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Tag: intrusive thoughts

  • Intrusive Thoughts: Their Role in Anxiety and Tips to Cope

    by Fiammetta Gianni, Mindless Mag

    CW: The following article includes descriptions of intrusive thoughts.

    Intrusive or Impulsive?

    “My intrusive thoughts won” is a very common phrase on social media, especially on TikTok.

    Popular creators and one-hit wonders alike have entire videos about so-called “intrusive thoughts”, that range from cutting their hair at 3am to touching hot plates they know they shouldn’t.

    These are impulsive thoughts. While they do sound similar, there are very clear differences: impulsive thoughts are ideas that appear in a person’s head as intense and strong urges to act in ways that are considered taboo. People may feel shocked or amused by these thoughts, and they may even act on them.

    These are not graphic scenarios of things a person doesn’t want to happen, and they are not repetitive thoughts around your loved ones plotting against you or that something is going to happen to them with no evidence.

    These kinds of thoughts can leave a person feeling distressed and anxiety-ridden for hours or even days at a time. I have personally struggled with them for most of my life, and I feel that they are not spoken about enough.

    What Are Intrusive Thoughts?

    As mentioned, intrusive thoughts are different as they are always unwanted. The subject matter varies, but they are unwanted, repetitive thoughts that can appear in our heads without warning and can cause severe distress.

    The key aspects of these thoughts are the repetitiveness of them and the fact that they do not align with the person’s real thoughts and feelings. This is the main ingredient, and it causes people to feel guilt or excessive introspection, as if trying to decide if they really feel those things.

    The obsessive and compulsive nature of these thoughts are a core part of OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), so much so that they give it their name.

    They can also be part of General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). They may also happen in response to hormone changes, for instance after a person gives birth.

    Categories of Intrusive Thoughts

    Not all intrusive thoughts are made the same way. There are as many different stressors as there are people in the world, but generally they are split into 5 categories:

    1. Health

       Thoughts of worry about themselves or loved ones getting sick or dying with no evidence.
    2. Religion

      Thoughts about trauma related to religion, or if you are a believer, you may find yourself thinking about disrespecting your own place of worship.
    3. Sex/Sexuality

      Some of the most confusing and debilitating, these can be memories of unwanted sexual contact or confusing thoughts about your own sexuality.
    4. Aggression

      Alongside the sexual intrusive thoughts, these are the ones that are the scariest. They may include feelings of hurting your loved ones even when you have no desire to.
    5. Social Taboos

       I find these to be the most confusing ones, and they are the most impulsive thoughts. Often things like starting to shout obscenities in public or pour a drink on someone for no real reason.

    I have had a combination of all of them at least a few times, and I find that besides the thought itself, even thinking about telling anyone is the worst part of it. The anxiety of potentially being told to just shake them off is often too much to bear.

    A lot of people have these thoughts and can shrug them off. However, if they are so repetitive, they interrupt your day to day life, as is often the case in my own experience, you should know that specific help does exist. So, what can be done?

    Coping with Intrusive Thoughts

    This is some advice I have gathered from living with them for some time and having a solid support system around me. Some are more anecdotal and some are suggested in blogs, feel free to take what works and forget what doesn’t!

    • Firstly, don’t not suppress the thought. It’s easy to act like the thought wasn’t there in the first place out of fear for what it means for you as a person. Have a glass of water and remind yourself that you are not your thoughts, especially not those that you find distressing.
    • Secondly, it’s important to distinguish between thought and reality. A little reality check can be very useful in the second part of reacting to an intrusive thought. This can be through calling a friend and asking them to reassure you about things, petting your dog, drawing a small doodle on some paper.
    • Finally, think about the situation(s) that triggered the thought. Is it what someone said in a conversation? Did you read something online? Is it something you can control or is it something you have to take a step back from? Asking yourself these questions can help to ground you even more by taking steps to be back in the moment.

    I still have intrusive thoughts some of the time, but I can deal with them a lot better thanks to these tips in grounding myself, and I hope you will find them helpful too.

    If these steps aren’t helpful, talking it out in therapy is an excellent way to find constructive ways to deal with these thoughts. They might recommend Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or medication. It’s a scary step, but one that will help in the long run.

    In conclusion, intrusive thoughts are repetitive, unwanted thoughts that are distressing, and are a core feature of OCD among other anxiety disorders. They can range in categories that include aggression, health and unwanted sexual memories or thoughts. Some ways to cope include grounding yourself in the present moment and potentially talking to a therapist. I hope this article has helped those of you struggling, you are not alone, and you are not your thoughts.

  • The Other Side of OCD – Violent Intrusive Thoughts

    The Other Side of OCD – Violent Intrusive Thoughts

    For quite a long time I refused to touch a knife. I would use a round-ended butter knife, but anything else was out of the question. It wasn’t a flight of fancy (like the fact that I love using drinking straws and eating with an ice cream spoon, both of which are true!) but because I honestly believed that if I were to hold a knife in my hand, I would stab and kill someone.

    Now I’m not a violent person. I once gave my brother a split lip (but I was about seven at the time and still claim that was his fault) and apart from that, I’m not one to lash out physically. I have no idea how to punch someone and with my total lack of hand-eye coordination, there’s a strong chance that I would miss anyway. And yet I was convinced that I was always a hair’s breadth from violently killing someone.

    These violent thoughts aren’t uncommon in OCD and can take on all sorts of different forms. One person may worry about whether they kicked their dog, another may think that they have smothered their child. One sufferer might worry about poking their partner’s eyes out and another may imagine themselves strangling strangers in front of them in a queue. They are all incredibly disturbing and they all have something in common – they are irrational. Nobody with this form of OCD will act upon these thoughts.

    The answer is, as with all OCD, exposing yourself to the very thing that you fear. For me, this meant gradually working my way up a hierarchy of the things that scared me – starting off by sitting alone with a knife in front of me and building up to using sharp knives whilst chatting normally and interacting with my family who were right next to me.

    Sometimes the things that you have to do to get rid of the OCD sound extreme – lots of people who don’t have OCD would say that they wouldn’t do it. But the point is that in order to disprove the theories fed to us by the OCD, we have to go to these extremes. In the same way that someone with contamination problems may be encouraged to wipe their hands all over a toilet seat and then eat without washing them (something that many would call disgusting), someone with a violent obsession may, as in my case, point a knife towards their therapist or someone else or stand over their sleeping child with a pillow in their hand. Once again, to those of you who feel that this sounds extreme – people with OCD never, ever act on their thoughts.

    Violent intrusive thoughts are so difficult to talk about. Telling someone that you’re worried that you might strangle them isn’t massively conducive to conversation and unless the listener has a good idea of what OCD is, they can sound very worrying. This is why it’s incredibly important to raise awareness of these sorts of obsessions in order to make sure that people are not afraid to ask for help or talk about these worries. Hopefully, by being open about them, we can reduce the stigma.

    Obsessively compulsively yours,

    Bellsie

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