Let's get REAL about intrusive thoughts!!!
(A THREAD)

✧ What are intrusive thoughts? ✧
Intrusive thoughts are, at the base level, automatic unwanted thoughts that occur in the brain. Everyone has them, however due to certain mental health conditions, they can take on different meanings and cause different levels of distress.

✧ What constitutes an intrusive thought? ✧
Intrusive thoughts can pretty much be about anything. Sometimes they are as frivolous as "I should pick up that squirrel right now" and sometimes they can be very violent and disturbing. They can be about relationships (i.e thoughts-

[tw: more specifics about ITs]

-about not really loving your partner, family, etc. or that they don't love you), harming yourself or others, sexual in nature (i.e. thoughts about having innapropriate sexual urges) and more.

Regardless of the content, these types of intrusive thoughts can be very disturbing and distressing to those who experience them regularly. Everyone has intrusive thoughts, but when you experience them 24/7 and struggle with other mental health issues, they can be debilitating.

The most common mental illness associated with intrusive thoughts is OCD. This is because those of us with OCD often get stuck in an obsessive-compulsive cycle with our ITs where we obsess over the thoughts and then use a compulsive behavior to lessen the distress.

Often times, this compulsion is as simple as seeking reassurance that these thoughts don't make us a bad person or that we will not act on our harmful/immoral thoughts. They can also include things like avoiding certain objects, media, places & subject matter. HOWEVER-

-acting on these compulsions does not stop the thoughts, it actually reinforces them. This is why mindfulness, CBT & exposure therapy are often utilized for those who struggle with this, to help us sit with the thoughts and be exposed to triggers in a controlled environment.

OCD is not the only mental illness that intrusive thoughts are a significant and distressing part of though! They are also very prevalent in PTSD, Bipolar, BPD and GAD. Again, everyone has intrusive thoughts! These illnesses just exacerbate them.

✧ But what if I feel like I AM a bad person? What if my brain is telling me I WANT to do these things? WHAT IF... ✧

OCD and anxiety disorders are the "what if" monsters. Intrusive thoughts are manifestations of your deepest fears, not your desires. Living with these disorders-

-your brain will ALWAYS find another "what if" until you get to the point where you can sit with the thoughts and not react to them. It takes YEARS of work and practice, and unfortunately not everyone has access to therapy. At the end of this thread I will link free resources!

✧ My personal experience with intrusive thoughts ✧
I have struggled with intrusive thoughts since I was a young kid. I was always worried that if I didn't do everything perfectly/a certain way, something bad would happen to me or my loved ones. They then morphed into-

-obsessions about harming myself or my loves ones. The images that would pop into my head were gruesome and made me sick to my stomach. I started becoming paranoid that these thoughts were somehow real and that I was becoming a terrible person. When I was 17, I finally opened-

-up to my mom about these thoughts. We didn't have access to therapy at the time due to financial reasons but I was able to see a psychiatrist. I was diagnosed with OCD and put on SSRIs. The meds alone helped a little bit, but what helped the most in the time in which I could-

-not get therapy was educating myself about OCD and being able to understand what intrusive thoughts were and why they happen, which is why I am sharing this with you all! I have since been able to get back into therapy and with therapy, medication and my own research/practice-

-my thoughts are much more manageable. I even do independent exposures by watching things I genuinely enjoy like horror films or researching true crime! I am very fortunate to have had access to these types of care, not everyone does. Therefore, I want to post some resources!

✧ RESOURCES FOR INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS/OCD ✧
My favorite guided meditation:

Tips for meditation with OCD/anxiety:
https://www.newharbinger.com/blog/5-ways-make-meditation-more-accessible-people-ocd-and-anxiety

Free indfulness exercises:
https://www.mindful.org/audio-resources-for-mindfulness-meditation/
https://mindfulnessexercises.com/free-mindfulness-worksheets/

super big master list of worksheets for OCD:
https://www.psychologytools.com/professional/problems/obsessive-compulsive-disorder-ocd/

Hope this helped some of you guys! You are never ever alone.
✧End thread✧