i am confused with how to deal with intrusive thoughts. i think that i have suicidal ocd btw. do i ignore the thoughts, or think that they are not true, etc? i HATE intrusive thoughts soo much. i just never know if they are real or not. i don’t know if I am actually suicidal or if these are fake thoughts. i know that i don’t have the symptoms for people with actual suicidal thoughts, but that’s reassurance which doesn’t really help me!! idk i’m confused, i am always confused. i don’t really know what to trust. so, if anyone knows what to do when you have intrusive thoughts, please let me know!

Well I would always consult with a therapist. They will give you much better advice than anyone of us can give. That's your best shot. Now on ocd the point is to ignore your thoughts. By ignoring your thoughts you are facing your anxiety. You have to let yourself ride out your anxiety. Give yourself time to feel the anxiety without doing compulsions or reassuring yourself. Ride out the anxiety, as you see it will begin it will begin to die down. That is an ERP Exercise. The more consistent with the exercises you are the more you will habitiate yourself to the anxiety and the anxiety will go down. You can manage this. Go about your normal day. Keep doing your normal day to day routine. Even if your anxious. You got this.

Please keep this in check. If your not seeing a therapist make an appointment or talk to someone you feel comfortable with to discuss. Here’s an important article about this- https://www.intrusivethoughts.org/?topic=suicide Don’t let this slide, if it’s getting worse and you’re having troubles. Our brains work differently and we need to be fully aware of how it’s affecting our day to day functioning.

This really helped me. Make a list of situations where your symptoms occur.  Next, list all the thoughts, images, or impulses that come in to your mind in each situation (obsessions)  Write down all the things you do in these situations to avoid danger or to take away the thoughts  Finally, list any activities or situations you avoid because of your obsessions.  Go through these lists, and rate how anxious you think you would be if you tried to resist each of the compulsions, in each different situation. Use a rating scale of 0 to 10, where 10 means you would be extremely anxious, 8 means highly anxious, 5 means moderately anxious, and 3 means mildly anxious.  Choose one thing on the list that you think you could resist with only mild to moderate anxiety. Next time you are in that situation, try as hard as you can to resist that compulsion without giving in. Pay attention to how anxious you feel at the start, and to the way this anxiety fades over time.  Repeat this same activity, resisting the compulsion, every time you are in that situation (at least once every day). You should notice that, with practice, it gets easier and easier to resist, because your anxiety is fading.  Once you are comfortable with this activity, choose another, slightly harder compulsion and repeat step 7. Continue in this way until you’ve worked though all compulsions on your list. Be careful that you don’t start giving in to new compulsions once you’ve stopped the old ones.  Remember that when you have OCD, the doubts get stronger the more you give in to them, and weaker the more you resist them.

thank you all for the wonderful comments. I can’t afford therapy nor am able to go right now, so i am trying to do this on my own. sometimes it’s really hard, but i know that there is a world where intrusive thoughts don’t bother me anymore. i just don’t know when. it’s hard to plan or think about the future, because my brain is like “well your going to die anyways”. this gives me anxiety

i don’t know, it’s just hard to believe that these thoughts are not real