for me, it's like there's two folders of my thoughts, 'main thoughts' and 'sub thoughts' and it's like a background voice of my background voice, you know? like so quiet and irrelevant but it's still here and i can try to ignore it but not fully and it feels like it's just really nasty, like it's warring with me, never shuts up and just keeps nagging me with those thoughts
To be honest what scares me that I feel like other people don’t have cause they “know” they are intrusive is my intrusive thoughts feel like regular thoughts and don’t feel intrusive
@user36373738 I notice this too. And I’ve also found that when they ramp but it can feed into this idea I have about psychosis and going “psychotic” is a theme for me so I’ll think I’m hearing voices
That’s what intrusive thoughts love to do is keep nagging. It’s your brain trying to help you, but it doesn’t know it’s actually doing the opposite. When I was first diagnosed, I suffered with them so bad I couldn’t even get out of bed let alone talk to people. But with the help of my therapist and ERP, my use of thoughts have gotten better. They haven’t gone away, but I’ve learned to deal with it. Another thing that helped me was I was able to label or give a name to my intrusive thoughts. I recommend something silly so when you start having those thoughts, you could say hey Biff just go away or it’s just Biff lol and keep going on about your day.
I notice that my intrusive thoughts sound very similar to my “normal” thoughts that it’s almost imperceptible, I guess. They always seem to hit harder/yell louder whenever I’m feeling vulnerable in any way (Vulnerable in regards to Vulnerability Factors, something we learn about in DBT) so it sucks then cause it’s already hard to parse out they’re intrusive thoughts but when I’m vulnerable it’s almost impossible to fight against them. So really? Intrusive thoughts feel really no different from my normal thoughts since they’re both, at their hearts/roots/cores, ultimately just thoughts. So like. The only real difference I can tell is that the intrusive thoughts lead to anxiety which then leads to me wanting to do something to relieve that anxiety, which is how I can tell them apart from my normal thoughts. My normal thoughts don’t make me anxious (usually) and have that same sense of urgency compared to my normal ones
I struggle so bad with intrusive thoughts. They can be so bad that I'll cry because I KNOW that's not how I feel or want to do. (Too embarrassed to say what they're about) I'll constantly try to figure out why I have them, and constantly figure out what they mean, causing me to constantly circle around and around. I had to get on anxeity meds, which helped a little but the thoughts still happen. How do you help yourself with this? How do you know that you're just not some physcopath? 😅
This is hard to admit, but I’ve been struggling with intrusive thoughts where the central theme is racism. I don’t use racial slurs but my brain worries that I have said something that hurts or offends someone and now I find myself analyzing every social interaction.
I find that the intrusive thoughts that hurt me the most are the quiet ones. The ones that, at a glance, can be hard to differentiate from your own thoughts. The louder thoughts are easy to diffuse, to say "maybe, maybe not" to but the quiet ones leave me ruminating for hours trying to figure out if they're mine or OCD's. They leave me feeling disconnected from those around me and even from myself. I can go from happily thinking about marrying my boyfriend in the future to feeling like I have never actually loved him in a matter of minutes all because a thought was a whisper rather than a scream. This is my first post and I'm not sure what I'm looking for in making it. Advice? To know I'm not alone? I guess if there's anything you feel the need to share I'd love to hear it.
Share your thoughts so the Community can respond
