Combating Intrusive Thoughts: Stigma and Solutions
Written by Asher Chambers
Graphics by Dana Dang
Intrusive thoughts, as their name suggests, are intrusive and upsetting. They are the kind of thoughts that creep inside your head and leave you feeling anxious, guilty or confused, and their content is usually sexual, violent and generally considered socially unacceptable. The majority of the population experiences these, however, due to their unpleasant nature, most people don’t wish to speak of them. This in turn means we feel isolated with our thoughts, and the feelings of shame attached to them increases.
People have intrusive thoughts for many different reasons. Things like anxiety, phobias, or past experiences can contribute to and influence intrusive thoughts. The thoughts can play on our real fears, which leads to very real anxiety and distress. But you don’t need a reason to have intrusive thoughts. A pre-existing condition is not a requirement, being a human being is enough. The brain is brilliant, but sometimes it feels like it's playing a sick joke on us as intrusive thoughts can come out of nowhere, stay long enough for us to recoil in disgust, and disappear so quickly we don’t have a chance to reason with them.
And although they would be upsetting enough on their own, intrusive thoughts are usually accompanied by a wide array of negative emotions, ranging from frustration to guilt. We may feel like horrible people for thinking such things and assume the worst about our character, guessing that intrusive thoughts must be our true intentions. We might feel helpless to stop them and struggle to move on and continue about our day.
In my own experience, guilt was the worst part, as it defied any logic. I felt so terrible that those thoughts could even be close to me, let alone inside my head, and I held back from speaking about them to anyone because I was completely convinced that my loved ones would hate me and I would be locked up somewhere. I even refrained from writing them down in my journal, so paranoid that someone would find it and I would be shunned. It took me quite a while to open up, but when I did so to my therapist, she reassured me of two things immediately. Two things I technically already knew, but still desperately needed to hear:
Everyone experiences intrusive thoughts
They are not your thoughts.
It was a relief to hear that, especially from someone qualified to say it. And it’s true, we often make the mistakes of assuming we are alone in our experiences and assuming that just because the thoughts happen to be in our heads, they must be ours.
However, it’s not like knowing these two things automatically banishes all intrusive thoughts - though that would be nice. So, if we can’t get rid of them in an instant, what are we meant to do with them?
The first thing we can do is learn to recognize and separate them from our own thoughts. You might try looking for common phrases such as ‘What if…’ or ‘You have to do ___ or else…’, and key themes. Being able to recognize the thoughts means we can see that they are not our thoughts, and we can begin to remove the guilt we may feel because of them. It’s kind of like painting them a bright color, so there is no chance of mistaking them.
We can also use simple, positive affirmations as reminders in those stressful moments. Sayings such as ‘They are not mine’, ‘I have no control over that’, and a favorite of mine: ‘We’ve done this before, I still don’t care!’ are good examples. Repeating these things to yourself, even if you don’t immediately believe them, helps instill the idea as an automatic rebuttal to intrusive thoughts.
It’s incredibly difficult to control your thoughts. If someone said ‘don’t think of a zebra’, you immediately think of a zebra regardless, and the same applies to intrusive thoughts - we cannot simply push them away by sheer force of will, we cannot unthink them, so instead we should acknowledge their presence. Acknowledgment, of course, does not mean we should become obsessed with them, trying to figure out their meaning, it means we should recognize that they exist, and continue to reiterate to ourselves that they are separate.
Because of their uncomfortable nature, and because they may play on our fears, sometimes we need a few moments to collect ourselves, and that’s perfectly normal! Sometimes they can be a complete shock, you feel unprepared to experience such a bizarre and disturbing thought, and that can mean you need some extra time to calm yourself. Intrusive thoughts can be manifestations of other anxieties and stress present in our lives, so what do you usually do to help manage your anxiety? What do you do to distract yourself? Can you use those techniques to help combat the intrusive thoughts and help you calm down? Just because it could be a different presentation of anxiety, that doesn’t mean that your tried and true methods won’t work.
By making a conscious effort to practice these techniques, and continuing to work to find new ways of managing intrusive thoughts, we slowly become more accustomed to them, and coping strategies become our response, replacing the feelings of panic and disgust.
Personally, the way I respond to my intrusive thoughts is to make an effort to roll my eyes, mutter something along the lines of ‘that’s stupid’ or ‘it doesn’t even make sense!’ to diminish the thought, and I do something with my hands to keep them busy. I might also change my setting by moving to a different room to physically get away from my thoughts, though this is if an intrusive thought has particularly shocked or upset me.
Intrusive thoughts are upsetting and frustrating, they can be unreasonable and become repetitive yet disturbing. Recognizing and planning for intrusive thoughts is the best way we can begin to start dealing with them. It takes practice, patience, and kindness to ourselves, but it’s worth it to be able to continue cooking tea after a particularly ugly moment - I get things done much faster these days!
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