Can intrusive thoughts be very detailed and feel so real? Can they be about anything? Also can they hit out of nowhere? I was laying down trying to meditate when I was hit with a religious theme so badly. I have just felt like I am losing it and the guilt of having it is so strong. I keep thinking about having those thoughts over and over and I feel like something is wrong. Any advice would help. Couple days ago I was struggling with the theme of schizophrenia and now it’s like o have both themes at once.

So I’ve had it really bad blasphemy thoughts against god and the Holy Spirit but lately I’ve been ha these thoughts they say I do mean them even though I don’t and I’ve been feeling really weird like yesterday I felt really disconnected and it kept trying to make me say I meant the thoughts, but I don’t and I’ve just been trying to keep the thoughts away, but they’re so loud. I know the truth, but it’s just like so hard to keep them away with the images and stuff still there. It’s like I’m having a hard time being emotional so it’s like I don’t know. I don’t want to feel like I’m doing it for real when I’m not and I just don’t know what to think anymore. I don’t want God to harden in my heart. It’s very hard for me to even look at Christian things at all without saying something that.

So my therapist told me to start telling myself every time I have an intrusive thought just say oh there’s that thought again, and don’t try to figure it out or do mental compulsions. Well our usual tactic of “there’s that thought/feeling again” is not working at all this morning. This morning I was having really bad anxiety, it hits hardest in the morning when I am lying in bed with my son and I know the thoughts could come at any minute. Well they did, and I immediately was like no please just think of anything else. Well in pushing away the thoughts, I had this really weird feeling like I couldn’t decipher between reality and images. I was just getting flashes of images that felt so real. Even though I could physically feel my body and know I wasnt engaging in the thought or acting on it. It was like a flash of anxiety that hit and I couldn’t tell what was real and wasn’t. So of course my mind starts trying to figure that feeling out and if what I was thinking about just happened. And no matter how many times I’ve tried to say there’s that thought/feeling again, I can’t let it go. I was physically conscious and could feel my body but mentally I couldn’t. It’s so weird and hard to explain. But I’ve been doubting and second guessing that moment all morning and I’m in a bad spiral, again. 😭 it’s like every time I think I’m moving forward I get sucked back in and feel like I can’t practice my tools anymore. I don’t know what I should do 😩

For the last year or so (10 months) I have had an obsession with developing schizophrenia after learning about prodrome from a Twitter comment section. I have a history of health OCD going back seven years with everything from balding, Lyme, MS, stroke, and rabies being themes. This obsession with schizophrenia has led me to have intrusive thoughts and compulsions around checking to see if I'm hallucinating, checking to see if I believe conspiracy theories, checking to see if I'm paranoid or mistrustful, and checking to see if I have memory issues/dissociation. Steadily with ERP many of these have been chipped away but I had to move recently and cease treatment for the time being until I can find a new therapist in my area. I'm now stuck in a loop trying to find out if I'm paranoid, checking in with my mind constantly to see if I'm afraid of being watched/tracked/etc.; I frequently get these intrusive thoughts now and I'm really scared that they mean I'm developing psychosis and I don't know what to do to deal with them. I've been able to do exposures for memory/dissociation/hallucinations and I don't really worry about those anymore, but this paranoia thing is so sticky I'm not sure what kind of exposures would work. I'm already on Zoloft 100mg and am not sure how to get this feeling to go away with ERP. Has anyone had experience with treating this theme? Thank you so much for your support