Doubts and obsessive thinking

[AndyTheAnarchist]

So recently I have been obsessed over my thoughts in an extremely detrimental and completely self-destructive manner. This continual obsession has been a reacurring phenomenon that strikes at random times, that has nearly psychologically paralyzed me - wherein articulation becomes almost impossible due to an immediate withdrawal or a "blocked" mental feeling.

These irrational thoughts that perpetuate themselves on near autopilot, not only inhibit me from general thinking, but it both deteriorates my confidence in mindset, and serves as a blockade from further learning and self-knowledge. I can almost never be sure of anything, and reside into a paralyzed state of mind - inhabited by a constant reoccurring pattern of analyzing my thoughts as they perpatuate, while I'm left feeling miserable; drowning in irrational thoughts and unwanted obsession.

These can be one of many closely similar or related thoughts that induce such phenomena. Some of which are: Are these thoughts normal? What if I am wrong? What if my perception is far from conforming to reality or the truth? What if everything I'm choosing to learn is falsehood? Skepticism and doubts to a degree are healthy - but the degree to which I endlessly doubt is self-destructive. These thoughts can be correspondent to the ways in which I think of; either about Anarchy, perceptions of people, an abstract idea, or some other miscellaneous subject that isn't of my current recollection etc.. At one point I worried about Freedomain Radio being a cult because someone via YouTube said I was a cultist, and I did some minimal research and came to find there's an entire communities dedicated to "exposing" Stefan! *sigh*.. I had obsessed over that thought for a couple days until it slowly faded away, then I began my normal more so healthy thought process.

Freedomain Radio, anarchism, atheism, psychology, and peaceful parenting are all topics I have invested quite some time in, and am very keen of. So the thought of what I believe and what I've worked enormously hard at, are to be false in the end, is completely devastating to me, and thus obsessions and worrisome thoughts lurk around the corner. My world begins to fall apart, and I only wish for them to cease soon - so that I have some sense of confidence in my fundamental beliefs and thoughts, and can be comfortable in my own mind. It's like an attack on my mind; initiated by myself. self-sabotage, if you will.

 

These are some of the few topics that are easily articulated in the utterance that I can explicitly mention, but my thought processes after a duration of obsessive thinking, then subsequentally expands into a broader obsession into little inconsequential details existing in the abstract. I find it really difficult to conceptualize or elaborate on this, and this may not be the same for everyone - since I don't know what it's like to be inside another persons mind - but the contents of certain abstractions derived from thoughts just strike me to sometimes be weird. They're not really feelings, but just the contents within the abstract subjected to scrutiny. A thought related to that would be "Are thinking these normal?" etc.

 

Thanks for reading.

[Yeravos]

You have my sympathy, I experience this myself from time to time (though from your post, you seem to have it a lot worse than me on this front), and it's stressful, to put it mildly.

At one point I worried about Freedomain Radio being a cult because someone via YouTube said I was a cultist, and I did some minimal research and came to find there's an entire communities dedicated to "exposing" Stefan! *sigh*.. I had obsessed over that thought for a couple days until it slowly faded away, then I began my normal more so healthy thought process.
 

I have had the same thought a few times actually. I am curious, these doubts, after they recede, do they come back? Or are those doubts ''spent'' so to speak?

[cynicist]

I have had this from time to time in the past, but not really anymore after FDR. It's certainly understandable when almost everything here is counter to what almost everyone in society believes that you would have doubts about whether it is true or not. I mean the idea that some random Canadian on Youtube knows THE TRUTH and most of society is irrational is funny in a dark kind of way.

 

I think the doubts and skepticism are rational, I mean you have to plunge into this world every day when you interact with everyone else. What helped me a lot was whenever I became worried I would just remind myself to go back to the basics, which is, how do I know what is true? Logic and empiricism (evidence of the senses). So the next question becomes, is what Stefan saying logically consistent and does it match my experience in reality? 

 

I used to ignore it like you did when I was first starting to read the material here, but the whole point of this conversation is not to accept things without testing their validity. Once I really understood that and changed my approach to absorbing new information (by first running it through the filter of logical consistency and empiricism) I didn't have to fear doubt because I wasn't placing my trust in conclusions (like atheism or anarchism) but in a methodology. After doing that you feel a sense of stability and trust in your own mind, since being wrong is ok when you aren't attached to conclusions, and you have a guaranteed way of correcting your false beliefs. 

 

I'd recommend watching Stefan's Introduction to Philosophy series and critically looking at everything he is saying. Get the principles down and you won't need to be afraid of being wrong anymore, in fact you will welcome correction because it only proves how effective the tools of reason and empiricism are in the discovery of truth.

[dsayers]

the thought of what I believe and what I've worked enormously hard at, are to be false in the end, is completely devastating to me, and thus obsessions and worrisome thoughts lurk around the corner.

 

It breaks my heart to read this. My whole life, I've felt as if the world was telling me I didn't belong. Once I discovered philosophy and began working towards self-knowledge, it turned out that the reason was that at my core, I understood that the propaganda was just that. As such, to learn so much of the world that was handed to me was false was immensely liberating.

 

I wanted to ask you about your mention of working enormously hard at. Looking back, I've noticed that pretty much any conclusion that was just handed to me as a child without any proof or encouragement for examination was false. I'm not trying to project my experience onto you, but is it possible that what you credit yourself as working hard at was in fact somebody else just inflicting it upon you? I ask this because whether this is the case or not, if you're not taught to think and especially if you're punished for doing so, you cannot possibly hold yourself responsible for believing falsehoods. AND because if it was inflicted upon you, you need to credit them for that, including being angry that you were caged for no reason other than to suit the desires of others.

 

Other than that, what do you mean by obsessions and worrisome thoughts? The anxiety that I experienced was knowing that now that I understood the truth, I am now responsible for my actions and decisions. Is that the kind of thing you mean? Or do you mean thinking you might not be able to see the truth through the lies while now realizing there is in fact a cloud of lies trying to block the truth? I personally didn't have that one. Once I thought of things in terms of ownership, it seemed as if so many things became simpler to work with. Then I realize that the abuse of my past has me seeking out simplistic answers, so I wonder if I'm settling for an "easy" out.

 

I don't view this as debilitating though. It's an opportunity. An opportunity for me to get to know myself for the first time, which is exciting. I hope you're able to find this as well. The uncertainty means you're being honest with yourself AND that you grasp the gravity of getting things like dealing with complex social issues wrong. If our so-called leaders had that level of humility, we'd be a whole lot safer as a species.

[Lians]

These irrational thoughts that perpetuate themselves on near autopilot, not only inhibit me from general thinking, but it both deteriorates my confidence in mindset, and serves as a blockade from further learning and self-knowledge. I can almost never be sure of anything, and reside into a paralyzed state of mind - inhabited by a constant reoccurring pattern of analyzing my thoughts as they perpatuate, while I'm left feeling miserable; drowning in irrational thoughts and unwanted obsession.

 

A core part of working on self-knowledge is not ignoring "irrational thoughts" but confronting and cross-examining them. Armed with philosophy and Socratic questioning, you can try to engage these thoughts in a conversation. See for yourself if they're irrational and look for their origin. The form of this conversation, whether writing, talking out loud, meditating or something else, depends on what works for you.

[Barry_diller]

Do you 100 % trust some other human being? Can you without intense fear lay your life in some other hands, like if someone was behind you, and you let yourself fall and if that person didn't catch you, you will fall into your death

Would you be able to do that with any person?

 

I got curious about that stefan revealed site you talk about and I can see alot of "what the hell" claims but not yet any evidence, they just "vanish" before anyone can hear or read them, and the articles I have read has no sources, If you have doubt you should visit the site and read it through

 

the person running the site seems to be very frightened by the fact that you can choose to abandon your parents, and it's also coupled with some religion. There is alot of personal benefit to try to hurt Stefan's reputation as much as possible

[AndyTheAnarchist]

Do you 100 % trust some other human being? Can you without intense fear lay your life in some other hands, like if someone was behind you, and you let yourself fall and if that person didn't catch you, you will fall into your deathWould you be able to do that with any person?I got curious about that stefan revealed site you talk about and I can see alot of "what the hell" claims but not yet any evidence, they just "vanish" before anyone can hear or read them, and the articles I have read has no sources, If you have doubt you should visit the site and read it throughthe person running the site seems to be very frightened by the fact that you can choose to abandon your parents, and it's also coupled with some religion. There is alot of personal benefit to try to hurt Stefan's reputation as much as possible

In regards to those questions, I can trust someone 100% - even in the case of a death fall dilemma. Leaving details aside, I'll let that answer becomes yours to read, since you're probably trying to convey a meaningful answer from asking those.

 

Also, I went on Stefan Molyneux's revealed websites like you suggested, and I was scared in the beginning, but after a while reading what they had to say, I just had an immediate distaste to everything on the site, since I didn't find a shred of evidence corollary to their claims about Stefan. (If they did, it was really weak, and didn't effect me much) .. It then didn't become as threatening or scary to me, but rather just lame.

 

I see they have a problem with Stefan's coined term "Defooing." which is of no surprise. Departing from old abusive friends, and disbanding from abusive family is fully acceptable, and I encourage it for the well-being of oneself, but it seems that these people think Stefan is some guy trying to fuck up peoples lives or something. Which is counter to what he's ever said. I fully acknowledge Stefan is fallible, and I have seen him admit to his faults in a humble manner. I don't think cult leaders do that, but I'm sure they can scramble up some peculiar reason to think otherwise.

I have had this from time to time in the past, but not really anymore after FDR. It's certainly understandable when almost everything here is counter to what almost everyone in society believes that you would have doubts about whether it is true or not. I mean the idea that some random Canadian on Youtube knows THE TRUTH and most of society is irrational is funny in a dark kind of way.

 

I think the doubts and skepticism are rational, I mean you have to plunge into this world every day when you interact with everyone else. What helped me a lot was whenever I became worried I would just remind myself to go back to the basics, which is, how do I know what is true? Logic and empiricism (evidence of the senses). So the next question becomes, is what Stefan saying logically consistent and does it match my experience in reality? 

 

I used to ignore it like you did when I was first starting to read the material here, but the whole point of this conversation is not to accept things without testing their validity. Once I really understood that and changed my approach to absorbing new information (by first running it through the filter of logical consistency and empiricism) I didn't have to fear doubt because I wasn't placing my trust in conclusions (like atheism or anarchism) but in a methodology. After doing that you feel a sense of stability and trust in your own mind, since being wrong is ok when you aren't attached to conclusions, and you have a guaranteed way of correcting your false beliefs.

Very well said. This actually helped me a lot, and I have applied the same approach when these thoughts arise. Always going back to the basics; logical consistency and empiricism. But yes, I think from reading this, and the other comments below, that It is wrong of me to consider all these thoughts to be irrational. But rather, that they are rational, have a causal root that is worth exploring, and are there for a particular reason. Given the examples you said - of which are by the way a few thoughts I get - which is that this random Canadian on Youtube knows the truth which happens to be counter to everything society generally says is false. It's a stressful burden to carry, although I feel a sense of solidarity that I'm not alone in feeling that way about those thoughts. I am not afraid to be wrong, will always bow to reason and evidence, and will not adhere to anything that says otherwise.

[cynicist]

Very well said. This actually helped me a lot, and I have applied the same approach when these thoughts arise. Always going back to the basics; logical consistency and empiricism. But yes, I think from reading this, and the other comments below, that It is wrong of me to consider all these thoughts to be irrational. But rather, that they are rational, have a causal root that is worth exploring, and are there for a particular reason. Given the examples you said - of which are by the way a few thoughts I get - which is that this random Canadian on Youtube knows the truth which happens to be counter to everything society generally says is false. 

 

I'm glad it was meaningful. Another thing to consider is that whenever Stef opens his mouth he has hundreds of people like you and me who are intelligent, critical, and naturally cautious when hearing others make broad statements about important things like truth or morality. I feel quite secure knowing that if I miss some logical inconsistency or don't have particular expertise in what he happens to be talking about in the moment there is likely someone on the boards who will catch it and bring it up. 

 

I even nitpick'd Stefan about the NSA-key thing in Microsoft Windows, about how it doesn't actually have anything to do with the NSA and how even if it did theoretically the security implications are basically nonexistent, since I happen to have some knowledge of computer security and had an inclination in the past to look into that issue. I wouldn't be surprised if Stefan constantly received e-mails from listeners who are experienced doctors/lawyers or whatever, and he just makes corrections on his videos if they invalidate his point rather than if he gets a minor detail wrong.

 

If he made a major error on something I don't doubt there would be a topic on the boards immediately.

 

 

It's a stressful burden to carry, although I feel a sense of solidarity that I'm not alone in feeling that way about those thoughts. 

 

I'm with you brother. The next step I'd like to achieve is getting like minded people around me to help me when I stumble, though I think that is a greater challenge than even understanding this stuff in the first place.