Intense horrible thoughts daily

[phil06]

I have had intense horrible thoughts a bit more often recently for the last month.

They are disturbing and I can't seem to control them my biggest fears are If manic depression will come back and I was told I never even had it but I can't accept it and I've had OCD symptoms like "Sex - Sexual impulses/images/thoughts" from the symptoms page here which I think is OCD and HOCD.

I'm worried as I had to ask for reassurance atleast 3 times a day on the same topic. For example I was a bit moody the other day my instant thought was "I'm going mad or schizo" and I believe it. My sex drive seems to have gone funny now as I get bad thoughts and it puts me off. I'm worried as I can't be bothered looking for a g.f now and I feel it's not like me and could be affected by these thoughts.

I feel they are trying to take over and turn me into something I'm not. I know it's not me but when these thoughts come to mind i don't believe anybody or myself it's the thoughts are right when they are not. I'm really sick of it I've had the same thoughts for over a year I feel they will never ease and the longer I'm single the less confident I seem to be which gives me more of these horrible thoughts.

It feels like somebody has come in and took over all my thoughts and I need to check myself alot especially when I had toilet trouble or I have to check my down below when I get the HOCD symptoms. I've only ever had g.fs and I am happy about that but these disturbing thoughts make me act all funny and check myself and give me thoughts which are not me.

What reassurance can you give me? I tried googling it and going on other forums but they don't seem very good and it actually makes me feel 10 times worse.

[marie1974]

hiya just wanted to send u a :hugs: these are just thoughts hun and the unknown. theres quite a few people on here with similar thing too u, not sure if u seen them or not.

[lesleyB]

Hi Phil, I know these thoughts are horrible but they are not the real you, just thoughts and can not harm anyone. Try not to dwell on them as this makes them worse, and please don't google they always give the worst case senario which scares us to death. Have you tried counselling? cbt is good for bad thoughts it teaches you how to deal with them and gives you a different way of looking at things that worry you.
Keep us posted:hugs:
Lesleyb

[makenzie]

hi phil, just read your post on intense horrible thoughts, and from what i read, they seem a lot similar to what im going through at the moment, especially then you said you keep checking yourself. Ive been told that i have GAD but some of my symptoms make me believe i have OCD. At the moment i have been going through a horrible stage of having intrusive unwanted thoughts, when im around children, obviously this bothers me a lot and gets me down, and ive been finding it very hard to cope with, but whats also bothering me, is that i check things. For e.g. if i am sat in my car with G.F and dwelling on an unwanted thought / image, i will then start to check the most stupid of things, and become aware of non important things such as, if my manhood has moved, or just rubbed against my pants, or if my leg has just touched it. I know this is ridiculous but i will try and repeat the feelings i get to reasure myself they just happened. Also if i have just been to the toilet, i will think to myself ten miutes later did i just go to the toilet, and i will check to see if i have been, or i will go again.

I have also started to repeat things with my mouth now, and also get very paranoid, about whether i have just swallowed siliva etc. I no all these thougts are random and ridiculous but they get me so uptight and irritable, and also make my intrusive thought seem a lot worse.

If what i have written above is related to your problem or not please reply back a.s.a.p.cheers mate mak.

[Nechtan]

I've had unwanted thoughts too in the past but luckily on the whole they have gone away with time. Like has already been said I think some counselling would help and something like CBT would be the sort of thing.

From what I have read it's not the thoughts that are the trouble it's the way we react to them. When we get a thought we don't like we attach a negative emotional response to that thought and this gives it the energy to keep returning. So the more we react to a thought the stronger that thought gets and more the frequent that thought returns. So having someone help you to deal with the thought and how to change your reaction to that thought would I think make it go away over time. In most cases I've read people have used some sort of visualisation to change the thoughts appearance in the mind and enable a differrent emotional reaction to it. In this way it should neutralise it over time.