New Project I'm Starting

I've always struggled with intrusive thoughts. More than anyone else I've talked to, as far as I know. Stuff that I wouldn't want to talk about on here.

But here's the problem: When you have so many bad thoughts that keep piling up, often times too morbid/gory/disturbing to talk to others about without them leaving, how do you get those thoughts out of your system in a safe way? How do you cry for help when you can't actually describe the issue without causing even more issues, which in turn would lead to you ending up developing even worse thoughts and having even less people that you can talk to about it?

Well, I think I have an answer that works for me.

When I have bad thoughts, when I get overwhelmed/upset, when I have no one to vent to about it, I always turn to my art to get my mind off of it. As you guys probably know by now, I'm an artist and writer that specializes in horror.

So I thought, "hey, what if I take my really bad intrusive thoughts and, y'know, put them on paper?"

A lot of my friends know that a good majority of my original works/stories are mostly based off of my own dreams/nightmares. Personally, I've started to love getting nightmares recently. I've talked to some people about this before, but I have this weird ability to remember my dreams in near perfect detail for at least a little while after I have them. I can even sorta remember dreams I've had years ago. Why do I love getting nightmares? Because it gives me more material to work with. I can take something upsetting, like a nightmare, and turn it into something creative, like an original story, a video game concept, etc.

And that's exactly what I want to do with this new project; taking something bad and making it into something good. Taking these thoughts, dreams and occasionally hallucinations that I get, things that most people would make me seem too appalling and disturbing to be around, and turn them into a form of art.

I don't think intrusive thoughts should be frowned upon. I think they should be treated like what they are; Just normal human thoughts. It's time to stop acting like only serial killers, the mentally ill, or bad people in general have them.

We all get them. Some of us struggle with them more than others, but we all have them every now and then. It's normal and part of life.

With this project, I don't want to make people feel ashamed for having these thoughts. Not only do I want to help myself by relieving myself of these repressed thoughts, but I also want to reach out to others as a way to say "It's okay to get these thoughts. It's natural."

Intrusive thoughts aren't something to be ashamed of.

And together we can take those thoughts and, through more harmless mediums, make them into things to be proud of, like art, a community, or generally finding people who struggle with the same issues you do.

I don't know what it'll be called yet, but pretty soon I'll have a bunch of things set up for it if anyone is interested.