Strange and uncomfortable thoughts

[Dadamen]

It happens for me already for years, but is getting more often last few months, here are the examples.
1) It comes to my mind to say something to someone, althrough I know it's going to hurt them, but I have an intensive fear I will say it and hurt that person and feel like I'm fighting with myself strongly.
2) Yesterday I saw my father's bike in garage that he likes a lot. I had an intensive fear I'll break it, either intentionally or accidently and I didn't feel safe to even pass next to it.
3) It came on my mind to eat things that are not food and I also had a fear that I'll do it and that I have to control myself strongly not to do it.
4) i'm afraid that I'll injure or kill people that I love.
5) I rememberd some near accidents from my life and imagined what would happen if there was an accident.
What could this be? Did anyone have it? How do you cope with it?

 

[tree]

Common obsessions
The three most common themes are:

• unwanted thoughts about harm or aggression
• unwanted sexual thoughts
• unwanted blasphemous thoughts

Some examples of obsessions include:
• a fear of failing to prevent harm – e.g. worrying that you have left
the cooker on and might cause a fire
• imagining doing harm – e.g. thinking that you are going to push
someone in front of a train
• intrusive sexual thoughts – e.g. worrying about abusing a child
• religious or blasphemous thoughts – e.g. having thoughts that are
against your religious beliefs
• fear of contamination – e.g. from dirt and germs in a toilet
• an excessive concern with order or symmetry – e.g. worrying if objects
are not in order
• illness or physical symptoms – e.g. thinking that you have cancer
when you have no symptoms.

What Are Common Obsessions and Compulsions? | Everyday Health

 

[Dadamen]

a fear of failing to prevent harm – e.g. worrying that you have left
the cooker on and might cause a fire

Have that sometimes.

imagining doing harm – e.g. thinking that you are going to push
someone in front of a train

Also that

fear of contamination – e.g. from dirt and germs in a toilet

Also that and also fear of sick people.

illness or physical symptoms – e.g. thinking that you have cancer
when you have no symptoms.

Yes becuase I had cancer and am afraid of relapse.

So, I likely have some degree of OCD.

 

[AprilR]

It also sounds like ocd to me. You can have ocd without compulsions also, it's called "pure o- ocd" I am diagnosed with it.

 

[Dadamen]

I also heard that Greta Thunberg has OCD along with Asperger's.
There are days I don't have these obsessive thoughts and days when I get a couple in a day. Can this be ocd or I should have them all the time to get ocd diagnosis?

 

[AprilR]

You can have them from time to time, doesn't have to be all the time my psych told me. They're called intrusive thoughts.

 

[Wolfsage]

Yep. I get them too. Sickness doesn't help it.

Mine got bad. I was sick. For an entire month with thoughts like those you described swirling threw my head.
Eventually it became life or death.
Either I was going to survive those thoughts and sickness. Or give up and succumb. I fought and pushed back.
My mind was damaged and eventually I had to seek help. Six months after the virus left my body.
But, I can tell you this. Those thoughts can do nothing without your permission. You still have control.

 

[Soleil]

I get these kinds of thoughts a lot. My therapist said that as long as I'm not compelled to act on them, and as long as I don't like them, then it's not really a significant problem. Unless you're having these a lot, I guess.

 

[Wolfgangus Faldestolius]

You need to have a scale of hypotheses and put a score against issues like these, nearly always it will surely be "might not" or "probably won't".

if you have a routine of weighing up speech at the last moment before going ahead with speaking, then if you decide not to say it you can do something different like smile to yourself instead (unobtrusively)

If you're aware of your elbows and feet, and distances, you can tell whether you are about to bash something frail. (Faintly tinted lenses in a customised tint, obtained through an optician, worn a few hours per month, help my distance vision; but I also use quick inference to work out distances at a glance.)

I was occasionally slightly like this, a long time ago.

I awakened the inner scientist in me and figured out which were probable problems and which weren't, really. Then I gradually pieced together a simple, workable method.

Another thing that helped was, I developed a steady gait, rolling my feet (if I remember). There's no harm in thinking out our moves a little bit. I have read up about motor praxis and find it fascinating and this enables me to put the way my body "ticks" to useful use.

I've always enjoyed multi-track thinking of course so self-consciousness doesn't get obtrusive for me.

 

[Wolfgangus Faldestolius]

• an excessive concern with order or symmetry – e.g. worrying if objects
are not in order

A suggestion: reframe this - it is NOT an obsession (if the things aren't someone else's), and is scarcely likely to be excessive.

When I was a kiddy and arranged my model cars in rainbow colour order it was not pathology but WIT.

I find that if I place my things parallel to the edge of my furniture or at 45 degrees to it, I can comprehend them better because my environment is harmonious to my senses (because a jumble puzzles, which is too much work). Therefore I have a practical benefit from arranging things how I like.

This is important because I have "way-stations" towards "proper" organisation - the chunking-down method - which is my way of coping with short attention span and piggy backing on my favoured multi-tasking method.

Thus, if I can't tidy stuff away all at once, as an alternative to worrying, I leave things in such a way that I can instantly understand where I left off when I come back to them.

I sometimes permit myself to do slightly more of this than I could get away with, as a game, but only if I've the time. If it's a stepping stone to organising it's still useful.

Make your "problems" work for you and not against you!

Shelves (without doors) are nice: go up the walls to save going up the wall!

 

[Wolfgangus Faldestolius]

tree said: ↑
imagining doing harm – e.g. thinking that you are going to push
someone in front of a train
Also that

If you put your hands in your pockets or clasp them, and stand 7 ft away, then you will get used to knowing what you are not going to do. (Lo and behold - everyone else is using that very same method!)

In any demanding environment I think mostly of what about it I like, e.g station platforms remind me of geography, and time past and future. Or maybe the favourite thing I read that day.

 

[SusanLR]

I had obsessive - intrusive thoughts very badly around age 13 -14.
Gross thoughts that I just kept thinking more and more until I had my first panic attack from them.
I was afraid to tell anyone because I thought I must be metally ill and no telling what my parents
or a doctor would do.

It was like scratching an itch and the more you scratch, the more you are compelled to keep doing it
even though it doesn't feel good and you make a sore from it, you just keep doing it.
The fear of harming someone I cared for because I wouldn't be able to control myself even though
I had no urge to do so was the worst.
What a way to scare yourself.

I didn't talk with a psych about it until I was 19 and by then they had almost totally stopped.
She said it was it was OCD and anxiety. Gave me Tranxene, mild tranquilizer, for a while
and said don't let the thoughts scare me or make me think I would suddenly go crazy and
act on them. It doesn't work that way.

I still have OCD, but, not those gross intrusive thoughts.

 

[SDRSpark]

Huh...I used to really struggle with this as a child (I would get physically ill from struggling with the thoughts) and I still do on occasion...though now it's pretty rare.

I have an OCD diagnosis but never really thought it fit. Maybe it does.

 

[Dadamen]

I would get physically ill from struggling with the thoughts

How did you get physically ill?

 

[SDRSpark]

How did you get physically ill?

Diarrhea, vomiting (or just wanting too), that "sick" feeling in my chest.

 

[ZebraAutismo]

I have sort of experienced similar. I have severe anxiety. I take fluoxetine which helps but doesn’t cure. I’ve spoke to Councillors and neuropsychologist about it which also helped,

 

[inkfingers]

It sounds like you have Pure OCD, where you suffer from disturbing intrusive thoughts. I’d advise seeing a psychologist/ psychiatrist and finding ways to deal with your fear/anxiety, whether that be through therapy or medication. I wish you the best of luck.

 

[WolfSpirit]

Don't know if this will help or not, but it popped into my email one day as part of my daily email newsletters from Everyday Health.com, just when I needed it the most. As a general rule, I find the articles Therese Bouchard writes to be quite useful, even though most days they're not particularly relevant to my current life now that so much has improved. (she's the one who operates Project Beyond Blue, about dealing with treatment resistant depression.). I've only ever seen what pops into my email from Everyday Health, but, still she's on my radar as a good information source about depression.

5 Ways to Free Yourself From Dark and Obsessive Thoughts

 

[Qoyote]

Oh my God, it feels so good to know other people understand this. I have this exact problem and I can't talk about it with anyone. Thank you guys.

 

[FlapjackCries]

I have really strong paranoia in that I am always fearful that someone is going to brutally murder me at any given moment and it has recently been so bad that I have to sleep with my back to the wall and keep opening my eyes every so often.

Who knows at this point lol