Intrusive Thoughts Causing Me Distress

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I have been suffering from Intrusive thoughts for around a year and half.  It can be anything, any topic.  Right now I felt it was doing OK with a theme that I believe I will one day turn into a monster.  I was really fine with it and accepted the thoughts as silly and it really was easing, I wasn’t so concerned anymore.  I’d have intrusive thoughts saying I may one day do something wrong.  This is not close to true because every time my brain tells me, it makes me feel extreme anxiety and I end up struggling with it.  I tell myself it’s just a thought and I can’t control them, it’s my brains way of working and I don’t need to listen.

However I was laying down going to sleep and I was just thinking about loads of things, half the time I don’t know what.  Then I had a intrusive thought arise in my mind that involved someone I knows, and at first I was like ” Just ignore that, you didn’t chose to think that and I laughed it off ” but it came on fast, so I then decided I’d just let the thought be present until it passed and this involved the same mental images being there and I’d just laugh them, let them be and then they passed.  I didn’t feel worried, I felt like it was my mind just randomly throwing in a disturbing mental image.

I am having trouble trying to figure out why it happened, or if the thought was me just naturally thinking about it?  I did notice myself thinking about it and thought ” Wow why you thinking about that, were you purposely thinking that, or did that just happen randomly and now you’ve noticed ” or ” were you thinking of a women  and your OCD just jumped to thinking of someone?  Was this my brain doing mental checking as it often does, where I will think just to check I’m not one of those people and it gives me relief but only short term.

This has now be on the mind all day and I don’t know how to accept and move on.  Even the thought didn’t give me any happiness, or any sort of reaction what so ever, where as if I was to be thinking of a women I’d love it.

I felt I was out the end, now I feel back in it.  At least I now believe I’d never turn into a monster because I feel so against it, that’s it unlikely to ever happen, but this thought makes me think, maybe it’s denial, maybe you’re fighting this off because you know it’s wrong but deep down inside you are one of those sickos out there.

Other themes can be, that I am not going to live very long, or people think I’m a creep because I said an odd thing, one day I’ll turn into those people who harm others, I’ll turn out like a drug addict and everyone will hate me, one day I’ll get sacked from work because I did something wrong that would never justify getting sacked, or people don’t like me because I am odd, when I’m probably not that odd, but slightly odd, no one has ever called me odd.  It can then be focussing on parts of my body and then thinking I’m dying and my mind saying, that twinge means you have liver failure, and I’ll check my eyes for Jaundice, I’ll check for symptoms, I’ll do loads of compulsions from that one thought, all usually in my head or checking the internet.  I’ll find a women at work attractive and think about-face her, and that makes me feel severe anxiety because then my mind will tell me I’m doing something inappropriate or will do in the future.  Then that will make me begin to think I will cheat if given the chance and that I want that chance, even though I don’t want to cheat, however if I was single I’d love to be with that women at work and that’s normal.

Thanks,

[Author]

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