Repetitive unhealthy thoughts

My therapist was telling me about thought stopping, which is just as it sounds: stopping your thoughts. From my (Buddhist-oriented) perspective, it seems odd. In Buddhism, you are taught to not stop your thoughts/emotions or repress them, but to acknowledge them, even if they are painful. For example, a memory crossed my mind about my parents' divorce which brought me sorrow so I acknowledge the memory and emotions it evoked and then let it pass. I say, "I see you sorrow. I love you sorrow," and then I let it pass. This makes sense to me because you don't repress the thoughts, memories, or emotions and it doesn't come back to bite you in the ass later. In this practice, you deal with it as it comes to you and accept the good and bad emotions. They are a part of you.

Thought stopping sounds odd to me, but I don't fully understand it yet. My therapist just described it in my last session because I have these repetitive thoughts. We'll call them "unhealthy and painful" in place of "irrational" because all of our thoughts and feelings are valid and I feel like calling them "irrational thoughts" invalidates my thoughts and emotions. I digress.

Well I have these unhealthy thoughts that cause me emotional pain and my therapist wants to try "thought stopping" to control them. Even though I know the sexual abuse that I went through as a child isn't my fault, I still blame myself. This is just one of the awful things I think about myself so my therapist said I need to stop these thoughts in their tracks. (Hopefully we'll talk more about these thoughts and dissect them in therapy so I can understand the root causes because otherwise I'm not sure that thought stopping is really going to benefit me.)

My first homework assignment in this thought stopping business is to identify repetitive, unhealthy thoughts. So here it goes. A list of all my unhealthy thoughts that replay in my mind and contribute to my mental anguish.

Why didn't I say something to an adult? I could have stopped it.

My abuser went on to abuse other children. I feel like I abused those children because I never tried to stop him. I never told anyone. It's my fault that there are more victims left in his wake.

I watched him abuse my little sister and another cousin. And I didn't do a fucking thing. I'm a shitty person.

I'm a shitty person for being happy when my grandpa died because he once walked in on my abuser and I. He yelled at me, but never told anyone and I was relieved when he died because he never could tell anyone now. I'm horrible.

I'm disgusting because my body reacted to what was going on to me. As an adult I know it's all about biology, but I feel like my body betrayed me. I liked how it made me feel and that makes me the most vile person on the planet.

I hate my mom for letting me go to that house. And this makes me hate myself because I do love my mom, but I hate her at the same time. She didn't do it to me, but I blame her for it.

I hate myself. I'm disgusting.

I blame myself for it all. And that makes me feel more guilty because my adult brain tells me that the child that this was happening to wasn't at fault. But I still cannot shake this thought that I'm at fault. I brought it on. I asked for it. I mean, seriously. What fucked up, twisted person liked something that fucked up?

I wish I could forget it all. I wish I could turn back time and tell someone.

I don't deserve to be loved. I'm filthy.

I'm what they call "damaged goods."

I don't deserve happiness. I helped him get away with this for two decades. Who knows how many more children he hurt? Who knows how many children I let this happen to? I let this happen.