just finished persona 5 strikers earlier and have realized that I really like how it and p5r made you feel almost like you had friends, even if the overarching story was just alright the character interactions made me realize just how much I craved that kind of friendship, but that’s besides the point I wanted to discuss. frequently I get intrusive thoughts, for example: earlier this week I was using some needlenose pliers to try and undo a stripped screw, and I couldn’t stop thinking about what It would be like to rip all my fingernails out with it, how the release of tension would feel as the flesh holding the nail to the nailbed gave way, how the cold air would feel on the open wound, how the blood would run down my arm and drip off my elbow. I had to take a break and come back later because it was so distracting, although not particularly upsetting. the reason I mentioned the persona game is because the intrusive thoughts I got when playing the game were far more upsetting to me, enough that I had to stop playing the game on multiple occasions. I would imagine how these characters that had come to feel like friends might react to me doing something deplorable, how would they react if I took the pot I was cooking with and tossed the boiling water at one of them and then beat them with the pot? how would they react if I jumped off the railing 5 stories up mid conversation? how would they react If I forced myself upon one of them just out of sight of the others? I would never do any these things, but I cant help imagining them and It just makes me feel like shit, you know? Like the thought even existing in my head is enough for me to be written off as a monster, a danger to society. I even hesitate to post this imagining the reaction that such a confession might receive here. These games in particular weren’t the only games In which I had such intrusive thoughts, but the psudo-friendship that you feel with the characters made it both especially upsetting, and hard to dismiss. even though I like the feeling of having friends that these kinds of games can provide and consider these games to be in my top 10, I think I’ll have to avoid them for awhile because Its just so exhausting dealing with these intrusive thoughts.
I dont have any grand revelation or point to make at the end of this rambling paragraph, I just had to get this off of my chest because it was really eating away at me.
Yes, I’ve struggled with them. The really bad one for me was “what if I yank the steering wheel and drive into the tire of that tractor trailer,” the thought of which made me so anxious it was hard to drive for a while.
IIRC they’re strongly linked to ADHD and OCD
havent driven in some time, but when I did there was this hill I would drive by alot and I always imagined doing a sick jump off it.
At least your intrusive thoughts are cool as hell sometimes
Random intrusive thoughts of violence and horrible acts are extremely common and not well discussed outside of clinical settings. The majority of people have had thoughts of any heinous act you can think of, yet the majority of people don’t do these things and are repulsed by the thoughts. All that is to say, fucked up thoughts are actually normal, though most people don’t even feel comfortable confessing these thoughts openly. But honestly, where do you think horror themed media comes from? In short, you have nothing to feel ashamed about. And if you have that thought in the back of your head that you’re a budding serial killer or something, people who are actually dangerous don’t worry about such things.
The lack of control and reprieve from these thoughts is the issue that needs to be addressed here. The quick answer of how to address this is talk with a therapist. There’s specific techniques to help you work through this, many modes of it can be fairly short.
If you don’t know how to get a therapist, DM me and I can help guide you in the right direction.
Aside from that, get out and exercise, eat healthy, and learn some mindfulness meditation.
I’ve had intrusive thoughts, your experience with the pliers is very familiar, but the rest is not. They’ve only ever been directed inwards. They ebb and flow along with my mental health more or less, but I don’t have some grand revelation about them either.
I get them constantly and it’s always the most horrid shit. It’s like my brain is always angling for “hey, let’s speedrun ruining your life and becoming a household name for deplorable actions”.
My only advice is to recontextualize. Taking it as “my brain is telling me that it is aware of things to not do”. Is the only thing that really helps with that panic of “oh shit, my beak came up with that?!?!”.
Yeah all the time, inward and outward. Like you I would never act on them and as long as you know that they’re probably pretty harmless. Unless of course you dwell on them at which point I guess they become something else.
I get them a lot less on meds.
I thought everyone got them
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Not to this extent, no. I struggled with suicidal ideation for a long time though, planning it, mentally living out my last moments over and over, justifications playing on a loop in my head for hours. Not exactly the same I admit, but intrusive thoughts nevertheless.
Mindfulness and cognitive behavioural therapy are really effective at controlling intrusive thoughts though, they helped me to get a handle on my thoughts even though they didn’t do much to help with my underlying depression. It sounds like the intensity and nature of your thoughts are really having a negative impact on you, I’d recommend looking into therapy if it’s available and either way, try some mindfulness practices, there are plenty of free resources. Neither therapy or mindfulness practice is a panacea, but you absolutely can develop a healthier relationship to your own thoughts.
Yeah I deal with the suicidal thoughts alot to, but they dont feel as intrusive as I can somewhat rationalize them
I think that’s why I bounced off therapy pretty hard, controlling suicidal thoughts only makes sense if you don’t want to die. At least that’s how I saw it. I guess I still see it that way, but thankfully I’ve gotten to a point in my life and my mind where I would rarely say I want to die. Practicing mindfulness is one of the things that helped in the long term though. Being able to identify thoughts that hurt and see them in a less reactive way is a useful skill in a dark place.
I’ve had intrusive thoughts for most of all my life, but I’ve gotten pretty good at compartmentalization, dismissing thoughts, refocusing on something else. Idk if the coping methods are the solution that worked for me, or if something else undefined was the solution/cause that allowed those methods to work. And I still have a really hard time with emotionally-loaded and/or interpersonal obsessive/intrusive thoughts that can run circles in my brain.
It’s useful to internalize the fact that you aren’t defined (solely) by your thoughts, that they aren’t you, they’re just a single facet of your malleable and fluid and complex consciousness. The “immediate thought” part, which for you and I tends to be intrusive, is talking to multiple other parts of your consciousness: notably your executive function, which can decide not to act on the thoughts, your metacognition and/or internal dialogue, which can choose not to dwell on the thoughts, your self-identity, which can reject the thoughts that don’t align with your values, etc. Of the wide array of “voices” that comprise our consciousnesses, one is talking more loudly or taking a larger share of the mic than we’d like.
If mindfulness/cbt-type methods don’t seem to work, I know there’s medications for this stuff, although I don’t have any experience with them. Perhaps a more psychoanalytical exploration of why your mind has developed these patterns, a potential root cause or drive, might also be useful.
This is going to seem cliche, but talk therapy really helped me deal with my depression and intrusive thoughts.
