The More You Try to Control Your Thoughts, The Worse It Gets
“What if I made an embarrassing typo on the report? Everyone will think I’m incompetent.”
“I’ll mess this up, get fired, lose my reputation, and lose my house.”
“I didn’t turn off the lights before I left so there will be a short-circuit, the building will explode, and it’ll all be my fault.”
“I’m not smart enough for this, I’ve definitely lied to get here.”
“What if I said the wrong thing? I’ve offended people and I’ll be exposed as inadequate.”
We all have all sorts of thoughts run through our minds all the time - it’s what minds do. For some people, they’re just passing thoughts - thoughts that come and go, and that don’t mean anything in particular.
But since you’re here, it might not quite be like that for you.
For you, thoughts like the ones I listed (and many more examples, I could go on for pages upon pages) feel completely different - sticky, urgent, hard to let go of. Like there’s something you need to figure out, resolve, or make absolutely sure of.
And the more you try to get rid of them, or make sense of them, or get the right answer, the more they come back, again and again, in a loop. Your mind just won’t leave them alone.
You might feel some relief for a bit, sure - if you ask someone and they confirm everything’s ok, or if the internet says so, or if you triple-check - but it’s not enough, is it?
Before you know it, your mind’s bending itself backwards again to truly make sure.
But that feeling of certainty, it’s elusive - it’s here one moment, and gone the next.
When thoughts get “sticky”
There are a few ways we can make sense of why these “sticky” thoughts feel so different from other thoughts.
From a neuroscientific perspective, research suggests that some brains feature a loop that’s overly sensitive to errors or uncertainty. This means your brain sends out a kind of “something’s wrong” signal more often than it needs to. And the system that’s meant to resolve this doesn’t quite do its job - so you get the feeling of uncertainty or anxiety, which sticks around.
The efforts to resolve this in any way (the mental or behavioural checking, asking for reassurance etc.) bring some relief - which tells the brain these efforts are worthwhile, and strengthens the cycle over time.
Day by day, this can feel like your mind constantly flagging things that need sorting out, checking, or making sure of - and backing it up with the sense of (temporary) relief.
From a psychological, or cognitive-behavioural perspective, the way we understand things is similar, with one element that is crucially highlighted - meaning.
That is, the thoughts you’re experiencing feel so sticky because your mind attaches meaning to them.
Not turning off the light may not be a big deal in itself, if it wasn’t for what your mind thinks this means about you - that you’re irresponsible. Or messing a small detail up may not make or break anything, except that your mind spirals into catastrophe. Suddenly you’ve lost your job, your reputation, everything’s fallen apart.
This all tends to hit even harder if you’re someone who sets extremely high standards, or fears being seen as irresponsible, inadequate, incompetent, or even, “a failure”. The consequence of not resolving these intrusive thoughts feel too important to leave to chance. Letting the thoughts go doesn’t feel like an option.
Why trying to control your thoughts defeats the purpose
Let me just say that I completely get why controlling your thoughts is your instinct, and why you go with it. Leaving the explanations above to the side, we humans have evolved to, fundamentally, pay attention to our thoughts.
It’s part of how we’ve survived for long - our thoughts have helped us make sense of the world and communicate with each other.
But while this may have been mostly helpful when we were faced with life-and-death situations daily, our society has evolved - it’s just that our brains are lagging behind a little bit - and trying to be overly helpful. Like a concerned friend who crossed into nagging.
The trouble is, with these “sticky”, urgent thoughts, paying attention to them makes them feel even more relevant.
Your brain learns that, because you’re spending so much trying to do something about them - resolve them, prove them wrong, analyse them - they must matter.
Now here’s the bit you may be missing - you may have tried to actually get rid of these thoughts. Ignore them, distract yourself, replace them with more “positive thoughts” - but if I asked you, where is your attention when you’re doing all this? It’s still on the thoughts, isn’t it?
The counterintuitive thing that can actually help
The world is mostly built on the idea that if something isn’t quite how we’d want it to be - we do something about it. But with “sticky” thoughts, we now know that this only makes them more relevant - and therefore, keeps us more stuck.
I’ll also acknowledge that realising this can feel a bit scary, as it sort of takes away your illusion of control. Importantly, I say “illusion” - because it’s not actual control.
But because of this, perhaps it’s also a bit… freeing?
Let this sink in: You don’t need to spend hours agonising over these thoughts. In fact, that only makes them stronger.
Instead, here are the two main angles I’d approach this from:
Helping you in-the-moment:
Learning, first of all, to become aware of when the thoughts come up, and what your mind does when they do: Instead of engaging, learning to notice
Learning to allow the thoughts to be there, bit by bit
Learning how to disengage - and how to do this a way that isn’t actually disguised distraction: Acknowledging what your mind is doing, and then truly engaging with something more helpful, and doing so over and over again
Working at the level of meanings:
Discovering what meaning your mind attaches to the thoughts
Learning when the meaning shows up, how you respond to this, and changing your response into a more helpful one - with experiments that challenge you, but don’t overwhelm you
Bringing some self-compassion in the picture, in ways that feel supportive
If you’ve been battling your thoughts and still feel tormented by them, this is the exact thing I help people with in therapy.
You’re not broken, you may just need a bit of help to learn how to deal with your thoughts such that you don’t change who you are, but spend your time in ways that actually make your life richer.
You can read more about my approach to therapy for intrusive thoughts, and more, generally, about therapy for high-achievers.
I’m Carina - an experienced, yet very human BABCP-accredited CBT therapist specialising in working with high-achievers with low self-esteem, high-functioning anxiety, or OCD, including autistic and ADHD folks, as well as LGBTQIA+ folks.
I use evidence-based approaches - Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), but really from an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and mindfulness perspective - so if you’ve tried CBT before and haven’t really connected with it, I might be your person.
I offer a free, no-pressure, initial chat to see how we fit and if it would be helpful to work together - it would be great to meet you!
