Have you ever had a thought of poking something into your eye? What about a sudden urge to kick a baby? Or an image of acting on an unwanted sexual impulse? How about distracting blasphemous thoughts during prayer? Or wondering what it would be like to harm someone you love and aren't even upset at?
It turns out that nearly everyone has intrusive thoughts, and for the most part the intrusive thoughts that people without OCD have aren't very different in terms of content from the intrusive thoughts that people with OCD have. They can be weird, violent, or sexual. They can be things that we prefer not to think about.
Check out what comedian Tom Papa has to say about how common violent intrusive thoughts are:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUloDaSFzGM
There's even a subreddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/intrusivethoughts) where people record intrusive thoughts!
If everyone has these kinds of thoughts, why do some people have so much trouble coping with them, get so anxious about them, and experience them so frequently?
The answer has to do with how you relate to those thoughts. If you react without concern or with dispassionate curiosity (e.g, "Hey that's a funny thing to think - I hope I remember to pick up milk when I get off the bus..."), the thought is unlikely to cause distress or recur. In fact, you may not even remember it later, just like you didn't remember many of the other thoughts you had and things you saw for a passing moment. Why? Because they didn't matter.
However, if you attribute meaning to the thoughts (e.g., "Oh my gosh, why would I have a thought like that? Does it mean I want to do it? Does it mean I will do it? Does it mean I am a bad person for thinking it?"), you are likely to get anxious. And if you get anxious about a thought, you are likely to try not to think that thought. And if you try not to think a thought - any thought - you are likely to keep thinking that thought. And if you are anxious about a thought, especially if it recurs, you may engage in avoidance or behaviors to try to feel less anxious in the short run. But in the long run, those behaviors maintain the fear, cause the thoughts to come back, reinforce the beliefs that the thoughts mean bad things, and interfere with your life. So, attributing meaning to intrusive thoughts leads down a path to anxiety and then unhelpful ways of coping with anxiety (e.g., trying not to think about it, avoidance, compulsions, reassurance-seeking), and counterproductively keeps those thoughts around, creating a vicious cycle.
If you want to be less bothered by your thoughts, treat them like white noise - just some random neural firings that are sometimes quiet and sometimes loud but probably not worth paying much attention to. And allow yourself to think whatever you think.
As they say, if you want to think about something less, think about it more.
It turns out that nearly everyone has intrusive thoughts, and for the most part the intrusive thoughts that people without OCD have aren't very different in terms of content from the intrusive thoughts that people with OCD have. They can be weird, violent, or sexual. They can be things that we prefer not to think about.
Check out what comedian Tom Papa has to say about how common violent intrusive thoughts are:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUloDaSFzGM
There's even a subreddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/intrusivethoughts) where people record intrusive thoughts!
If everyone has these kinds of thoughts, why do some people have so much trouble coping with them, get so anxious about them, and experience them so frequently?
The answer has to do with how you relate to those thoughts. If you react without concern or with dispassionate curiosity (e.g, "Hey that's a funny thing to think - I hope I remember to pick up milk when I get off the bus..."), the thought is unlikely to cause distress or recur. In fact, you may not even remember it later, just like you didn't remember many of the other thoughts you had and things you saw for a passing moment. Why? Because they didn't matter.
However, if you attribute meaning to the thoughts (e.g., "Oh my gosh, why would I have a thought like that? Does it mean I want to do it? Does it mean I will do it? Does it mean I am a bad person for thinking it?"), you are likely to get anxious. And if you get anxious about a thought, you are likely to try not to think that thought. And if you try not to think a thought - any thought - you are likely to keep thinking that thought. And if you are anxious about a thought, especially if it recurs, you may engage in avoidance or behaviors to try to feel less anxious in the short run. But in the long run, those behaviors maintain the fear, cause the thoughts to come back, reinforce the beliefs that the thoughts mean bad things, and interfere with your life. So, attributing meaning to intrusive thoughts leads down a path to anxiety and then unhelpful ways of coping with anxiety (e.g., trying not to think about it, avoidance, compulsions, reassurance-seeking), and counterproductively keeps those thoughts around, creating a vicious cycle.
If you want to be less bothered by your thoughts, treat them like white noise - just some random neural firings that are sometimes quiet and sometimes loud but probably not worth paying much attention to. And allow yourself to think whatever you think.
As they say, if you want to think about something less, think about it more.