Does anyone suffer from intrusive thoughts, or get thoughts stuck in their head when not psychotic?
It’s terribly distressing and causing me a lot of disability. I don’t know if these intrusive thoughts are anxiety, OCD, or psychosis…
Any advice?
Intrusive thoughts are generally a symptom of OCD, which is an anxiety disorder. But it doesn’t really matter what category they fall under. All that matters is treating the symptoms.
Hey,Thanks for your reply! How is that treated(if you want them to go away)?
And what if the intrusive thoughts are bits and pieces of the former psychosis? Does that make at sense?
Meghilla
One thing that helps with intrusive thoughts is understanding that literally everyone has them sometimes. Most people just shrug it off as a brain glitch. But some of us get very upset by them, and wonder if we are bad people for having them. It helped me to talk about them, because even my neurotypical friends could relate to them. Everyone has weird sexual, violent, or otherwise disturbing thoughts, because the human brain is infinitely complex and mysterious.
When you have an upsetting thought, try to distance yourself from it. Just acknowledge that the thought exists, and let it drift through your head without giving it too much attention. Trying to stop the thoughts from happening never works out. It just makes it worse. So just let them come and go, and remember that it has no bearing on who you are as a person.
Also, neurofeedback therapy has helped me with intrusive thoughts and all the other symptoms of my OCD. Some people love CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) for the same reason. CBT is also known to help with paranoia and delusions.
Good points. Unfortunately there not that type of by risible thoughts. More along the lines of a random word or phrase entering my mind and getting stuck there. They are almost always random thoughts that make no sense for the situation I’m in. I posted here because I was wondering if anyone else experienced this. The thoughts can be one word, like “bald” or “helicopter” and they happen completely out of the blue causing me to bug out. Sory for being confusing
I’ll look into those forms of therapy but I wonder if I need Prozac or something too
That is 100% OCD. The same therapies can help.
Thanks. I feel better knowing it isn’t psychosis coming back.