Intrusive thoughts

[gen_the_friend]

I get intrusive thoughts very frequently and as anyone else who experiences this knows, it can be very stressful. I have schizophrenia (diagnosed), and i often believe people are reading my mind, so its a mad panic when i have these thoughts. I'm constantly trying to spam my thoughts to cover up the bad ones with repeated words like "stop" or "no" and other things. this also happens with mental images. These unwanted thoughts can range from me thinking bad things that i don't believe about people, like calling them ugly, to homicidal intrusive thoughts to even unwanted sexual ones. It's like my thoughts are sabotaging me.

So yeah, i just wanted to vent about this frustration since i'm not fully comfortable talking about my intrusive thoughts with my psychologist or psychiatrist or family members. Does anyone else have something similar going on?

[Essie888]

This is nothing to be ashamed of. I had two episodes of severe anxiety/panic years ago with 24/7 intrusive thoughts. Extremely disturbing, tiring, frustrating...but hey, I no longer have them and havent for 8 years 🙂

How I dealt with them - lost the fear of it happening. Do not say, no, stop, etc, it just gives it more power.

Instead I said bring it on ...started laughing at them (hard at first), but when you embrace them as part of your day, they lose the power to cause anxious anticipation, which in turn adds to the pain of them. When I stopped worrying about them, they stopped coming. Now I can be anxious but my brain does not latch on to stupid awful things - I can think them, then let them go.

Remember everyone has weird things go through their mind - its not abnormal, only the anxiety makes us examine them, fear them, and they stick into a groove in the mind WE made - that groove can be filled in by accepting them and not fearing them...hope that helps x

[gen_the_friend]

Thanks so much for the reply! I know in my heart that it should be impossible for everyone to be hearing my intrusive thoughts, so it will be a little difficult but i'm going to take your advise and stop feeding into these thoughts. Thank you again for the response 🙂

[covertheskies]

Thank you so much for this Essie. I've been struggling with the same thing as gen for months and it has been exhausting. This new perspective has really eased my stress and I feel so much better! All the best to you and to Gen; I hope you're doing much better now! 🙂 x

[Sky_O]

Hi,

I don't have schizoprenia, but I do have OCD and I'm used to intrusive thoughts as well :I These thoughts often criticise aspects of my spirituality (I think the term is scrupulous OCD) and they really are awful. I went through a stage where I would just start constantly hitting myself to make them go away, sometimes screaming and lying on the floor. I still haven't totally stopped with the hitting, either.

I don't know if this would apply to your case, but I find that lack of sleep and hunger always triggers intrusive thoughts for me :")

All the best!

-Sky 🙂

[geoff]

Hi Sky O, thanks for posting your comment and I can sympathise for you because there are other people who also suffer from this illness, including myself.

These intrusive thoughts about religious compulsions can affect your daily life because to try and ignore them is not an easy task.

The thought maybe an obsession and the act of hitting yourself could be the compulsion so you get relief but can happen over and over again and can be sparked off by something you see or hear.

Any intrusive thought is not something we want to ever think of, but the more you try and resist these thoughts the harder it is to stop them, and they can happen at the most inappropriate times, which only makes them worse.

Have you been able to see a psychologist because there are techniques which maybe able to help you?

You're not alone with this illness.

Geoff.

[SubduedBlues]

Hi Sky O

intrusive thoughts and subconscious hitting yourself?

I don't have OCD, or Schizophrenia for that matter, but I do have Tourette Syndrome. Tics in are often preceded by a premonitory urge that a tic is coming. Sometimes, those urges are intertwined and interwoven as intrusive thoughts, which cause a physical tic completely out of the norm. I sometimes get mad at the tics, and yell at them (rudely) to go away as though they are an entity on their own.

Sometimes some people are misdiagnosed as OCD or other mental disorders because the medical practitioner is not familiar with how to diagnose TS. So I ask, when you have these thoughts, do you notice yourself twitching, fidgeting, humming, grunting, grinding your teeth, clicking fingers, shivers in your spine, etc.? It may not be TS, but it could be a sign of tic disorder. If so, then there is a whole lot more support for you.

SB

PS: I hope I am wrong.