and regularly....

I hope you are feeling better

Take care xx

[NoPoet]

Hi Overthinker, congratulations for living up to your user name

You say these thoughts are "shameful" - they may seem like this to you, but I'm willing to bet plenty of other people have them as well. The reason they cope with them and you struggle with them is because of the way you interpret them. Other people might view these thoughts with a shudder and then put them aside. You're so trapped in a cycle of worry that you cannot put the thoughts aside; you might feel like they are actually in control. You have no defence against them because you are tired and you are afraid of them.

You also seem to feel like you're somehow worth less than other people. Ask yourself this: what have you done to deserve being punished? Are you a major war criminal? Do you deliberately destroy the lives of everyone around you like some soap character? Do you heck. You're an ordinary, decent person who has made a mature decision to ask for help in order to get herself back on track.

What's going wrong is that you have a negative perspective with no evidence to back up those negative opinions. You look at your suffering as punishment, that God has turned his back on you. Believe me, you are not alone in this, and I suffered that way for years before coming to terms with it and being able to accept that I am not damned and I am not being punished at all.

You know what? If you believe in God and hell etc, you must also believe in redemption, because that is what God is all about. In man's law and God's law, nobody is guilty until proven. I think you're searching for that proof and you're coming up with nothing significant. So you just generally berate yourself, because that's how anxiety and low self esteem work. So you're anxious and have no confidence in yourself; you're not the victim of anything, you aren't guilty of anything, unless being human is a crime.

You should look on this experience not as a test or a punishment, but as an opportunity to improve yourself by changing the way you think and therefore feel about yourself. Your feelings are controlled by your thoughts and interpretations. So look at yourself NOT as someone who is condemned, but who has her whole life ahead of her and has a new purpose for that life: to improve the way you see yourself, to learn through experience and positive affirmation that you are a GOOD person and you will be ok, that when, many decades from now, you meet up with relatives who went before you, you'll be able to greet them with joy and gladness that your life was well spent.