horrible thoughts in my head

[doree]

Does anyone else get horrible thoughts about awful things happening i cant even explain because i think if i do they will happen.Think im off mad they stop me from sleeping i am a born worrier.

[MyNameIsTerry]

I had intrusive thoughts about harming my parents which meant I had to counter them with physical & mental compulsions. I had Magical Thinking too so that I thought my thoughts could impact on the physical world which sounds like what you experiencing.

Your thoughts cannot make such an impact, no ones can otherwise the world would be a very different place considering how many of us think about people that have annoyed us or harmed us in some way.

A good test of this is using a Behavioural Experiment. Have a read of the suggested types in here:

http://self-help.tools/obsessive-compulsive-disorder/

[Torimori]

I had intrusive thoughts about harming my parents which meant I had to counter them with physical & mental compulsions. I had Magical Thinking too so that I thought my thoughts could impact on the physical world which sounds like what you experiencing.

Your thoughts cannot make such an impact, no ones can otherwise the world would be a very different place considering how many of us think about people that have annoyed us or harmed us in some way.

A good test of this is using a Behavioural Experiment. Have a read of the suggested types in here:

http://self-help.tools/obsessive-compulsive-disorder/

Terry, that link is great. I've always experienced some confusion about my diagnoses. My old GP said I had health anxiety and mild OCD, I had some initial IAPT meetings but nothing I found helpful and they didn't seem concerned with the OCD element. I have never been referred to a psychiatrist/psychologist.

My intrusive thoughts are becoming more disturbing and I am ashamed and disgusted with myself to tell anyone (no-one at all knows knows about them) although my family are aware of my HA.

reading through this has just reinforced that I think my overarching issue is my OCD and will discuss this with my GP on Monday.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Terry, that link is great. I've always experienced some confusion about my diagnoses. My old GP said I had health anxiety and mild OCD, I had some initial IAPT meetings but nothing I found helpful and they didn't seem concerned with the OCD element. I have never been referred to a psychiatrist/psychologist.

My intrusive thoughts are becoming more disturbing and I am ashamed and disgusted with myself to tell anyone (no-one at all knows knows about them) although my family are aware of my HA.

reading through this has just reinforced that I think my overarching issue is my OCD and will discuss this with my GP on Monday.

Thats great, glad it was useful. I tend to use their templates a fair bit and link them on here as they can be very useful tools used from many styles, not just CBT.

If you want to talk about intrusive thoughts, you can do on here. You don't have to, but we do so the option is there. We talk about anything including harming children, paedophilia, harm to partners, etc. The more taboo Pure O stuff gets discussed on the OCD board as it's more common to people who understand it. However, there are dedicated OCD forums if you wanted to talk their too like OCD UK, OCD Action, etc and they see threads about all this stuff daily.

I know it can be highly disturbing and the thing to remember about OCD is that it is ego-dystonic. In other words, the opposite of your true nature and beliefs. So, people with OCD could be a new parent and have thoughts to harm their baby...someone they would give their lives for and do anything for, which shows it's OCD as the person is so upset & disgusted about it but doesn't realise it's proof alone of their love. Steve Seay's website is very useful for information on OCD as he writes a load of articles about it, especially intrusive thoughts. I found his articles mentioned things I hadn't seen on the OCD charity websites.

Honestly, have a look at the threads on the OCD board. You will see people are not judgemental at all and willing to discuss disturbing topics. There is a lot of useful info in the replies people give and it will help you to understand how your reactions will be reinforcing these thoughts such as the guilt.

[Torimori]

Thank you Terry. I have found this forum the most useful form of "therapy" since I started with all this five years ago.

I understand that there are others in a similar position and that I won't be judged but I worry by openly discussing these thoughts they will become something not just in my head. I also worry that people will feel I am an unfit parent for me son - something I have always been concerned and therefore maybe not helped myself by not being 100% honest.

[MyNameIsTerry]

I think thats only natural to have concerns like that. There are so many people in the population who don't understand these things and will run to the authorities over anything. The important thing is that OCD is well recognised by the medical profession and the differences between a possible offender and someone with OCD are well documented. It is considered very rare for someone with OCD to act on their intrusive thoughts because they are so disgusted by them. The conscious mind is saying "what the hell are you thinking that for?!" and then the fighting begins in your head and it just makes you feel worse.

You have to remember that the most important thing is what you consciously think. The control in your mind comes from that part. The subconscious builds up core beliefs to guide it but something like this is completely the opposite of your core beliefs and the deeper guides more atttached to your identity, known as Schemas. When the subconscious sends you these thoughts it has compared them to memories, core beliefs, schema, etc and not found any match so it doesn't know what to do and sends it to conscious brain saying "I don't know what to do, here is all the data, you tell me what I should do". Thats really all it is doing. Because you then react with strong negatives, especially emotions, it tells the subconscious that it has done something "valid". Notice use of the term "valid", not "correct". The subconscious will take a similiar reinforcement that it has done somethign valid by you trying to push the thoughts away too. If you look on the worksheets section of that website, you will see one for that. (I think it will also be in the OCD section too).

The trouble is, the subconscious doesn't recognise positive or neutral. It's obvious really since when there is a bear charging at you, you are not going to consciously say thinsg are ok, you will panic. This means it takes time to retrain your subconscious by not providing it with the feedback it is looking for. Using positives or neutrals prevents this but because they are weaker in this context to the subconscious, it means they have less impact and the change takes time. It does happen though.

I got rid of my harm based thoughts about my parents by not fighting or engaging with them. I learnt Mindfulness which taught me to observe them and let them go. To accept them merely as thoughts, not as something with any deeper meaning.

I tend to think of them as dreams. We have some utterly bizarre dreams that are meaningless to us. I know I have.

After a while I started to feel amused by these intrusive thoughts, because they were so ludicrous and the anxiety had stopped. I sometimes smiled about how daft they were. Then they disappeared even more. You can't fully get rid of them, studies have shown all people have them but they don't realise it as they are so quick to flash through.

[doree]

Thankyou Terry will look at it bless you keep well.