agh

[dragonlady7]

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tw intrusive thoughts! about knives! ugh please don’t click if that’s upsetting to you specifically!

This used to happen to me a lot at Farmsister’s house because she doesn’t own any sane-sized knives, just tiny paring knives OR HUGE BUTCHER KNIVES and nothing in between. I like to use, like, a 4-6″ chef’s knife to do my cutting of things. I generally don’t have trouble with it.

But after using Farmsister’s HUGE BUTCHER KNIVES I often have had problems where I just have vivid intrusive thoughts about what it would look like if I just. Chopped my thumb off at the knuckle, or whatever. It’s real vivid, the whole slice noise and the thunk of the heavy knife hitting the cutting board. 

Just know I cut up a bunch of vegetables with MM’s chef’s knife, which is reasonable, if rather longer than I prefer.

And now I’m sitting here thinking about what it would do to my hands! Argh! Why! I don’t like this.

I think it’s generally a symptom of not feeling super okay in my mind, to have these thoughts. (And, important note! This is not, like, self-harming thoughts! This is not something I want! There is no volition involved in this!) Because, like, you know, when you’re worried about your life choices and distressed about stuff that’s semi-within your control but mostly not, what you really need are distressingly vivid intrusive thoughts about what would happen if you carved yourself up, presumably by accident!

Comments

[heartofoshun]

Ugh! No fun to read. But I do understand the reaction. I occasionally have thoughts of that kind when doing slightly dangerous things. Not that I actually want to hurt myself (far from it!) or think it could all too easily happen (not likely when I am that self-aware) but I tend to think it represents a sense of life moving just a little too far and fast in a direction I cannot control. Not a happy place to be! Sign I am not really feeling OK or like I believe everything will be all right. If there was ever a circumstance that would fit that description, the situation we are in right now fits! I don't even think it is unhealthy just one's unconscious being very close to the conscious.

[szzzt]

Unwanted gory "what-if" thoughts are absolutely a barometer of my general brain weather (and sometimes the clearest sign I get that something is off-kilter today). Tends to go along with more anxiety than usual, as far as I can tell.

At least for me, it's comforting that I can contrast that with a normal day when I'm like "yep that would be bad!" but there's no vivid playthrough with extreme unpleasant feelings attached.

[krait]

Blegh! This sort of thought happens to me a lot around knives (and power tools), even though I quite like my knives and am generally amused at the Truly Large ones. It's just a thing, and I've kind of learned to embrace yet refute it as the voice of caution: "Oh, you're right, Krait's Brain, this could do a lot of damage if I didn't hold it correctly! Thanks for reminding me, though I'd rather you did it with some colourful text and maybe a buzzer noise instead of cutscenes from Criminal Minds..." :P

Brains, man. Who let them be in charge of stuff?