The difference is not so much your diagnosis, it's your attitude towards the experience of the thought. “What gets stuck is definitely not random - it's the thing that offends you the most,” she says. Winston describes those who have OCD as having a “biologically pre-disposed stickiness” of the mind. Without the presence of compulsions, there is no OCD.” The person with OCD will then engage in some sort of behavior called a compulsion or ritual to exterminate the thought or reverse any actions they believe would happen as a result of the thought. “They'll often worry that it is a true representation of a hidden desire or warning of a possible disaster. “If someone has OCD, it will be very difficult to shake an intrusive thought out of their head,” explains Monnica Williams, Ph.D., clinical psychologist, Associate Professor and Director of the Laboratory for Culture & Mental Health Disparities at the University of Ottawa School of Psychology, and Clinical Director of the New England OCD Institute/Behavioral Wellness Institute in Tolland, CT. It’s whether or not you can move past these thoughts without developing rituals to try and combat them that can signal the difference between your regular, run-of-the-mill intrusive thoughts, and whether or not you are dealing with the possibility of anxiety-driven Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). We have thoughts about great stuff, like What if I caught the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl? Then we have thoughts about really dark, unpleasant stuff that we would never tell another person. “It's one of those things your brain just does, like a natural exercise of some sort. Why do we have intrusive thoughts?Ībramowitz says intrusive thoughts are just part and parcel of how our brains work. Or, you're married or involved in an intimate relationship, and you think - what if I cheated on my partner? Or, people who are very religious will often have some sort of blasphemous image about who they worship, or about acting out in their house of worship,” he explains. The thought goes through your mind - what if she had a car accident? You get an image of her body thrown on the street and broken glass everywhere. “A normal intrusive thought would be, you're sitting around and your wife told you that she was going to be home by 4:00 and now it's 4:15. Abramowitz, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and an author of studies on intrusive thoughts.Ībramowitz says intrusive thoughts can be made up of all kinds of troublesome scenarios. “Everybody has thoughts that kind of go against who they are,” says Jonathan S. They can be anything that strikes you as truly horrifying.īut the good news is, for most of us, these thoughts hold no significance whatsoever, and they can - and do - happen to everyone. What to Expect the First Time You Go to TherapyĪccording to a post on the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) website co-authored by Sally Winston, Psychologist and Founder/Co-Director of the Anxiety and Stress Disorders Institute of Maryland, intrusive thoughts are sudden onset “stuck thoughts that cause great distress,” often focused on scary, sexual, violent, or socially unacceptable images, or even thoughts that go against one’s belief system.
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