growing up with a psychologist for a mother was so funny because my sister and i would be like “mo-om why do we have to go to bed now” and she would respond with a long explanation of the research on the effects of sleep on the brain and body followed by another explanation on permissive vs. authoritarian vs. authoritative parenting styles, with citations
this was actually really good in some instances though because i started having insomnia and intrusive thoughts very young and when little me was like “mom i don’t like the thoughts in my head but i can’t make them go away and i can’t sleep” she replied with “oh honey. active thought suppression never works. in fact, wegner et al. (1987) tested this when they told a bunch of people to talk about whatever they wanted, and they told half of them to try not to think about a white bear. people thought more about the white bear when they were trying not to think about it! but when they told the people to think about a red car whenever thoughts of the white bear came to mind, the people had a much easier time not thinking about the white bear. so you see, you can’t force the thoughts out of your mind. you just have to let them pass through, and pick something else that you want to focus on”
and so ever since i was a very little kid i knew how to deal with intrusive thoughts, I’ve had them my whole life but never developed ocd or senses of shame about them cause my mom did her phd on thought suppression and she knows what’s up
