Why Do I Have Intrusive Thoughts?

One of the most painful, and most frustrating, parts of OCD is the never-ending, distracting, and painful intrusive thoughts we have. Because these intrusive thoughts are so frequent, distracting, and painful, it’s entirely understandable that those of us with OCD often have questions such as:

·         Why am I having these intrusive thoughts?

·         Where do these intrusive thoughts come from?

·         Does having these intrusive thoughts mean something bad about me as a person?

·         Does having these intrusive thoughts mean something bad is going to happen?

·         Why do these intrusive thoughts make me so anxious?

·         How can I make these intrusive thoughts stop?

In this post, we’re going to look at these questions.

What Are Intrusive Thoughts And What Does Research Show Us?

Intrusive thoughts are unwanted thoughts that occur either “out of the blue” or in response to specific events (e.g., seeing a child, seeing a knife, touching an item). Intrusive thoughts are not under our direct control (we can’t snap our fingers and make them go away).

For quite some time now, mental health researchers have studied intrusive thoughts, including what intrusive thoughts are, how common they are, the content of these intrusive thoughts (e.g., what these intrusive thoughts are about), and how people respond to their intrusive thoughts.

One of the most famous studies on intrusive thoughts was completed in 1978. The researchers explored the intrusive thoughts of two groups of people: Group one included 8 individuals with OCD and group two included 124 individuals without OCD.

What the researchers found was that both groups experienced intrusive thoughts and both groups experienced similar types of intrusive thoughts. In fact, during the research, the researchers tested to see if experienced mental health clinicians could tell the difference between the intrusive thoughts of the OCD group and the non-OCD groups. They found that even these experienced mental health clinicians had a hard time determining the difference between the two groups.

What is the take-away from this research? Intrusive thoughts, even scary and abhorrent intrusive thoughts, are normal and common experiences had by most people.

This 1978 research was not a one-off study.

This type of research has been extensively reviewed and replicated time and time again. For example, in 2014 a team of 19 leading mental health researchers conducted a study on the prevalence of intrusive thoughts in the general population in 13 different countries on six continents. Their research was congruent with the 1978 research: They found that 94% of the participants in the study reported experiencing intrusive thoughts.

As a result of this large body of research, it’s now considered basic knowledge that intrusive thoughts are a universal experience for human beings.

But If Everyone Has Intrusive Thoughts, How Come Not Everyone Has OCD?

The most widely accepted theory on why everyone experiences intrusive thoughts but only a small proportion develop OCD is that those with OCD notice and appraise their intrusive thoughts differently than those without OCD.

What does this mean?

Although practically everyone has intrusive thoughts, when most people experience an intrusive thought, they become aware of it and then quickly move along, getting back to their day. For most people, upon noticing the intrusive thought, it’s as if they think to themselves, “Hmmm. That’s a weird thought. Whatever.” And then they go right back to living their lives.

For those of us with OCD, though, our experiences with intrusive thoughts are much different. When we notice an intrusive thought, we typically have thoughts about our intrusive thoughts. These thoughts about our intrusive thoughts include thoughts like: “I shouldn’t be having this intrusive thought”, “Maybe having this intrusive thought means I’m in realistic danger”, “What if having this intrusive thought means I’m going to do something terrible or am a terrible person?”; “What if I can’t make this thought go away and I get stuck with it forever?”

As a result, when those of us with OCD have intrusive thoughts, we usually feel anxious right away (whereas those without OCD usually don’t feel any significant anxiety as a result of intrusive thoughts).

The idea that those of us with OCD think about our intrusive thoughts differently than those without OCD has also been extensively researched.

In the early 2000s, a who’s-who of more than 40 leading mental health and OCD researchers completed numerous studies demonstrating the ways in which those with OCD think about their intrusive thoughts.

We now know that those of us with OCD usually have a variety of thoughts about our intrusive thoughts. Some of these thoughts about our intrusive thoughts are:

·         If I have an intrusive thought, I have a responsibility to do something about it.

·         If I have an intrusive thought, that thought is important, significant, and meaningful (as opposed to random noise of the mind).

·         If I have an intrusive thought that is bad because I should have perfect control over my thoughts.

·         If I have an intrusive thought about a bad even occurring, that makes the bad event likely.

·         If I have an intrusive thought, I will get stuck with this thought forever unless I do something to get rid of it.

·         I cannot focus or live my life well if I am having an intrusive thought.

·         If I have an intrusive thought that means I can’t be certain I, or something I care about, is safe and, thus, I need to take some action to guarantee safety.

·         If I have an intrusive thought, I’ll get stuck feeling anxious until I make the intrusive thought go away.

How Does This Knowledge Relate To OCD Treatment?

Although not the entirety of OCD treatment, a significant part of OCD therapy is practicing new thoughts about our intrusive thoughts (this is sometimes called cognitive restructuring).

For example, if a typical thought we have about our intrusive thought is “This intrusive thought says something important about me and I need to do something about it” a new thought we can practice is “This intrusive thought is almost certainly just a result of my OCD and I can let this intrusive thought be here without doing anything to protect myself or others or make the intrusive thought go away”.

Cognitive restructuring is a skill and, like all skills, it takes practice. And, as touched on above, when those of us with OCD have an intrusive thought, we usually feel very anxious. So, we usually need to practice another skill called distress tolerance to help us weather and manage our anxiety.

Just like riding a bike, though, once you practice these skills enough, they start to become much easier, even automatic.

To be fair, there are more components to successful OCD treatment. We also benefit from identifying our values, recognizing the inevitability of uncertainty, and understanding our willingness to take calculated risks.

Nevertheless, recognizing that everyone has intrusive thoughts and, the reason those of us with OCD struggle so much more with our intrusive thoughts than those without OCD is, in large part, due to our thoughts about our intrusive thoughts, is very important.

You can learn more about intrusive thoughts by going to this blog post: Why Can’t I Stop Having Intrusive Thoughts?