To ask what your 'secret' thoughts...

[Smotheroffive]

....are? I have been watching Pure. It's got me thinking. For any not aware, its pure O, as in ocd, but without necessarily enacting compulsions (like repeatedly washing hands, opening/closing doors, routinely associated with OCD)
So, people have all sorts of fantasies they wouldn't want to act out IRL.
Also, think things that they wouldn't actually do, or want to see, like in Pure, seeing intrusive images of people naked, or erotically engaged.

Would IBU to ask yours?

As a mum of 4 most people think I love babies and all hand me their babies! I have such pervading thoughts of throwing them like chucking a ball that I sit down and lay them on my legs feeling awful and hot the whole time desperately trying not to then stand up abruptly and them land head first on the floor. Phew!

Well this thread is a relief!

I have them every second, usually to do with accidents which end horrifically, car crashes whilst I'm driving, taking a knife out the kitchen drawer with the dog underneath, cancer, murder, inappropriate sexual thoughts, running riot etc etc etc

Oh there's so many!!

It's really upsetting, I know they're just thoughts but some are so real.

I heard something good today, the distinction between thinking and awareness, and to acknowledge thoughts as just thoughts which can pass and you are not your thoughts. To picture your thoughts as a waterfall and they flow down the river.

I really liked that idea.

I constantly worry about my dropping my baby on the tiles or her falling out of the window. It’s bizarre but I panic about her being blown away in a tent or on a bouncy castle, just being blown away.

I also want to throw my drink at my colleagues, thought I was the only one! I get the urge to throw my keys/purse over bridges, into the sea. I went on a parachute once and kept wanting to unclip it (I’m not suicidal) I couldn’t enjoy it because I was just resisting the urge. So odd isn’t it.

Yes to throwing keys, handbag or phone off bridges.

I used to scurry across a railway bridge to work to stop myself throwing my bag over.

I have a very strong urge my head of stabbing my DD rapist multiple after a not guilty verdict is read out

This thread is kind of a relief, I often have intrusive thoughts, a few have been mentioned already - particularly to do with me/my close family dying. The ones I have the most though which I don't think anyone has mentioned are to do with gross things (vomiting/defacating). They make me feel physically sick and can just go round and round my head - I have a strong gag reflex and it seems the most repulsive things are the things I can't get out of my head - an example (not even the worst one) I often have thoughts of eating a toilet brush 😷😭 I wish I could make them stop.

Yes to jumping off a bridge/cliff. In bad times I have used this to self sooth. Chewing brillo pads. So so disgusting and makes my teeth itch. Funerals of loved ones. And one so very weird I don't know if I can share.

The meditation method is a common way to hell,like just noticing thatz s what happening with your thoughts right now. That it's all they are momentary fleeting brain electricity that flashes and expires and just to notice and let them go.

Another is to know they are the O of OCD, just knowing that this stuff happens, and that's all it is!

I read this article the other day after watching Pure... it's interesting but I never realised OCD can manifest in such varied ways

www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/confessions-relationship-ocd-sufferer-could-have/

Interesting article book thanks

It's already been mentioned on here!

I have never heard of relationship o as a subset of OCD. I wonder what one should replace naked images with? I do find them quite uncomfortable, but they have never actually caused me distress, just think I'm weird,but theres a lot of it about based on this thread!

I stand at the top of the stairs and imagine throwing myself down them. And then deciding I wouldn’t do it properly and would just break a few bones and be in a worse position because of it.
I watched Holby city the other week and the man threw himself down the stairs. But he did it so prettily I was quite jealous.

Like a previous poster said, I too, am often petrified that my husband will die. Always a car accident though, because we have a sportscar, and it feels that everyone here where I live have big trucks and SUVS. I am constantly reminded of a man who drove the same car as us, that said, "just remember it is like you are driving a motorcycle" It scared the crap out of me as my father had a huge motorcycle accident when he was in his 20's and he and my uncle almost died.

Also, like a pp said, I am scared that my life is now too easy, too good and the other shoe will drop and my luck will run out.

I am also afraid that someday, if my DH dies before me, I will end up on the street homeless and I will be continually raped.

I am also afraid to travel to Italy, as I fear that I will accidentally commit a crime there or be accused of one, and the notoriously inept Italian police will get it wrong and imprison me. Which really sucks, because I really want to go to Italy.

Also, I hate it when friends or relatives want me to hold their babies as I am terrified that I am going to accidentally drop them. I literally need to sit on a chair to hold them, and even then, I hold them so tight and make sure their little heads are supported. Just thinking about hurting them absolutely terrifies me. I thank God that my friends and relatives have children that are no longer babies.

I just want to add, that this thread is extremely refreshing and comforting, and makes me feel less weird and alone.

Thank you, OP and PP's.

I suffer from Pure O. I can't even begin to describe how fucked it is when it is bad. You wouldn't believe how messed up my intrusive thoughts can get.

I now know that I've suffered from this from childhood, and I used to think that these thoughts were a sign I was a terrible person. After a major attack in my 20s I ended up on medication and went through years of different types of therapy. CBT was the most helpful for putting an immediate lid on the worst of the intrusive thoughts, Jungian psychotherapy most useful in the long term for helping me to understand why I have these thoughts and this anxiety.

What I've come to understand is you are most definitely not your thoughts. In fact, repeated, intrusive thoughts that cause you anguish (particularly about harming someone or something you care about) often happen to people who are least likely to carry out these acts in reality, but who worry a lot about being 'good enough'.

So a new mum might have thoughts about harming her baby, a priest might have blasphemous thoughts, a trainee doctor about harming a patient. The very fact you are horrified by the thoughts shows that they don't represent who you are. But then, it's easy to disappear down a ruminating spiral, which is when the thinking becomes obsessive and all-consuming.

The best, quickest way to deal with uncomfortable intrusive thoughts is to remind yourself they're just a thought, nothing more, one of millions of thoughts about all different sorts of things that are flowing through your consciousness. And let it go and pass on by without judgement - visual yourself letting it go like a balloon if that helps. There's a great book called The Imp of the Mind which goes through these techniques in more detail.

I rarely have bad Pure O attacks anymore. I manage it with daily meditation and a yoga practice that helps to take me out of my head and into my body. It's hugely helpful.

Thanks for all those insights under the carpet and its awesome to know you've managed to get it under control, although it seems its the opposite the letting go of it that's what worked.

I imagine falling down stairs and breaking my neck/leg, etc, and when I'm driving I imagine swerving into a car coming the opposite way, or driving off a cliff, etc.

My dreams are always really dark too, more nightmares really, where I'm being tortured and killed in any number of gruesome ways.

I'm always imagining dreadful things happenning to those I care about as well as myself.

I just figured that there was something wrong with me.

I had several years where I was just emotionally and physically drained. I had a toddler and teens. One of the teens was a living nightmare. I also was growing massive fibroids which generated enormous menstrual loss every 3 weeks. I was working full time. I had literally 5 miles of dual carriageway driving between nursery and work where daily I contemplated driving into oncoming traffic. I was never suicidal. It was just odd.

I'm having more and more intrusive thoughts and bad dreams as I get older. I don't like them and find them disturbing. I have imagined beating up people who hurt me in the past - wanting to kick them as they lie on the floor. I'm more able to talk about the past these days so perhaps it's about these things surfacing after such a long time.

When my meds aren't working, I have almost constant earworms. plus worrying about germs until I put hand sanitiser on.

and intrusive thoughts of taping noisy people's mouths shut.

I have always had driving related anxiety and have had to stop.driving for perioss because of the thoughts I had of swerving into traffic/accelerating into walls - I had no idea this was more common than I would have thought, and feel.such relief knowing this as I feared I shouldn't be driving full stop!! I so have horrendous insidious fears about my dc disappearing- just not being in the house when I expect them to be (e.g. in morning in bed, or downstairs in lounge) thay someone will have come in and taken them, or they'll have walked out and been abducted. This often freezes me in a state of paralysis so I can't check they're ok without descending into panic. It's horrible, I usually.try to ignore it and pretend it's npt happening at all.

Thanks Smother.

I don't actually feel suicidal, but I have a bad fear of dying. I fear my own death very much.

I always imagine becoming severely ill just so that I can lose a lot of weight.

I have these thoughts often but they don't bother me since I learned they are a common thing.

I have the jumping off things one. That's really common. It's also called the high place phenomenon.

Relating to dc - I imagine I might get the urge and throw him over the railing at the shopping centre, him smashing to the ground, then everyone screaming at me and attacking me for what I've done.

I was out with my mum and dc at the shopping centre recently, dm said she was having that thought! I didn't mention that I have it all the time.

At work - I'm a nurse and sometimes I have the thought I'm going to say something weird and embarrassing to a patient. Like if I have a patient with no arms, I imagine myself saying "I need to do an arm test" instead of "I need to do a blood test, or "now where's your arm" instead of "now where's your notes"

The ones where you imagine jumping off something high or crashing the car etc is a common thing called, L’appel du vide or 'call of the void' Edgar Allen Poe called it the Imp of the Peverse. It's very normal.

I have found my people.

I have to hold myself back when a train is coming in.
I have done the shopping centre thing too when up a height. I thought of doing it to myself when pregnant.

I also get the urge to scream out in a meeting or through a cup of tea over if visiting someone.

I can also be obsessively jealous too. Do you think that's part of it?