![]() Intrusive thoughts can also take on many other forms and patterns. ![]() – Sexual: Thinking about an inappropriate person, like a family member or a child. – Relationships: Thinking that you don’t actually love your partner. – Embarrassment: Like wanting to stand in the middle of a busy mall and scream obscenities. It can be like playing out a Final Destination scene in your head (for just a split second). – Harm : You might think about driving your car off a bridge or throwing a pet out the window. Here are some common examples of how these unwanted urges present themselves : Everyone will struggle with fleeting intrusive thoughts at one point or another, but some others will experience them much more frequently (it just depends on the person). You could be in a situation where you have too much control or you could be in one where you have too little control, and these thoughts will serve as your body’s very inconvenient defense mechanism. “Sometimes, it’s just our mind’s way of trying to protect ourselves in those situations because we are scanning for things that we would deem as dangerous or immoral or uncomfortable.” ![]() “A lot of are coming from us being in an environment and coming up with things subconsciously in our mind that can be harmful or scary to us,” adds Nadia. So someone with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), an eating disorder, or several other conditions is more likely to develop these thoughts when they’re in a state of hyperarousal - whether they’re anxious, depressed, or in fight-flight-freeze mode. These situational thoughts tend to be more common in people who have experienced trauma. For example, if you’re holding a knife you might picture cutting someone with it. Some intrusive thoughts can be situational. Now, let’s get to the root of these thoughts! What Causes Intrusive Thoughts? But, you still feel like you need to hide what’s going on inside your head when, really, it’s a fairly common experience. To add to it all, these shameful thoughts come with loads of anxiety! They can completely shove logic aside and make you afraid that others are able to read your mind. We never want them, and we never like them.” “We try really hard to push them away, but they seem to stick around and intrude, and can cause us to feel shame and fear. “Intrusive thoughts are thoughts that come into our consciousness that are distressing, scary, and/or shameful,” says psychotherapist Nadia Adessi in a recent episode of the Anxious Like You podcast. The thoughts tend to stick in your brain and the more you try to push them away, the more they will come back over and over and over again! WTF, right?! They can actually be sooo wildly disproportionate from who you are as a person that you get scared (because you don’t want to act on what’s playing out in your head). Intrusive thoughts are intense, can’t be challenged with logic and often come out of nowhere. These thoughts are entirely harmless and you shouldn’t feel bad about having them. Intrusive thoughts can be SUPER uncomfortable and disturbing at times, but it’s important to remember that they don’t define who you are. We’re going to dive into how they work, what they mean, and how to stop intrusive thoughts! What Are Intrusive Thoughts? These are called intrusive thoughts, and they’re pretty common. Have you ever been driving and randomly thought about yeeting your car off the road? Maybe you’ve thought about squeezing your pet just a little too hard? Or you had a weird urge to strip naked and run through a busy mall? If you’re internally screaming YES, just know that you’re not alone.
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