I am harassed all day and night by voices and images of people. Sometimes these voice-image combinations are so grating it’s practically torture, and sometimes they’re more tolerable, but regardless, most of the time it’s truly miserable being harassed.
As a result, I end up complaining to the voices about their cruelty to me, because I’m so upset at them. While it feels good to vent, this also consumes my attention and time and puts me in a negative place. I’d rather not get caught up in this.
Anyone have strategies or advice for dealing positively with voices that upset you or voices that inflict great suffering on you? Or just general advice about responding positively to people who upset you?
I imagine a volume dial. I reach my hand out, and turn the volume up, then turn it down as low as it will go. Usually, that makes them quiet enough to drown out with music or audiobooks.
Sometimes I get fed up with all the constant harassment and out of my mouth comes this sarcastic “yeah, uh-huh, sure, right, right.”
Then I go back to focusing on all the pretty shiny metal wing nuts laying all around the garage in odd places…
Oh look, something shiny!
When you have intrusive images, replace them with the image of a road block. A big yellow and black road block with a big red stop sign in the middle that says “thought blocked”.
Keep focused on it. Look at the colours, study the shapes. And breathe deeply.