Why Detaching From Somatic Obsessions Is So Damned Difficult

How to forget a damned somatic obsession?
A conscious awareness and control of blinking?
Of breathing?
Or other internally-defined and incessantly-noticed body states?

The longer you can take your focus away from it,
And onto something else,
The more chance you have of forgetting it,

BUT,
Why is it so hard?
Even for me, it’s impossible to reconcile having been caught up in something like that,
In brief times when I am fine,

The reason is,
It’s like telling somebody that if they just keep focusing on something else,
Whilst you punch them in the face,
Then, soon enough, they’ll not even notice it!

Even if you know that’s true,
And you’ve done it before,
The problem always is,
That it IS just like freshly asking somebody to forget the fact that they’re being punched in the face,
Such is the visceral, intrusive dread and alarm,
(But without the acute physical pain, obviously— I mean emotionally),

It’s like asking somebody to forget there’s a big spider in the corner,
Once they’ve already noticed it,
(And they have arachnophobia),
—It really is.

---

OH,
I’ve just remembered that I can try the juggling balls,
—I bought some the other day to help with exactly this,
And I’ve been using them every day.

I was surprised to see that I actually could focus on juggling, and forget about the obsessions. And I’m really happy with my improvement (with juggling). Because with everything else in the last 2 years the level of obsession/dissociation has simply been such that I cannot do anything which requires focus, and if I can then it’s not without stress. Even writing is often still a struggle. And it includes driving, it includes everything. Thankfully I hardly have to drive now.

In other good news, now that I’ve finished transforming my room into a self-contained flat/apartment/caravan, I have money spare to see an affordable, nearby therapist. I’ve contacted one and will be having a pre-chat with her tomorrow.

Mundane anxiety/worry alert
The council has just removed one of our waste bins, after giving us a waste food bin the other day. My housemates though can barely empty a bin, don’t recycle anything and generate a huge amount of waste (not my problem anymore), but it only just fit into the 2 wheelie bins we had. And the bins are outside my window which is always open. So… overflow would be a problem for me only, and it would build up indefinitely. And the horrors of them attempting to manage a communal food waste bin… do not bear thinking about 😏. So I won’t. At least I can discuss that too with the therapist, though :).

🌪