#compulsive thinking

(note that this isn’t just my interpretation/ headcannon of what Kallus goes through, but my own experience with compulsive thinking and anxiety.) _______________ It was just supposed to be a briefing. An attack on Christophsis. A whole Rebel base slaughtered.

The security footage was shown. Too see how the imperials breached the base.

“You killed them. Murderer” Kallus heard over and over. “The rebellion hates you, you’ll never be forgiven.”

No one was speaking of course.

Just words that reminded him that he used to be one of those imperial agents storming the base.

Kallus excuses himself, trying to act casual. No one notices anything. Ezra waves bye.

He makes it to his and Zebs room, before he doubles over, retching. Knowing he won’t throw up. Kallus has’t eaten in days. “Killer. Monster.”

“I didn’t know, I was just trying to make the Galaxy better. They didn’t tell me about the disruptors.”

“You took credit for it. You still killed.”

“He was an enemy!”

“You would’ve killed your best friend.”

Kallus’s conversation with himself boiled down to accusations and rationalizations.

“What if they find out about the other stuff? They stuff you didn’t tell them. Your lying to your friends.”

Kallus makes sure the door is locked so no one can walk in as he dissolves into a shell of tears and hyperventilation. _______________

Kallus stays up at late as he can. Cleaning. Fixing his rifle. Volunteering for shifts. Staring at files and reviewing protocol.

Anything to keep his mind from dwelling on the thoughts. The permanent feeling that he’s gonna throw up.

As soon as Kallus rests-

“Murderer. Liar. Traitor.”

And when he woke up from the nightmares the first thought-

“What if you would’ve hurt them before you joined them? You could’ve killed Ezra.” ___________

The nightmares themselves were a reason not to sleep.

Thrawn fills his dreams. Catching him over and over. Beatings. The blaster against his head, taunting him.

Which upon waking started a whole new cycle.

“What if the rebels knew you were responsible for Atollon?”

“You only joined the rebels because you were scared of Thrawn"

"I chose to stay"

Only because the empire had you wrapped around their finger."

Certain things set off the thoughts.

When Sabine casually works on explosives. Doesn't she know that they could blow up and injure people...that's how it happened on Onderon.When Kanan and Hera talk about what the Empires been doing. Reminding Kallud of what he used to be. Who he used to be.

Zeb, just his presence is enough to make Kallus use all his effort to suppress the sickness he feels. And strings of throughly rattling in his mind, unable to calm down to even organize into a single thought.

___________

Kallus doesn't know why this is happening now.

Maybe because the Empire didn't leave room for self reflection. Maybe he had less stress in the Empire. He didn't know the truth. And now he was worried about the people next to him. Worried for his new family. Whatever the reason, Kallus finds himself crying alone. Even for the little things. Things he can't explain why they push him over the edge.

He tries to breath. Tries to rationalize and tried to just focus.

The paradox is he's bombarded with the same thoughts, but at the same time he can't focus on it. It repeats so fast he can barely get a handle on his own mind.

"Kallus, what's wrong?"

Hera.

Kallus clears his throat. "I'm fine."

"Talk."

Kallus can't. He can't find the words to express how he feels, what's bothering him because the list seems endless. So many thoughts.

He takes a moment. "I was just...thinking about if I would've hurt you guys before..."

It's silly. Stupid really. Not only pointless to worry about, but low on his list of problematic thoughts.

"It's ok now. We're here. We're not hurt...none of us have to worry about that anymore."

She means well, but Kallus's thoughts remain.

It takes months. Months of rationalizing. Sorting through every thought and dealing with new ones. Months until little by little they go away.

Kallus wakes up. Sometimes it takes five minutes for them start. Some days it takes an hour.

Eventually he just has two or three of the thoughts a day. They go away completely. Then weeks later he gets a thought that stays for a week. Then a couple months.

How Compulsive Thinking Cause Suffering

In western society, the ability to think is of utmost importance, but when thinking becomes dysfunctional, it can cause a lot of pain. One of the worst forms of this pain comes from compulsive, obsessive thinking, when you are unable to stop thinking. That causes immense suffering. Here are a few techniques to stop thinking compulsively, to stop that hamster wheel in your head: • When painful…

The moment when we realize that we’ve been caught up in a distracted train of thought is a valuable opportunity to bring skillful qualities into the mind, and to cultivate insight.This is something that’s very familiar to anyone who’s meditated. We’ll start by following the breathing, or some other object of attention, but then without our making any conscious choice to shift our focus we slip into a dream-like state in which we’re rehashing a dispute, or fantasizing about something pleasant, or worrying about some situation in our lives.

These periods of distraction can be so intense that they are like hypnotic states. They’re like dreams.

 They’re like mental bubbles of an internal virtual reality drama in which we’re mindlessly immersed. When we’re distracted in this way we’re in an altered state of consciousness, in which we lack self-awareness: we’re not aware we’re distracted, we’re not aware we’re fantasizing.

We’re participating in the drama but we’re no longer monitoring or observing our experience.

Especially for those who are relatively new to meditation, there can be a tendency to be disappointed, annoyed, or self-critical when we emerge from these hypnotic bubbles. But with practice we can learn to cultivate patience and kindness as we accept that the mind wanders, appreciation as we value our return to mindfulness, and persistence as we bring the mind gently back to the breathing. 

by  Saṃsāran 

What are Intrusive Thoughts?

“Intrusive thoughts” is a clinical term for a symptom of many psychological conditions including depression and anxiety. The reality is that all of us experience intrusive thoughts i.e. those thoughts which we do not control as well as harmful and destructive thoughts. It is a simple fact that our inner talking, that is to say our inner dialog, runs on autopilot most of the time. Even when we try to focus on school work or a project in our job our mind wanders. This is the way minds work. 

Unlike a computer which “thinks”, if you can call it that, linearly, we think using a neural net. Thoughts bounce around in this net of brain circuitry more or less randomly. This allows us to make associations a computer could not make. This is how those annoying “captcha” programs work. This random bouncing of memories, ideas, dreams and plain old thoughts allows us to be creative. You could say this is part of what makes us human. A problem arises though when these unbidden thoughts become negative, painful or self destructive. 

Stopping a thought?

How do we stop a thought … if by the time we are aware of it it has already been in our mind? Well, you can’t. A bell once rung cannot be unrung. What you can do is learn the yogic technique of focus and concentration. This will give you a tool to prevent these unwanted thoughts from occurring at all. It takes time before an unbidden thought can create an emotion such as anxiety or sadness. Socrates famously said “The unexamined life is not worth living”. Yet, it is the unobserved mind which causes most of our problems. What do I mean “unobserved mind”? 

Most of us live our lives inside of ourselves never taking a step back to observe what goes on within our minds. In fact some people don’t even realize that such a thing can be done. Well, it can. Once we gain an awareness of our thoughts we can then begin to control them. Thoughts create emotion. So by observing our thoughts we can control both the thinking and the feeling. We can reject harmful negative thoughts. We can accept and reinforce positive thoughts. We can recognize patterns of harmful thinking which lead us into anxiety and depression.

The skills we need:

We can aid ourselves in this by acquiring some skills. Mindfulness training and concentration are skills we can use to let this painful memories go permanently. The techniques are taught to soldiers returning from battle who suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and have all but replaced electroshock therapy and other more intrusive and stressful therapies. Another useful skill which has seen considerable success in erasing, not suppressing  but actually eliminating painful memories is self hypnosis. Self hypnosis can gradually reduce the recurrence of these intrusive thoughts and unwanted memories and lessen the emotional impact when they do arise.

“Experiences that we remember intrusively, despite desperately wanting to banish them from our minds, are closely linked to, and sometimes threaten, our perceptions of who we are and who we would like to be.”

— Daniel L. Schacter

Listen to: NPR Podcast: “The Secret World of Thought” for more on this.