Intrusive Thoughts

[Carbonox]

I'm a bad explainer, so I'll let Wikipedia do it for me.

An intrusive thought is an unwelcome involuntary thought, image, or unpleasant idea that may become an obsession, is upsetting or distressing, and can feel difficult to manage or eliminate.

Anyone here suffer from them regularly? I say suffer, because that's what it feels like most of the time - unwanted thoughts I'd just like to get out of my head at any price, but which manage to persist annoyingly well. (Hard to say the same about positive thoughts whenever they crop up)

I could, for example, imagine how easy it'd be to kill someone if I wanted to, or even imagine what a terrorist attack would be like in a crowded area. Or let Darwinism take over for the shortest moment and get the urge to head to the Bolton Strid and try jumping over it (a very bad idea if you know what it's like),

What bothers me the most is whenever some genuinely nice person is talking, and my head just screams "🤬 you, you :censored:ing asshole" at them for no justifiable reason, when my actual opinion of them is a complete opposite of that. I'd hate to think what would happen if I actually ended up saying that by accident.

 

[Kurei]

Intrusive thought #1 that everyone has had pop-up in the middle of something.

"Did I leave the stove on?"

 

[Danoff]

I do have intrusive thoughts, but @Carbonox you might have some deeper issues. If your brain is going to angry violent places directed at specific people for no apparent reason, you might actually want to see professional help.

Most of my intrusive thoughts are unwanted analysis. My brain will start working away on some conversation or problem, considering potential future events and possible courses of action to take in each of those future events, and I'll consciously think "I need to find a way to stop thinking about this", and I'll just go right back to it. Other, less common, intrusive thoughts for me are usually embarrassing moments from my past, or remembering some (usually violent) event that was disturbing (often a fictional event). I have others, including some impulse control type thoughts as you mentioned, but those are rarer still.

 

[photonrider]

@Carbonox - so very easy to get out of this. So very easy. Millions have mastered it. (though I must say millions are a small amount when compared with billions.)

Learn to meditate.
Learn exactly the difference between Beta and Alpha states. That will be a start.
From there you will learn to control synaptic activity - say for about 15 seconds. Then 30. Then a minute. Then maybe 3 minutes.

As you go on you will learn to 'think at will'.

Or freestyle - so you can pick-up the frequencies that you only want to pick up.

We'll talk more later - about what 'thinking' really is.

 

[AerodyManiac]

I do have intrusive thoughts, but @Carbonox you might have some deeper issues. If your brain is going to angry violent places directed at specific people for no apparent reason, you might actually want to see professional help.

Ditto.

@Carbonox I'd also like to add that intrusive thoughts, if found to be very serious, might actually be a sign of mood disorder. Of course, I'm no expert at this, so it's better that you seek help from a trained professional if you find it really serious and affecting your social life.

 

[W3H5]

Yeah, this strikes a cord with me but they aren't too regular.

My main one that I experience very often is "call of the void" which is translated from a French concept about imagining driving ones car into a wall or walking off a high ledge. It's slightly suicidal but without any actual intention of going through with it.

 

[homeforsummer]

Yeah, this strikes a cord with me but they aren't too regular.

My main one that I experience very often is "call of the void" which is translated from a French concept about imagining driving ones car into a wall or walking off a high ledge. It's slightly suicidal but without any actual intention of going through with it.

Vsauce covered that in one of his videos - about 5:30 in on this one:

(Err... sorry about that thumbnail!)​

It's to do with the cognitive dissonance of knowing you're in a potentially dangerous situation, but your sense of balance, motor control etc are getting no indications of anything wrong so you're not actually in any danger. Your brain apparently resolves this as a feeling that you must want to jump, or drive into an oncoming car etc.

I think intrusive thoughts are linked to humankind's morbid curiosity as well. In the same way people want to stare at an accident on the opposite carriageway, there's at least a tiny curiosity in humans that makes them want to witness or experience terrible events. I sometimes wonder whether seeing such things in the media plays a part in this - I remember being fascinated when I was younger by Sarah Connor's dream about the nuclear explosion in Terminator II - such things are absolutely horrific events, but seeing them in films and TV make you wonder what it'd be like to witness it for real.

It's only a short step from that curiosity to intrusive thoughts, which are probably your mind playing out these curiosities in real time.

 

[FoRiZon]

Most of intrusive thoughts are usually other people thoughts about you.

 

[VBR]

Deleted...

 

[Com Fox]

I have these thoughts about failing too much and having to live on the street and lose everything that I already have.

Especially doesn't help that my older brother and sister are reaching deadlines on when they need full-time jobs and attempt to move out. I feel like I don't have enough time sometimes.

 

[Lizard]

Intrusive thoughts are common and nothing to worry about as long as you don't feel an urge to act on them.


Source my psychologist.

 

[Carbonox]

I do have intrusive thoughts, but @Carbonox you might have some deeper issues. If your brain is going to angry violent places directed at specific people for no apparent reason, you might actually want to see professional help.

I really don't feel the thoughts are as violent as that, more like leftover teenage edginess that activates itself as a response to people's kindness for some reason. Still could do without them though, because even though it's only in my head, I get some sort of guilt from it.

 

[kikie]

I don't know if this is an intrusive thought but I use to have these thoughts that certain people have something against me, hate and so on. I really hate these thoughts.

Luckily, due to some kind psychotherapy (without the help of a psychologist I did on my own and didn't even know that it was psychotherapy), I'm getting rid of these thoughts.

 

[photonrider]

Yeah, this strikes a cord with me but they aren't too regular.

True, such thoughts can whack one in the head woodenly, whether musical or not.

But, think about it. (That's ironic.)
What really is a thought? Chatter in the mind? Words? An emotional experience?
Are we confusing 'intrusive thoughts' (uncontrollable mental events) with memories? The replaying of sense-data? Is a picture in one's head of a kindness, or cruelty, recalled, a thought?

"The thought brought a smile to my face" - what would that entail?
"The thought made me uncomfortable" - what would one be mentally engaged in that makes a person experience a bodily sensation?

Certain thoughts bring arousal - from sexual to egotistical.
Are we then actually under the power of thoughts or is something else controlling us?

Feed - M.T. Anderson. That may provide clues.

 

[kikie]

Intrusive thoughts >>> thoughts of jealousy!