u/unhappy_grapefruit_2
sbvIntrusive thoughts are terrifying. It’s a testament to our collective willpower that we haven’t horrifically murdered each other.
Also, I’m really glad the phrase “intrusive thoughts” came along. It made the whole thing a lot easier to talk about.
They aren’t intrusive thoughts, they’re just your thoughts, stop being afraid of thinking. Now if you lack impulse control, then we have a problem.
They are intrusive thoughts, because that’s the phrase that was coined to describe these types of thoughts. Sometimes we come up with specific phrases in order to describe more specific concepts.
Right, nuance and context are infinitely important. Now what’s the functional difference between the two, because 8f none exists that can be implemented by the individual then the nuanced difference between the types of thoughts becomes irrelevant to how one handles them.
LillyPipThe functional difference is:
Thoughts == benign shit passing through your brain that cause no personal discomfort.
Obtrusive thoughts == shit that intrudes on your regular internal monologue and causes discomfort or fixation.
It’s fine to have such thoughts, and it’s also fine to acknowledge that you don’t want them. Like I’m trying to get on with my day, but now my brain is playing a vivid horror show and I just want to finish my TPS report, not walk through every moment of myself shattering Steve’s skull with the fire axe because he can’t figure out how to use the collate function on the printer.
Sure, you can embrace that shit as fictional, but it’s distracting in the moment.
Sure, but ignoring an ‘intrusive thought’ is functionally no different to how you ignore any other thought.
I say ‘pink elephants’ you’re going to fixate for a bit, how that affects you emotionally won’t change that functionally for you.
I guess there are degrees of intrusive thoughts, because no, it’s not really the same. ‘Don’t think about the elephant’ causes a benign and very fleeting fixation.
Intrusive thoughts are things that linger, often in a disturbing way, long after you want them gone. They interfere with your ability to focus.
The elephant thing is like a musical ear worm whereas intrusive thoughts can be like someone blaring industrial music in your ears. I’m not explaining this well, but it’s on another level.
I’m going to copy and paste my reply from another comment thread because it better explains my philosophical stance.
I’m glad you’re so enlightened, but you should also understand that just because you have a zen-like mastery over your whole brain doesn’t mean it’s effortless for everyone.
I’d posit that rather than arguing with a definition that helps many people understand their own failings, you might consider that the definition isn’t wrong, it’s just not meant for you. That those people are accessing the tools and skills they need, and this definition is one of those tools.
Truth be told, I don’t suffer from overly intrusive thoughts, either, but I understand and can empathise with those who do. We’re not all the same, and understanding each other’s experiences is one of our greatest strengths as humans.
Any you’re right, we all have our failings. Mine is an incapacity to enjoy seeing people afflicted by their mental anguish when I feel like adjusting their perspective to fit mine is what gives me the ability to control myself.
This results in me being unable to sympathise with those people despite empathising with them because it makes me feel like they’re actively rejecting one of those tools that will get them where they need to be.
Like being thrown a rope when you’re stuck in the well, if you reject the rope what is the person up top supposed to think?
I’d perhaps liken it more to jumping in the water to save someone who’s drowning.
You’re trying to help them and they should logically know that, but their instinct drives them to grab you everywhere and act like an anchor, drowning you both.
No matter how rational a person is, emotion and subconscious reactions can override all of that. That’s not really a failing as it’s the basis for empathy, but those same subconscious reactions can form a feedback loop that’s very difficult to escape.
I’d perhaps liken it more to jumping in the water to save someone who’s drowning.
Thank you, that’s an anology I can work with.
No matter how rational a person is, emotion and subconscious reactions can override all of that.
I wish that was the case. I’m diagnosed as high functioning autistic presenting, 100% autism free, but my natural capacity for logic obliterated my emotional development. I can and do functionally parse all my emotional thought through logic. This is my weakness and my strength.
I’m not unaware that my approaches are often mistaken for dismissal or ignorance of people’s feelings, because they are, but they’re also the tools that emotional people need to temper their emotions.
but my natural capacity for logic obliterated my emotional development. I can and do functionally parse all my emotional thought through logic. This is my weakness and my strength.
Dude, 100% same. I spent the better part of two decades developing my capacity for empathy (it was a core requirement in my chosen career), and I still have issues truly relating on an individual level.
Humans are messy, incoherent, illogical creatures. You and I are, too, whether or not we want to see it. The pitfall we face is our propensity to extrapolate our personal experience to others where that just doesn’t work. We want things to make sense, and we think our solution should just work, but people aren’t like coins with binary answers. They’re more like a fistful of dice made of slime and bees with no numbers on their faces.
We make you want to give up because we’re confusing and painful. Eventually you can figure out patterns, though they’ll change and frustrate you.
Sorry for the mini-rant. I’ve enjoyed our conversation.
Sorry for the mini-rant. I’ve enjoyed our conversation.
No need to apologise, the opportunity to feel comprehended has been far more valuable than you might realise.
I might have trouble relating and connecting on an emotional level but my belligerence to be understood is limitless. Gets me in trouble because most people feel instead of comprehend and that’s just not logical.
One of the feelings I hate the most is the feeling you get when you know someone agrees with you they just lack the capacity to know why. It’s the bane of my existance.
Lol. Guess it’s my turn to apologise for the rant.
Thoughts = literally any thought
Intrusive thoughts = the type of thoughts we don’t particularly want to think because they make us uncomfortable, but they intrude into our stream of consciousness either way.
My stream of consciousness picks things up, not has things fall into it.
It’s a matter of perspective.
what you’re failing to pick up on is that no one cares about how you handle your thoughts and you can stop talking about yourself as if we should all aspire to think the way you do. this thread has largely been about the shared experience of having what we call intrusive thoughts and you coming here and trying to hijack that by telling us we are doing it wrong was never going to be well received.
Cool story, glad your shared experiences are the only valid ones because it involves suffering.
we’re not suffering and you’re not a savior. stop trying to impose your way of thinking on a bunch of people. that’s one of the very first things one needs to learn in life to not be an insufferable person. i suppose the irony is that I was once like that and have learned to stop. but I can recognize it in an instant.
Never claimed to be except in metaphore, I’m not trying to impose my thinking on anyone. Making statements is not persuasion, if you want your mind changed change it, but that doesn’t change the legitimacy of my point of view.
I’m not shying away despite the downvotes because they’re irrelevant, anyone who chooses to benefit themselves with what I provide will do so. No intelligent person has ever been without detractors, I’m aware of the value of the derogatory statements towards me, it’s zero. Because anyone lacking the capacity to see past their feelings for comprehension doesn’t have an opinion worth entertaining.
the problem is that your clearly believe your way of thinking is better for everyone else. it is better FOR YOU. full stop. you are welcome to share what works FOR YOU. but your attitude that it is objectively better for everyone else is not something you could possibly know. and your insistence that it is better whether anyone accepts that or not is strong evidence of your lack of maturity and life experience.
The lack of suffering is objective evidence it’s better.
if you think evidence in your own life makes something objectively better for others then you have no idea what objective means.
Just because you can’t see behind the mountain doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s there.
Not all thoughts are consciously summoned, wanted, or pleasant. The term intrusive thoughts is a good way to describe those thoughts we find unpleasant. Yes, they are natural and normal, and often how we grapple with and process experiences, but that doesn't make them unobtrusive.
Additionally, many people have intrusive recollections of upsetting events from the past. Intrusive thoughts is a good descriptor that helps avoid over using terms like flashbacks or PTSD.
Clarifying such things as intrusive helps destigmatize these thoughts for people who have them and feel the weight of social expectations, like new parents as in the comic. I feeling guilty about having these thoughts isn't healthy, and properly describing them helps people prices them. I don't see what is particularly objectionable or hard to understand about the term and why being more specific in the description of one thoughts is off-putting to you.
Not all thoughts are consciously summoned, wanted, or pleasant. The term intrusive thoughts is a good way to describe those thoughts we find unpleasant.
I am not emotionally disturbed by my ‘intrusive thoughts’ because they have as much bearing on reality as whether I like the smell of burnt toast.
Clarifying such things as intrusive helps destigmatize these thoughts for people who have them and feel the weight of social expectations
I don’t see what is particularly objectionable or hard to understand about the term and why being more specific in the description of one thoughts is off-putting to you.
I’m disheartened by the fact that people feel they need to thought police themselves for the benefit of a society that will never engage with those figments of their imaginations.
That is legitimately depressing and I feel sorry for those people. I wish them the best in developing more significant and functional mental fortitude. Sorry if I offended anyone, it wasn’t my intention.
Everyone is different, and life is path dependent. Some people don't struggle with difficult memories, and others have simply not lived an unpleasant enough life to have accrued the emotional scars.
However, being blatantly brusque in your description of others followed by "sorry if I offended" is the epitome of ringing hollow. At least be honest; you don't care if you offended others.
I wasn’t being disingenuous and I’m sorry the way I express myself makes you feel that way.
I recognize that my intrusive thoughts are my own, but this term existing is helpful because: 1) some people incorrectly believe that thoughts imply a desired outcome, and this term helps explain and describe that this isn’t always the case and 2) it’s a meaningful and useful way of categorizing these types of thoughts for the purposes of psychology, psychiatry, understanding ourselves better, etc.
In cases like severe OCD, classifying intrusive thoughts as such could help someone understand and cope with disturbing thoughts and develop subsequent coping mechanisms. Not everyone’s the same and some terms can be helpful.
I don’t disagree with any of that. But if someone wants to take steps to not being afflicted by their own thoughts you might think it appropriate to listen to those with the experience and skill to not be afllicted by their own thoughts.
No thoughts are “your own.”
You are owned by your thoughts.
If you believe that try not having them.
You can’t not have them. Because they have you. They are in control.
You lack an understanding of the concept of belligerence.
It isn’t a lack of understanding of belligerence. It’s that I just don’t care about it much anymore.
and yet you’re here
Yes, and? I said I don’t care about belligerence.
What does that have to do with me being here?
If you didn’t care you’d have not even bothered to respond.
You’re not being downvoted for “caring”, you’re being downvoted for sounding like condescending, pompous arse. If you’re not purposefully trying to be a dick, you might want to try developing your empathy skills. And ditch the non-apologies, they just make you seem even more disingenuous.
I am a condescending pompous arse, an ego earned by being correct. I’m empathetic, but I’m not sympathetic to those who would ignore a way of thinking that is not afflicted by the same weakness as their own.
there’s only one person looking the fool around here.
I wish it were so few.
Can you even hear yourself?! Jesus Christ. I’ll leave you to reveal in your misplaced superiority complex, but fyi non apologies aren’t subjective and yours are a textbook case. It’s not the most pressing lesson you need to learn, but if you’re going to go through life being such an arse you should at least know how to apologise properly.
For it to be a complex my inference has to be incorrect and come from a place of lacking superiority. And yet not a single point I’ve made has been refuted. No, I’m just superior and have the ego to acknowledge that and the literary capacity to do it with airs.
Intrusive thoughts are a big part of OCD. And they call them “intrusive thoughts.”
Maybe it’s OCD?
If intrusive thoughts legitimately affect their capacity to function then yes that would be a disorder, but not due to having them, only due to how they handle them differently from those that aren’t affected.
Any relation to OCD is outside of my experience.
The point is that intrusive thoughts are real.
And my point is that yes, they are real, they are also a figment of our imagination.
We don’t imagine them. They imagine us.
We are the result of them. We are the effluence of thoughts.
I imagine you believe that.
I don’t think this person believes that people are actively making up intrusive thoughts or talking about something that doesn’t happen. It seems like they’re saying that thoughts, any thoughts, are our imagination, intrusive or otherwise.
Yes. It’s basically a rephrasing of the OP which also intentionally didn’t use the words ‘intrusive thoughts’. I’m a master at being downvoted by people who have already agreed with what I’m saying, but lack the capacity to realise it.
Yes. I understand what this person is saying.
I was not saying that this person thought the phenomenon did not exist or was made up.
My point is they are unwanted but won’t go away. That is why they are intrusive.
It is not any big mystery. It is a well known phenomenon. You try not to think of the thoughts, because they cause great pain, and the thoughts happen more.
What is the problem here? What is the great problem in calling them by a name that makes experiential sense? Nothing. There is no problem.
These intrusive thoughts often involve harming people we love. Which is like being tortured for hours daily, and months, and even years for some. We don’t want to think these thoughts, but they keep intruding on us.
Why do we not want to think of these thoughts as “our thoughts”? Because if they are our thoughts (or if they are us) then we are horrific monsters.
But through years of torture many of us have, emerged from the ruins of our life, and learned that we are not monsters. We are just being tortured by the monster of existence.
sraiThese kind of thoughts are normal, but can develope into a subform of ocd called puro-o ocd
Intrusive thoughts are a big part of OCD.
And they are unwanted thoughts that a person doesn’t want to have. That’s why doctors call them “intrusive thoughts.”
Flying SquidThere absolutely are intrusive thoughts. Two examples:
Once in a long while, I’ll be talking to a black person and I’ll think of the N-word. It will just pop into my head for a split second and I’ll think “oh my god, no!” and it will be gone. I’ve never said that word out loud, I’ve never thought of anyone black that way, and I certainly don’t want to think of anyone that way. It’s not a thought I meant to have or even a thought that would ever represent how I felt. It isn’t even a thought that is pointed with malice at the person I was talking to. It’s literally just “N-word” and it’s gone. It’s purely unconscious and intrusive racism that I think is just part of being white.
Every so often, I’ll be talking to a couple I know and imagine them fucking. Just for a split second again. I don’t want to imagine them fucking. It’s not titillating to me. I don’t get a rise out of it. I don’t fantasize about it later. But just for a moment, I imagine what it would be like if my perceptive versions of them fucked. We won’t even be talking about anything remotely sexual. But sex is part of the human condition and sometimes we have unconscious, intrusive thoughts about sex.
I don’t think either of these will lead me to murder. In fact, in general, I don’t have violent thoughts, not even intrusive ones. But it could lead me to other atrocious behavior if I dwell on those thoughts and if I let them become more than momentarily intrusive. It’s not being afraid of thinking them, it’s not wanting to think of them and doing my best to will any such thoughts that stray out of my head as quickly as I can. Because those thoughts are not thoughts I want to have about people. I don’t care if I don’t act on them either. I don’t want to think that about any black people I ever encounter in my life. I don’t want to think that about any couples who I know. But sometimes those thoughts just pop into my head and I can’t help it. But I can help moving past them as fast as I possibly can so they don’t end up accumulating and turning me into a person I don’t want to be.
That’s called having a normal and functioning think box, comes will all the usual bits of imagination just like every other human.
“Bits of imagination” you don’t want to have = intrusive thoughts.
We don’t always get what we want, that’s life.
What does that have to do with what I said or your claim that there are no such things as intrusive thoughts?
How you handle intrusive thoughts is no different to handling any other thought you have, wanted or unwanted, good or bad, if you are going to get it any way and you can’t change the fact they exist how does defining them otherwise in the context of understanding how to not let them affect you provide any benefit?
I would argue that my way of thinking must be correct for this task because I am obviously not afflicted in the same way by my thoughts that I feel I need to define the bad subconscious ones as ‘intrusive’. They haven’t intruded on my consciousness, my consciousness found them.
I think you need to make up your mind whether intrusive thoughts are a thing or not, because you start your post with talking about how to handle intrusive thoughts, then you go on to say they aren’t a thing.
It’s a perspective that doesn’t make sense is what it is.