My creative invasive thoughts.

I’ve grown reluctantly impressed with the creativity of my invasive thoughts since becoming a Mum. Unfortunately, invasive thoughts aren’t at all new to me, I’ve been dogged by their creepy little shadow for as long as I can remember. In fact, my most pervasive invasive thought has always been about a baby, long before I had decided whether to have any of my own. It goes like this: a baby is laying on the ground, as they tend to before they can move themselves. I am walking around them. I trip on something - or nothing, I am THAT clumsy. I fall. My knee lands on their soft tiny head. No more baby. I’ve had this vision repeat over and over for years, so much so it made me question whether I should have kids, and spend dark hours brainstorming how to avoid it. Mentally practicing how to fall in a different way. Visualising the aftermath. Planning where else a baby could go, if not the floor. I’ve now had 6 months of a baby on the floor and nothing close to this event has even mildly threatened to happen. But I’ll never be able to get rid of the perfectly rendered version of it my worried little brain kindly conjured up for me a lifetime ago.

Invasive thoughts are just that - a scary, often violent and anxious thought that appears out of nowhere, unprompted, invading your peace. I tend to think of them as my brain planning for the worst that could happen, trying to get ahead of the tragedy. They appear fully formed - the entire picture, plot, and resolution are all there, all at once. My task is primarily to recognise that it’s an invasive thought and try to distance myself from it, because they also make me question my sanity - how could a sane person think of such horrific things so easily? Why is this where my mind automatically goes to? In an unlucky mental marriage, I also have a tendency towards obsessive thinking, so I often get caught in thought spirals that are kicked off from a rouge invasive thought.

Having the language around what they are helps, though. When I was younger, I believed these thoughts were me, because they came from me. I had never heard the phrase or concept “invasive thought”, I just knew that I invented horrifying scenarios daily, and that must mean I am a bad person who wants these horrifying things. Thankfully, no. For all the ills of the internet, if it’s shown us anything it’s that no one is unique, and therefore no one is alone. Invasive thoughts happen to other people as well. They’re normal, just deeply unpleasant. We soldier on, knocking them away as they constantly arise like enemy combatants.

I think it’s natural that my invasive thoughts have gotten worse since I’ve become a Mum - I suddenly have much more to worry about. My brain is wired to protect Esther, so it fantasies the situations it may need to protect her from. But it’s unsettling to say the least. Some invasive thoughts make me physically ill (anything to do with sexual assault towards my daughter). Some I have to tend to continuously, like a garden of weeds, to ensure they don’t grow and overtake my thoughts for the day (like all the ways my clumsiness could kill her). Some have demanded permanent behaviour change from people around me (knives. Can’t be around kitchen knives. Don’t walk behind me with a kitchen knife. No sudden movements when I’m holding a knife. No knives, please.) I can’t have a cup of tea without imagining it scalding Esther. I can’t be in a moving car without imaging the oncoming car crashing into us (especially on single lane country highways). I can’t go over the West Gate Bridge without visualising the father who threw his young daughter over the edge many years ago - although that might be less of an invasive thought and more of a disgusting reminder of all that is wrong with the world. In my mind, I walk into Esther’s room to wake her from a nap and find she isn’t breathing. I check on her while she’s playing in the other room to find her contorted and twisted, broken over some piece of furniture as she learns how to crawl. I forget her in the bath, only to come back hours later to a blue, freezing baby, cradled in her bath seat. Almost none of this is actually possible. If I forgot her in the bath, she’d soon tell me. If she hurt herself, I’d hear. Even the thoughts that may be possible - like her getting so sick she is hospitalised and hooked up to machines - aren’t worth the time of day to stress about. Worrying before it happened would only mean I had to experience the stress of it twice. I have to have faith and reframe the thought - how thankful I am for modern medicine’s ability to keep my child alive in such a scenario. I have to imagine Lewis next to the hospital bed with me. Mentally hold her hand and comfort her. Even when my mind then starts racing with the logistics of the imaginary scene - how would I breastfeed her? I would probably need to pump. Would she take a bottle? They’d probably feed it to her in a tube. How would this impact my supply? - at least that is more comforting than the initial scary thought. At least it regains me some sense of control. Anything that happens can probably be managed, with enough resilience, support and love.

I have no pithy ending for this post - no resolution or advice. I just have a brain landmined with scared and scary thoughts, desperately trying to keep my daughter safe. I want to stress that they’re not the only thing I think about, they’re probably not even 10%. Most of the day I am settled and happy and my thoughts truly are my own. But invasive thoughts are the most powerful and have the most ability to throw me off my axis. That’s okay. I am getting better and better at shaking them away, reminding myself that they’re not me, not real, and not likely. And moving on. Until the next arises and we repeat.