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Intrusive Thoughts


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Hi, i’ve got anxiety for a few months now and as it is fairly new it was quite scary, but now i’ve gotten used to it, i’ve now started to get intrusive thoughts of hurting people which distress me quite abit, i feel as though i’m a bad person because of it and that my thoughts are future reality, can someone help me out?

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Hi Connor :)

These thoughts are common in people suffering from OCD. They are just thoughts and don't mean you are a bad person, despite how distressing they are.

Have you been diagnosed with OCD? The gold standard treatment for OCD is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). If you are in the UK you can access it via a referral by your gp or in England you can self-refer.

In OCD it is the compulsions in response to the thoughts that drive the disorder. The compulsions that people with thoughts about harm often do are to try to stop the thoughts happening (thought blocking), think back to make sure nothing has happened (mental checking) and avoid certain people or places that bring on the thoughts (avoidance). They might also think a lot about what the thoughts mean (rumination) or ask others if they think they are a nice person (checking through reassurance). All of these compulsions make you believe that the thoughts you are having are important, they increase doubt in who you are, so you look for more certainty via more compulsions, they build your belief further about the importance of the thoughts creating a vicious cycle called OCD. CBT is all about recognising that cycle and changing how you respond to the thoughts. 

There is a great book on having thoughts about harming people by Adam Shaw and Lauren Callaghan called Pulling the trigger. It takes you through Adam's journey through therapy from his perspective and from Lauren's his therapist. It teaches you what CBT is too, so is a good place to start before you manage to access therapy. 

If you have more questions feel free to ask :)

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Hi Gemma, Thankyou so much, It’s just that the thoughts bring me anxiety which lower my happiness at times and i get agitated easily at the moment, i also feel quite spaced out as though i’m not actually here, do you understand what i mean?

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Yes i understand. Anxiety will definitely make you unhappy, it tends to dominate over all emotions, it's designed to do that from an evolutionary stand point. And as for feeling agitated and spaced out, they are also likely to be the consequences of anxiety.

The thing is although you find the thoughts anxiety provoking, they don't actually have to be. Studies have shown that the type of thoughts you describe are common to everyone. They are not specific to OCD sufferers or bad people, they are just random thoughts that everyone experiences. With OCD it's usually the thoughts furthest away from how we want to be that bother us the most. 

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The thoughts you have are no different from the thoughts anyone else has. 

OCD sufferers tend to get stuck on thoughts based on their worst fears. That's why they do compulsions and get stuck in the cycle.

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