Hey Scotty,
Welcome to the forums and thanks for joining us!
Yeah I’m all too familiar with intrusive thoughts. They are little buggers.
The good news is that you’ve recognised them for what they are - intrusive thoughts. They’re a pain, but they are just thoughts. They don’t necessarily mean anything or have to have an impact on you.
There’s a couple of things that I’ve tried that seems to help me -
- I try and recognise when one pops up. That’s the key because it’s like it wants you to hook onto it. Some people even say ‘hello thought’ or give it a kind of persona - like Trump or even an annoying kid in the backseat. It wants your attention and it wants it badly. So it’s up to you to work on not giving it attention.
- Sometimes it can be helpful to challenge it. I’m not sure what your thought is but you can try and question it - where’s the evidence that it’s true? Am I assuming the worst right now? Last time I had this thought, did anything bad happen?
- Using general anxiety tools. What sort of stuff have you used in the past? Anything like distraction, breathing exercises, mindfulness can help the anxiety lessen and help the intrusive thoughts die down.
Hope this gives you a good place to start -
