What Are Intrusive Thoughts? Dr. Martin Seif

Can intrusive thoughts be about anything?

Sometimes, there are pop ups in my mind of sexually intrusive thoughts and feelings of strong urges of acting out on severely inappropriate things, and it makes me terrified. I feel like a predator honestly, with intrusive thoughts that make me severely anxious, distressed, and uncomfortable. I do not agree with these thoughts, I do not want them, I hate them. I don't know how to stop them. I don't know how I even got them, but they make me feel like a bad person. The urges make me feel like I'd genuinely act on them, but I'd do anything to stop myself from that, anything. I don't know how to make them stop, and I don't know what this signifies of me as a person. The feelings and strength behind them feel so real and so strong, it's difficult to convince myself otherwise. And, oh my god, being able to visualize things in your mind is a quality I wish I did not have. Seriously, it's horrible. I don't want to see images of what I'm getting a sudden intrusive urge to do, and I try to shove it out of my head and it doesn't work. I feel like there are some components that I grew up with that made me learn of things of a sexual nature at a young age that could have made me into a hypersexualized individual, and the discomfort I feel surrounding that (which I am committed to resolving and unpacking) is fueling these intrusive thoughts and makes me feel like they are real because of the fact that I am dealing with a problem of hypersexuality and issues surrounding arousal. Typing this all on here is also distressful because nothing online ever goes away and it makes me anxious thinking of someone linking this to me one day, but I understand it's a public forum to discuss OCD-related issues and so I hope everyone here is kind about that and undissmissive because I'm just looking for some help from this nightmare. Thank you.

Something that really trips people up is understanding what intrusive thoughts are. What I see suggested a lot is that intrusive thoughts are just unwanted, unpleasant thoughts. This however isn't really enough criteria to separate the thoughts of someone who suffers from OCD and someone who doesn't as everyone gets unwanted thoughts. Intrusive, obsessive thoughts can be defined by how disruptive they are to your daily life. It's not that people without OCD live without taking precautions, but the amount of time someone with OCD spends compulsing over the thought is very disruptive to their everyday routine. For example: a person without OCD will acknowledge the danger the sun possesses and they will probably put on sunblock to protect themselves. They can do it well enough is a short amount of time to go in with their day and don't really think much about it afterwards. However, someone with OCD may spend hours obsessing over making sure every part of them which can be burned is protected. They may even check to make sure they're not burning as the day goes on. Compulsive behaviors (checking, testing, researching, asking for opinions/reassurance) will take up the majority of their time where someone without OCD will have more "free time" to go about their day. There is no relief for the OCD sufferer in knowing they did good enough. They need to make 100% sure they won't burn in this very specific example. I hope this makes sense for those of you who ask this question frequently as I believe it is very important to understand. Many people deny to themselves that they have this disorder because they can't define these thoughts properly and they get stuck on whether or not their thoughts constitute as being intrusive. Remember: just because you feel you are in distress doesn't mean there's actually any danger.