Thoughts
There's a scene in a fantasy book where Carter has a magical object, some sort of sphere marble or something. And the object has a spell on
There's a scene in a fantasy book where Carter has a magical object, some sort of sphere or marble or something. And the object has a spell on it, which makes it so that if you try to pick up the object you lose your train of thought. And so Carter invites Seth to pick up the object, and Seth walks over towards the table, and then he turns 90°, and walks off to the left, and then he looks up at the ceiling, and then he looks back at Carter, and he asks "why are you looking at me" and then he remembers, "oh yeah I was gonna pick up the object." And Carter walks over to the table and he puts his hand on the table and then he grabs the object and puts it in his pocket. And Seth asks, "why does the spell not work on you?" And Carter replies that the spell does effect him, but he knows a trick. Instead of thinking about picking up the object, he thinks about how he's going to rub the surface of the table next to the object, and he pushes thoughts of the object to the back of his mind. And so the spell doesn't apply. Then once he's there with his hand on the table, his hand maybe brushes against the object and he remembers what he's really doing. And then he's able to pick up the object and put it in his pocket before the spell can stop him.
Anyways I think that's what a lot of anxiety/executive dysfunction is like. The more you think about the thing the more it applies and the scarier it is.