Intrusive thoughts are disgusting.

[Mav]

They are the worst things to ever exist. It's been one whole year now that I've been suffering with disturbing intrusive thoughts. My instinct is to just fight the intrusive thought but for some reason it fights back harder. It's so hard. I dont want to "see" the things my brain randomly chucks at me. This reminds me of when I was 8 or 9 and dealt with the exact same thing. I'm almost 22 now and feel exactly how I felt when I was 8 dealing with intrusive thoughts. Just as scared, just as disgusted. How sad it is to live with a malfunctioning brain.

[Carys]

Fighting them isn't the way to go, accepting them and telling yourself that they are 'just thoughts' and will go on their own, is a better way to think. I know how terrifying they can be, and to feel trapped by them with no escape at all - but the harder you 'fight' the more scared you will make yourself and the less likely it is that they will disappear. (as you said 'they fight back harder') Accept them for what they are, a symptom of being upset/disturbed/anxious.Distract yourself with other things, and if they come into your head acknowledge them 'oh another intrustive thought about xyz, how irritating but only a thought' and get on with something else. They may well pop back up time and time again, but the bigger the deal you make of them when they happen, the harder it will be to move on from them.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Mav,

As Carys says it's best to accept them. Fighting has to be constructive. Fighting back in a CBT way or with an acceptance methodology is good but fighting back negatively with "aaarrghhh I hate you" is known to just feed back the message "this thought is important to conscious brain, I will keep sending it".

CBT looks towards evidence/counter evidence and conclusion reframing methods to encourage you to change your thinking. Acceptance methods look more towards reducing your emotinal reactions to the thoughts. Both work. Some people laugh at them, some people give them a "meh", some people agree with them but all roads lead to Rome here. Each seeks to change reaction from negative to positive/neutral which the fear cycle doesn't work with and eventually fears disappear as they get mothballed.

At the simplest level it's no different to the panic cycle - react with pain = more panic. Feedback is this situation is to be feared.

I will just say when it comes to agreeing with thoughts it's perhaps more for a therapist because it comes with traps. Some people will end up reinforcing their own obsessions because they miss the point of this style. It's not about agreeing you are some evil person, it's about dialling down the reaction as if saying "yeah, I'm evil, so what, big deal". It's like not getting wound up by someone calling you a name because who cares what they think and you just smile and say "yeah, sure".

[Sparky16]

I once read a book about child psychologists, and in one of the vignettes given, a psychologist talked to a child about the idea of a "sad thoughts monster". It was sort of a model for the child to use when battling back against their sad thoughts. The sad thoughts monster sent the child sad thoughts (the therapist tossed Kleenexes to the child here) and the child pushed back saying they didn't have to take on board these sad thoughts (brushed away the Kleenexes). I thought to myself, "I don't have a sad thoughts monster, I have a bad thoughts monster." I know it sounds weird, but I've actually found it kind of helpful to think of it this way. If I get an intrusive thought, I find myself thinking, "it's the bad thoughts monster again", and find it easier to move on. It's another way of acknowledging that they are "just thoughts", as Carys says.

[MyNameIsTerry]

I once read a book about child psychologists, and in one of the vignettes given, a psychologist talked to a child about the idea of a "sad thoughts monster". It was sort of a model for the child to use when battling back against their sad thoughts. The sad thoughts monster sent the child sad thoughts (the therapist tossed Kleenexes to the child here) and the child pushed back saying they didn't have to take on board these sad thoughts (brushed away the Kleenexes). I thought to myself, "I don't have a sad thoughts monster, I have a bad thoughts monster." I know it sounds weird, but I've actually found it kind of helpful to think of it this way. If I get an intrusive thought, I find myself thinking, "it's the bad thoughts monster again", and find it easier to move on. It's another way of acknowledging that they are "just thoughts", as Carys says.That sounds an excellent way to get a child to understand and acknowledge the lack of physical action with the tissue as a form of acceptance and sitting with thoughts. Thanks for sharing this, it's completely relevant to us on here. Another psychologist uses an inner chimp in much the same way to explain the chimp is emotional so jumps up & down to get it's way, the reaction to soothe it's moods, and it falls to the objective human to decide whether to give it energy or acknowledge the chimp is just going bananas again but it doesn't matter.

[conan]

@Mav i haven't struggled with them for a few years but the comedian maria bamford has OCD and some hilarious material on it. she was on an anxiety episode on a netflix doc series called "the mind explained", she makes this material insanely funny:



We all have bizarre thoughts.
You think of, kinda like, "Oh, that dog is sexy.
"And then you go, "Oh, that's weird, eh?" And then you move on.
But somebody with a tendency of OCD goes, "Oh, it's weird that I just had that.
"That's when the loop begins, and then you start walking over to the other side of street when you see a Pomeranian.
So mine was I started to fear that I was going to physically harm my parents and my sister.
Um, that I would serial kill them, I guess.
I'd avoid knife drawers.
I don't want to make eye contact.
Oh, if I make eye contact, I gotta squinch my hands three times.
Just becomes this more elaborate ritual thing.
Then Then I finally, uh, Googled "creepy thoughts that are unwanted.
"And up came OCD.
Turns out it's a whole thing.