How to know if it is an intrusive thought? Is it by the level of distress it gives you? I spend a lot of time figuring out 'is this really OCD, or its an important thought I should engage with.' and thus the engagement of figuring the thought has already begun. Pleeeease help, I appreciate it 💟💟💟

Yes but I also believe that the intrusive thoughts could be purely obsessional also, not necessarily followed by compulsions

What if its reoccurring but not distressful? I guess this would mean u are in recovery?

@Dre83 True. But intrusive thoughts are always distressful and reocurrent. Without the obsession and the distress there is no intrusion. The distress is really the disease. If there is no suffering, there is no problem.

@Anonymous So how does recovery look? From what I gather if we are in recovery we still have obsessive thoughts but they just don't bother us as much as we just react to them in a different way as we have learned to cope with them.

@Dre83 Also the thoughts aren't as frequent.

@Dre83 Good question. Let me tell you. I am talking about my personal experience. I have my very first therapy session tomorrow. I am far from anything that may be considered as ‘recovery’. I am just stating my personal experience with this condition. I see that if there is no suffering there is no disease. I do not see any reocurrent thoughts by themselves as pathological. For instance, a person who is in a mystical state of union, has reocurrent thoughts about God. But such thoughts cause a great deal of bliss and happiness. We could hardly call these thoughts a sign of a pathological condition. In my view, only the presence of suffering is a sign of a condition. We all have reocurrent thoughts about our jobs, and our relationships but it is the extreme suffering what sets one person apart from another. Without suffering, I do not see the problem.

@Dre83 Let me put it this way, all intrusive thoughts are reocurrent (that is why they are obsessive), but not all reocurrent thoughts are intrusive, in the sense that they are distressing. Just my two humble cents.

@Anonymous Thank you anonymous and Dre83! What you said anonymous makes sense thank you very much. I think Dre83 yes you are right from what I read about recovery it is not that the thoughts will ever go away, that is not the aim of therapy, as it is unrealistic. Rule no 1 we learn in recovery is - We cannot control our thoughts. But with time and recovery we learn how to deal with these thoughts in new helpful ways, as our usual way is by doing compulsions - - very very unhelpful. With overall anxiety lessening around the obsessions, decreasing compulsions, the thoughts themselves will be less frequent.and when they do come, they are not as loud and disturbing as once they have been. This is what I read from books and other people in recovery and it makes sense. I hope one day to get there!😊👍

@ButterflyStar Thanks! Yeah this is definitely a journey.

I'm sorry I'm sure that it is such a highly distressing time for people with contamination OCD. I think there is helpful podcasts even from nocd on Spotify and YouTube for those with this type. Yes I am =) are you? 💟

@ButterflyStar Yes!! Another good podcast is The OCD stories if you’re interested! :)