What are intrusive thoughts, why do humans have them and how do we get rid of them?
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The intrusive though is called “the call to the void” it can’t really be explained well, the best I can explain it as it a random bought of your brain saying “Fuck this shit lets die” in response to a tiny thing how you go about getting rid of it I don’t know
I have obsessive-compulsive disorder, which intrusive thoughts are part of (half of, actually).
Everyone has thousands of stray thoughts every day that pass through their mind, and some of them are, shall we say, fucked up, or they disturb us. But an intrusive thought is a disturbing thought that you latch onto, and it bothers you that you have it, which draws your attention to it, which makes you think about it again, and the cycle repeats.
As is the case with many negative feelings, part of the solution is distracting yourself from it. Something draws your attention away from the thought enough that it disappears. That happens throughout an average person’s day too.
But if you have OCD or something similar, that’s especially hard to do. You feel an urge to *soothe yourself at all costs*. The “compulsive” part is whatever you habitually do to soothe yourself, and it is usually counterproductive because it doesn’t “solve” the underlying thought that’s troubling you. The stereotypical example is someone who washes their hands constantly because they have intrusive thoughts about getting sick or spreading germs. Even if they know intellectually they’re worrying too much, they can’t help it. In a way, obsessing over something is your urge to soothe yourself misfiring, because you’re trying to think your way out of a thinky problem.
One thing you can do is talk to a professional counsellor or therapist about the thoughts that bother you, work out why they bother you, and learn strategies to remind yourself that you don’t *have* to focus on those thoughts and recognize when your brain is messing with you. This can be hard to do because the person is often very ashamed of their thoughts and is afraid to admit them to anyone, even someone trained to help them and be non-judgmental. It’s a courageous leap you have to make.
Antidepressants can also help, since what fuels the problem are feelings of anxiety and depression. I’ve been on Prozac for 12 years.
The comedian Charlie Demers has OCD, which he talks about in his book *The Horrors*. He notes that your obsessions have a way of honing in on your own moral insecurities. For example, religious people with OCD often are afraid they’ll be punished for intrusive blasphemous thoughts, or that those thoughts mean they don’t have faith. BUT, those thoughts wouldn’t bother them if their faith wasn’t important to them. Atheists tend not to have this issue, though they may obsess over whether they might be wrong about their atheism, or they may fear that they’ll “turn religious” (this exact thing actually bothered me for a whole week once when I was 14; I watched a fundamentalist preacher on TV for like two minutes and I was like *“oh no I’m gonna turn into a fundamentalist Christian I’ve been brainwashed aaaaah”*).
Another comedian, Maria Bamford, has an album called *Unwanted Thought Syndrome*, and tells jokes about how her obsessions and fears are obviously ridiculous and outlandish but feel very real nonetheless. (*“If I keep clenching and unclenching my fist at random intervals, I won’t turn gay!”*)
Jonathan Richman (known to most people as the singing narrator from *There’s Something About Mary*) has [a song](https://youtu.be/oR39IokWiB8) that goes:
*I tried to hide a little thought / the more I tried, the worse things got / It started out so meek and small / But in a week pervaded all*
Makes me think this is familiar territory for him.
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