One way to determine whether intrusive thoughts are a problem for you is to figure out, “how much distress are they starting to cause? How much time are they taking up in somebody's day?” Dr. This is when intrusive thoughts start to be a concern. It’s that the thought didn’t float by like the rest of them-it got caught. It’s not the initial thought that’s the problem, exactly. Or maybe you imagine a loved one dying, and even though you know they’re just down the street, you can’t stop thinking about it and crying. “Even though everyone has intrusive thoughts, for some people, they get really stuck,” says Maria Fraire, PhD, clinical psychologist and program director of the OCD Institute for Children and Adolescents at McLean Hospital.įor example, let’s say you think about how gross your keyboard is-but then you can’t stop thinking about it, even after you’ve wiped it down, even after you reassure yourself you’ve been using the same keyboard for years and it hasn’t hurt you before. Unwelcome thoughts can be so upsetting that they play a role in several mental health conditions, particularly anxiety conditions like obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and generalized anxiety disorder. If they’re not bothering you (other than to make you think, Um, WTF was that about?) then there’s no reason to worry about them.īut intrusive thoughts can sometimes start to eat at people. So hopefully it’s somewhat comforting to know that most people imagine truly gruesome scenarios from time to time (Stephen King has made a whole career out of it). It can be almost anything-maybe you’re just going about your day and suddenly imagine the city is on fire, or you’re at work and you think about what it would be like to punch your boss (even though they’re perfectly nice). “We all have bizarre, weird, intrusive thoughts.” “An intrusive thought is an unwanted thought or image that comes into your head,” says Liz McIngvale, PhD, LCSW, director of the McLean OCD Institute at Houston. But if yours are really bothering you-maybe even scaring you-here’s what you should know. These are called intrusive thoughts, and the good news is they happen to everybody. You might even wonder if having these awful thoughts means something about you-if your brain is somehow filled with darker, scarier thoughts than everyone else’s. It’s a terrible thing to think about, and you might be wondering WTF it means and where that even came from. It’s the middle of a blue-sky afternoon and you’re thinking about how lovely the sun feels on your skin when, boom, out of nowhere, you imagine a car crash killing your loved one on their drive home.
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