How do you combat bad thoughts?

1. I start cleaning, doing laundry, cooking, reorganizing.
2. Music helps to dig in and break the spell.
3. I make a list of what bugs and also what is good and I start to weigh stuff and remind myself I’m truly fortunate. *This only works if you really have more bad than good otherwise you might discover you’re being duped in some way.

Listen to music, watch a movie, or go buy something. I know the last one sounds nuts, but trust me, I just bought some comics and a new CD earlier and I’ve been feeling marginally better than I have been for a while.

With a judo chop, yeah! Sorry can’t resist. : )

I actually think of some love ones that still need my help. That revs me up knowing there is still a point to my existence. I also think life is too short anyway so why not participate and see this experiment all the way through. Curiosity I guess. Yeah.

And one more. I try to look for and pay attention to things that I’ll be at awe at. There are so many cool stuff and stories out there worth exploring, knowing. If that doesn’t work then….I judo chop it! Chh-chop!! : )

Edit to above: “This only works if you really have more good than bad…”

Cleaning seems to help me a bit.. I am a huge slob and cleaning my room helps pull me out of a slump. I hate cleaning but love it when I am done. And you have a lovely little girl. Suck it up to make her life better. Once she moves out we can worry about you:-)

I can share the experience of growing up as a young girl without my father because he committed suicide if you like… of feeling like I don’t really know who I am because half of those who made me are gone and I can’t get them back… of going to bed every night with the image of how he died in my head (and no, I was lucky enough not to be the one that found him, but the imagination is a vivid and amazing thing)... of the sad feelings on my wedding day… should I go on?

I’m really sorry you’ve had a rough year. Is there help you could seek? Find it, take it, and please live.

I find that reprogramming my thoughts with positive ones instead helps me. I also find that it helps when I give myself permission to do this instead of waiting for permission to do this.

You have the capability to tell the negative voices in your head to shut up and leave you alone. Tell them they’re not allowed to kill your spirit. Tell them they don’t know what they’re talking about. Tell them you know you and you know you deserve to be happy and you deserve to be healthy, including emotionally. You deserve to be treated with respect and you deserve to treat yourself with respect. You deserve to be you. You CAN be you and you CAN succeed, whether those voices in your head like it or not.

Whatever you do, shut those voices up. They are lying to you. You are not helpless. You don’t have to listen to them. You don’t have to take a word they say seriously. You don’t have to let them paralyse you. You don’t have to let them take away your power. You can expose them for the liars that they are. You can chase them away. You just have to believe it… and do it.

First of all I think “no, this is wrong, I probably shouldn’t have thought that”. Then I turn up my music and curl up with a good book.

Punching bag and video games.

Oh yeah, moshing helps. Not the karate shit scenecore posers do, but the classic circle pit.

Get engaged in anything to take your mind off it. Mostly physical activities so that your mind and body have to keep your mind busy. A walk, bike ride, etc.
You can also sit down and try to plan a path out of whatever the issues are. They won’t go away by themselves, so you need to put a plan and start to act on it.

I don’t really, I just think them out and then move on to something else.

I consider upping my meds.

At some point for me it just feels like too much and I entertain them.

@King_Pariah that is the same with me. When a pink elephant enters the room sometimes you can’t help but wonder if it will stand on its hind legs and dance.
I consider it the curse of the artist but that could be what I tell myself to keep going.