I am having what feels like a million different thoughts/images a day. Does any one else experience multiple thoughts a day? If I could guess, I could have maybe up to 50 different thoughts a day. So now i fear if these are even intrusive thoughts. I don’t want any part of the thoughts but having so many a day is concerning to me.
Yep I do too! And then I really question it… I go, surely people with OCD don’t have this many thoughts or like “is my thoughts the same” “I feel like my thoughts are worse” “my thoughts mirror these peoples thoughts so much, what if I am this person”. Or like genuinely don’t believe it’s OCD and they feel so real because I’m like surely these thoughts wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t real. I completely understand :( I also genuinely always think my thoughts are worse then other people. You’re not alone🥺 let me know if u want someone to talk to!
@anonymous. Thank you for your response! I am glad to know that is is not just me. I can be discouraging when you keep having the thoughts and question them if they really are even intrusive. Hope things get better for you!
yup I’m having multiple horrible intrusive images a day and the same image can last up to 2 weeks.. so sorry ur going through this too :(
@ocd.is.a.bitch111 I hate when it repeats. I have had the same thought that every every time I try and not give into the images or urges or thoughts this particular thought comes back like HA. It’s so so so hard!
@ocd.is.a.bitch111 Sorry to hear this! I hope that today and the upcoming days get better for you!
Yes. Since we are responding to the thoughts with anxiety and compulsions when our OCD is not under control with ERP and proper tools, our brain is red flagging these thoughts as IMPORTANT. It sees that they are important to you because they cause u anxiety, so it sends you more thoughts. Your brain thinks its helping you solve the threat. In OCD, our brains just have some malware. I find it helpful remembering my brain loves me and wants to help me, but just can’t find the right way. It helps with self compassion.. with proper treatment (ERP) your brain learns that these thoughts are unimportant because we are no longer responding to then with importance, so it will send us less thoughts over time, decreasing our symptoms. Some thoughts will still come, but we will have learned the proper way of handling them and have become desensitized to a lot of them. Best of luck on your journey
@alissaa Thank you!!
I'm on medication so I have less. But, yes it's normal. I was told by my therapist.
@dani333 Thank you!
I’m having constant intrusive thoughts and it’s driving me crazy. I will go through these periods where everything I do I get an intrusive thought and it’s just my brain is so loud. Anyone else?! How do you stop the constant intrusive thoughts when you can’t really do an exposure for every single one?!
I have had a huge increase in Intrusive Thoughts this week. It’s making things super difficult for me, I am on my period but I also think I’m having more intrusive thoughts recently because things are going well for me right now. I just keep waiting for everything to fall apart because my mind makes me believe that I don’t deserve more than one good thing at a time. My mind is in constant fight or flight mode. I cannot stop thinking about every past mistake or how someone may have thought I had bad or malicious intentions when I didn’t. I keep thinking I’m going to get in trouble for something and go to jail, I’m especially scared about work and messing up someone’s check out and getting fired or arrested. I hate feeling this way, there is just so much going on in my head and I’m terrified and stressed all the time.
Every highly anxious person has to cope with intrusive thoughts. Intrusive thoughts are frightening thoughts about what might happen to you or someone you care about, or what you might do to yourself or another person. They seem to come from outside of your control, and their content feels alien and threatening. For some people, intrusive thoughts are part and parcel of panic or intense anxiety. In these types of intrusive thoughts, it feels like the thoughts come about as a result of the anxiety, and they function to add more fear to the anxiety you are already experiencing. The intrusive thoughts keep the anxiety going, and maintain the fear-producing spiral. So, for example, you might think, “what if I have a heart attack?” in the midst of an anxiety attack. You are already in the altered state of consciousness that I call anxious thinking, and your thoughts feel likely to happen. However, there is another class of intrusive thoughts that I call intrusive obsessive thoughts. These thoughts seem to come from out of nowhere, arrive with a distressing whoosh, and cause a great deal of anxiety. The content of intrusive obsessive thoughts almost always focus on sexual or violent images. Here are typical examples of intrusive obsessive thoughts: “Killing someone. Torturing a pet animal. Stabbing a child. Throwing someone (or yourself) out of a window. Jumping onto a train track as the train comes into the station. Molesting a child. Raping someone. Taking off your clothes in public.” This is not a complete list, but it gives you a good feeling of the content of these thoughts. People who experience intrusive obsessive thoughts are afraid that they might commit the acts they picture in their mind. They might imagine hurting someone or committing an act of sexual violation. Intrusive obsessive thoughts can be very explicit, and most people are embarrassed and frightened of them. There are a number of myths about intrusive obsessive thoughts. The greatest myth is that having thoughts of a sexual or violent nature mean that you want to do the things that come into your mind.This is not true. You do not want to do the things that enter your mind when you have intrusive obsessive thoughts. In fact, the opposite is true. People with intrusive obsessive thoughts are gentle and non-violent. FULL ARTICLE: https://drmartinseif.com/intrusive-thoughts/
Share your thoughts so the Community can respond
