Intrusive visual / thought - looking for ideas

[Strongbear]

Evening all. I suffer from intrusive thoughts. And quite often just intrusive visuals - there's very few thoughts around them. I try to run with a logic of 'a thought is just a thought' and not apply much significance to them, but one visual in particular is like a default setting. Does anyone have experience of this and anything that worked well. Be happy to see some ideas.

[dksea]

Hi Stronger, welcome to the forums.  Sorry to hear about your troubles, hopefully you can get some info here that helps you on your journey to recovery.

While its common when discussing OCD to here the term "intrusive thoughts" thrown around, that actually encompasses things like images, sensations, feelings, etc.  In reality its all tied together.  You may notice the 'image' aspect must, but its likely connected to thoughts about that image, feeling unease when you have the image, etc.  In the end what really matters is you are having repeated, unwanted mental events of some kind (in your case primarily images) that are causing you distress.

It sounds like you have got a good start, trying to remind yourself that a thought is just a thought is good (and true!).  It may be that you are still struggling to move forward with the one visual in particular because you are still engaging in compulsions without realizing it, and are still having difficulty accepting that doubt that goes along with OCD recovery.  Don't worry, thats pretty common, its hard to break away from all our compulsions, especially the ones we do without realizing it/noticing it.  

If you aren't working with a therapist or if thats not an option in the near future, you might benefit from getting a book or workbook on OCD, especially one focused on self guided CBT.  You can learn various different exercises that are geared towards helping you confront and adjust your OCD behaviors.  There are some good choices on the OCD-UK sites shop.  One book I found particularly helpful is called Brainlock.  In the book the author introduces the Four Step method for treating OCD.  For me that was very useful for dealing with mental compulsions like rumination.

Anyway, hopefully you find the forums helpful and good luck in your recovery!