Intrusive thoughts happen to everyone from time to time, but they can be incredibly scary if they happen a lot or are violent in nature. And it can be especially frightening if you don't know where these thoughts are coming from. It took me a long time to finally understand how intrusive thoughts work, despite having it explained to me several different times. The thing that finally got through to me was the book Turtles All The Way Down by John Green. It’s a work of fiction but the author suffers from OCD and intrusive thoughts himself, so he represents them incredibly well.
For those that don’t spend a lot of time thinking about psychology, intrusive thoughts are thoughts a person has that are unwanted and cause distress. Most people experience these types of thoughts from time to time but are able to easily brush them off. An example of this would be waiting for a city bus and thinking “What if I just stepped out into traffic?” You don’t actually want to kill yourself or anything, it’s just a weird thought that pops into your head. But for some people these types of thoughts become extremely persistent and very distressing. This is most common in people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
Personally I have had intrusive thoughts a few different times in my life. The first was in middle school when I started having sexual thoughts that went against the religion I was raised in. These thoughts tormented me for months. I was ashamed to admit to them, and I don’t think that I ever did. It was obvious to the adults around me that I was experiencing some extreme anxiety. I must have admitted to having bad thoughts in general because I remember someone telling me that the more I tried to *not* think about something the more I was actually thinking about it. After that I slowly taught myself to use distractions as a coping mechanism to keep myself from dwelling on the bad thoughts.
As an adult my intrusive thoughts have mostly taken the form of self harm and suicide. Even now, when I’m doing much better than ever before, I still rarely drive over a bridge without idly thinking about driving off said bridge. There have been times in my life when I was scared to be around knives for fear I would harm myself with them. Those are just a few examples but you get the idea.
The thing that’s important to know about these intrusive thoughts is that they terrified me. I was so scared that one moment of poor judgment on my part, one bad choice, would end my life. I didn’t want to die. I was never suicidal or making plans to kill myself. But I was absolutely terrified that my subconscious was trying to kill me. I figured that if I was having those thoughts they had to come from somewhere, so I concluded that I must be subconsciously suicidal. But that’s not how intrusive thoughts work. They weren’t my subconscious trying to tell me anything. They were just my brain misfiring.
It took me literally decades to learn not to be scared of my intrusive thoughts. When I was a kid I thought they were sinful or some kind of spiritual warfare. As an adult I thought they were indicative of mental health struggles I simply refused to face. Now I understand that they are just thoughts. No more, no less. I don’t need to be scared of them because they can’t make me do anything. I can simply let the thought happen and then let it fade away, without experiencing fear or shame. I don’t even need to analyze those thoughts for any deeper meaning. I can just let it pass through my head without engaging it at all.
If you are struggling with intrusive thoughts please know you are not alone. If you need help dealing with them, talk to your doctor or a mental health professional. Intrusive thoughts do not need to be terrifying and you don’t need to conquer them alone.
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