To ask if anyone else imagines themselves doing stupid/destructive things?

[MotherOfDragons90]

E.g we’ve got these lovely porcelain tiles in the bathroom and this evening I just kept imagining myself deliberately dropping a brick onto it. I couldn’t eject the thought from my brain.

Often when I’m carrying something fragile I imagine myself throwing it on the ground.

I have these kind of thoughts a lot.

Does this happen to anyone else or am I just a loon?

I get these alot (I'm an anxious person in general so idk whether there's a correlation)

My most frequent ones are stepping off the pavement into oncoming traffic or from a platform into the path of an oncoming train.

I've had some particularly disturbing ones about letting go of my pram (containing DS) at a crossing before the traffic stops.

Throwing my phone/bag into a river/building site/off a bridge. Anywhere that would make it irretrievable.

Throwing hot drinks over the person I'm sat socialising with, usually my elderly mother or my partner.

I've had the urge before to whack DP on the head with a saucepan (he thought that was hilarious when I told him later on)

Just today as I was in the supermarket I got a massive urge to slap the bottom of a larger lady who was bending down with her shopping bags on the way out of the shop.

I'd never in a million years do any of these things

Throwing hot drinks over the person I'm sat socialising with, usually my elderly mother or my partner.

This!! Usually with my colleagues in meetings, who I actually like

I've almost posted about this veggie but didn't want to be shouted at and called a weirdo or an abuser. Happy to see this is common. Though I think I might have it worse than average?

I get the jumping off a tall building one, or throwing my phone off. Or into water. I have to physically stop and ground myself for a split second occasionally to shut out the thoughts on some bridges in London. I don't have the urge to, it's more I imagine it happening and it is so vivid it almost makes me dizzy, then I worry I will trip and really do it.

I do this when pushing our carrying my children, also by busy roads. Again I do sometimes stop and squeeze then tight and apologise in my head.

I imagine throwing boiling coffee on work colleagues, or groping or snogging them.

I imagine punching pregnant people, or children. Recently I imagined treading on some baby ducklings

I hate the images. Maybe for me they're a very mild schizophrenia? They do seem to intrude a bit. But only for a split second, and I've never even come close to doing anything harmful to myself or anyone else.

I've got quite a busy brain, I always assumed it was related to that. When I don't have something concrete to focus on my brain chooses something intense to give me a prod.

Interesting some people relate it to anxiety. I don't think of myself as having anxiety. I am a pretty successful professional who you'd think has her shit together, but not quite high powered enough that you'd might assume I have issues of too much pressure. I've got a good work life balance, two lovely kids, an awesome partner, and tbh a pretty great life. I think for me my brain invents these little terrors to keep me on my toes, stop me getting bored.

I'll look up anxiety though and see if the Internet thinks I might have it, v interesting...

I get this often and the most frequent ones are throwing my mobile phone into a river/out a window, pulling the wheel when driving, punching someone or telling someone to fuck off. My latest one that's only been happening in the last few weeks that actually is really bothering me is to stamp on my dogs head. All things I would never ever carry out IRL

When I'm holding scissors or a sharp knife, I sometimes get the urge to jam it in someone's or more often my own eye not that I ever would.
I didn't know it was "a thing" until last year, I thought it was just me!

Ah the imp of the perverse, I get it when we drive past cyclists and I think about opening the passenger door on them, or pushing some into a canal we’re walking besides ... because I could, because it’s possible. Have never acted on it

I occasionally think about a particular colleague slapping me. Probably not in same category

I have an issue with heights for this reason. I want to throw myself off, every time. I find ferries ridiculously difficult as I cannot go outside on them because the urge to jump is so strong its unnerving (to me and others(. My DM has the same issue, we sit inside.

Probably not to the degree of some of the ones here but me and a colleague share a phone and when she is on it I really have to hold myself back from pushing the hang up button- the urge is so strong!

Throwing a drink either over someone or just to smash it against a wall and watch the broken glass or China smash into tiny pieces and the liquid splatter down the wall is my usual irrational impulse

Mine I that I get the urge to stick my arm out and 'clothesline' people when they go past on their bike to knock them off.

Driving along the motorway I get the urge to try to crash the car into the back bit of a wagon trailer with the gap, from the side, I like to imagine the car wedging in perfectly

Oh thank heavens for this thread! This is me all the time. Is it OCD/Anxiety? Only issue is when pp talk about opening the car door and jumping out... I actually did. I was 5 and in the back seat of the car and opened the bloody door on an urge. My Dad luckily grabbed me and I was strapped in. Scary to think what if.

It's so good to know this is a thing!
I get the urge to kick people when we're queuing at checkouts I would never actually do this, but I'm scared that one day I could! And driving faster and faster then veering into a wall or the barrier on the motorway....it frightens me to get these thoughts. I also get thoughts about how I might end things. I don't necessarily want to do it, but they come and they terrify me.

Drizzlehair, your post really struck a cord, I'm very similar. They've increased since having kids, maybe related? I don't know. For a long time I didn't realise how common they were and that there was actually a name for them - after I saw an article in a paper someone had left around.

The ones I get most often are around sending emails saying horrible/embarrassing things on work email to senior people, accidentally texting "naughty" photos to work colleagues. But the worst ones are about the children - I remember soon after DC1 was born, I had such vivid images of dropping her at the top of the stairs that I actually went to close the bedroom door to make sure I couldn't! They are so intense, and so utterly irrational. I know in the right part of my mind that I would have to physically so those things for them to happen, and I wouldn't - but it's like my unconscious mind doesn't understand that rationality?