Magical Thinking Story #335
Question:
Lain wrote:
> Just for a little bit of fun, I have written about a magical thinking > situation I had as a child, which at the time was a life / death > situation, but now I laugh about it. That’s an interesting story and I’m sure everybody with and without OCD has stories like that. I have often wondered about the way children think and how it is dealt with by themselves and/or their care-givers and its relation to OCD. I know for me personally, anytime I had thoughts that upset me or was in situations that upset me, my parents and other care-givers would either just change the subject, take me out of the environment where something was upsetting me, avoid the topic, etc… As I’ve learned more about OCD and how avoiding ones fears and having others essentially help you avoid those fears (enablers) can make OCD worse, I wonder how this related to my childhood. A couple of weekends ago I went to the Natural History Museum here in London. It has this wonderful dinosaur exhibit with the grande finale being a huge, moving, snorting, growling T-rex celebrating her fresh kill. I watched it go through it’s cycle a few times (I really liked it) but then I decided to watch children watching it and how their parents reacted to their children. Some children ‘got it’ straight away that it was not real but just a show and loved it. Other children were not so sure but as their parents explained that it was ‘like a puppet’ and pointed out other children and adults not being afraid (or eaten), the children understood and started to enjoy the show. But there was one poor kid who started crying and hiding behind his father’s legs and the mother just swooped up the boy and whisked him off ‘to safety’. I followed them cos I wanted to see if they were going to calm the boy down and take him back. No, they headed straight for the food bar to buy an ice cream for the kid to make him stop crying. Ever since I’ve been wondering about what that little boy has been thinking. What associations has he made? Has he learned that fear must be avoided? Will he feel like he always needs someone to protect him and help him avoid his fears? Will he always reach for an ice cream when he gets nervous? etc… I obviously will never know. I know, in the past, my life had been full of people helping me avoid things that upset or frighten me. I really wish I was just taught to face the ‘bad’ things in life, taught that they are a part of life and taught ways of dealing with them. But it didn’t happen like that, I had to get help and teach myself.
Response:
Nancy A wrote: > I enjoyed your magical thinking tale very much. It is interesting enough > it could be turned into a children’s story.
I agree. I have a couple of friends that got rich writing music for children (and they weren’t even trying)! They’re the ones that got nominated for a Grammy this past year. See "Lost potential" thread from a few months back. McWeird
Response:
Just for a little bit of fun, I have written about a magical thinking situation I had as a child, which at the time was a life / death situation, but now I laugh about it. We lived on the 7th floor of a 10 story building, in Europe (I’ll keep Xganon guessing). One day I was observing a grain of sand that I found in my shoe, then I dropped it. Remembering a TV show I saw earlier about Volcanos and how they start from rocks (children logic), I though, Oh my god! there goes the neighbourhood, I’ve lost a stone that will start a volcano that will eventually destroy where I live and all of my relatives will be very angry with me for starting a volcano that destroyed our flat! I searched frantically everywhere to find this deadly "volcano seed" (grain of sand really). In the end it took my mother & grandmother quite a while to convience me that volcanos do not start from grains of sand on the 7th floor of a city building in a country where there were no volcanos. Lain
Response:
I enjoyed your magical thinking tale very much. It is interesting enough it could be turned into a children’s story. Nancy "Lain" <l…@notreal.com> wrote in message
news:6umi9.23876$Ee4.72918@news-server.bigpond.net.au… – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Just for a little bit of fun, I have written about a magical thinking > situation I had as a child, which at the time was a life / death situation, > but now I laugh about it. > We lived on the 7th floor of a 10 story building, in Europe (I’ll keep > Xganon guessing). One day I was observing a grain of sand that I found in my > shoe, then I dropped it. Remembering a TV show I saw earlier about Volcanos > and how they start from rocks (children logic), I though, Oh my god! there > goes the neighbourhood, I’ve lost a stone that will start a volcano that > will eventually destroy where I live and all of my relatives will be very > angry with me for starting a volcano that destroyed our flat! I searched > frantically everywhere to find this deadly "volcano seed" (grain of sand > really). In the end it took my mother & grandmother quite a while to > convience me that volcanos do not start from grains of sand on the 7th floor > of a city building in a country where there were no volcanos. > Lain
