Looking for tips to manage severe intrusive thoughts.

Try to accept and watch them. I know it’s so hard and our gut instinct is to panic and resist them because it isn’t us, but what helps to overcome this is acceptance. “oh here is an intrusive thought, and I just observe what the thoughts that are coming into my mind is” An exercise I will do is pretend there is a door way in my brain and that’s where thoughts come in, I watch them enter the doorway and then I place them in a chat in the imagined room. If there is a thought I want to interact with and think about I can pick it up and think about it, but I am choosing to allow the thoughts in the doorway, and placing them in the chair.

i havent started erp therapy, i start at the end of this month. but one thing that has helped me, is i tell myself that the intrusive thought is not my fault. that helps me. i dont argue with my OCD as to why i am not my unwanted intrusive thoughts, because that can become a compulsion for me, but I say once to myself, in my mind, that unwanted intrusive thought is not my fault. For me it helps me not feel bad about my unwanted intrusive thought, and I can let go of the thought easier. I don't know if other people with OCD have ever felt guilty for having unwanted intrusive thoughts, but I did. I felt guilty for having unwanted intrusive thoughts, because often the thoughts I have go against morals and values, and the thoughts are of things that I do not want to do. Now that I have accepted that it is not my fault that I have unwanted intrusive thoughts, and that my unwanted intrusive thoughts are not secret desires that I have, they are thoughts in my mind that could have come from anywhere, things I've heard from others, things I've seen on TV, things I've heard in the news Etc. Wherever my unwanted intrusive thoughts come from, I know they don't represent what I think feel or believe is right, and I accept that the unwanted intrusive thoughts, can never make me do anything that I don't want to do. And since I don't want to do what the unwanted intrusive thought is, I can accept that it is just a thought that I will never act on and I can let it go. Now it has got to the point to where I don't have to always tell myself that the unwanted intrusive thoughts are not my fault, because I know longer blame myself for having unwanted intrusive thoughts. I believe the guilt I used to feel for having the Unwanted intrusive thoughts, made my OCD worse, and the guilt made me think more about the unwanted intrusive thought, and caused me to have even more unwanted intrusive thoughts. I still have OCD and I still have unwanted intrusive thoughts, but they aren't as often and when they come into my mind, I don't feel guilty about them anymore, because I know I did not invite the unwanted intrusive touughts into my mind. It is hard for me sometimes, to not feel guilty for having unwanted intrusive thoughts. But I try to not feel bad myself about things that aren't my fault, and unwanted intrusive thoughts are not my fault. This has been my personal experience with my OCD unwanted intrusive thoughts. I hope me sharing my personal experience of OCD with you helps. Take the parts of this message that helps you, and just leave the rest.

correction, i meant to type... often my unwanted intrusive thoughts go against MY morals and values.

I also meant to type... I no longer blame myseld for having unwanted intrusive thoughts. I typed know instead of NO.

Remember with ocd, you are not your thoughts! Best of luck!