Wherein visualization works for me for the only time in my life

A few weeks ago, I saw an absolutely disgusting image on TV. It caused me to switch off the TV, curl up in a fetal position, and stim. I'm tense and wringing my hands just writing this. The image was burned in my brain, and I knew it would be there forever. I knew it would sit there haunting me as I tried to fall asleep and it would come to me in my dreams for years to come.

This was the worst possible time for this to happen. It was during the few days when I thought I was going to be buying a condo and was nervous about doing something so big and important and completely unknown to me, which also coincided with the busiest time at work when everything absolutely had to get done by the day before Condo Day. I was carrying an unhealthy amount of stress and nerves as it was, and literally didn't have room to handle this disgusting image.

I had to do something, but there was nothing to be done. So I did something that I knew would never work: picturing the image as printed on a piece of paper, I reached out with my hands, mimed crumpling up the piece of paper, and threw it away over my shoulder.

It worked. Temporarily.

Then it came back.

So I crumpled it up and threw it away again.

I had to do this maybe half a dozen times, but I was eventually able to fall asleep without the image haunting me or invading my dreams.

The next day and the days that followed, the image kept popping into my head. I kept crumpling it up and throwing it away. It never stayed away permanently, but it always went away for a little while. After some time passed, the image had faded somewhat. It's still present (I never, ever, ever forget things that are visceral or emotionally-laden) but it has faded far more than I would have expected it to by now.

The visualization shouldn't have worked. I don't even believe in visualization. But it worked.

But I don't think it will work again unless I'm in similar distress. I read a while back about a concept called a "psychological immune system", where your brain protects itself against things that are just too much for it. That's never happened to me before, but I think that's what was happening here. But, for some bizarre reasons, it worked this one time. Freaky.