Intrusive thoughts

[Piemother]

Just that really. They are 100% centred on imagining horrible things happening to the dds. The dds are fine and we have only been to a and e once years ago because I thought dd1 drank a tiny amount of nail polish remover.
Here is an example. Today we went to a 1st birthday party and everything was normal. So I am imagining dd2 will not reach her first birthday. Later on exh took the dds swimming so I drive myself mad thinking he will drop dd2 and her skull will smash on the tiled floor. He has never dropped either child.
A couple of weeks ago they really moved up a a gear and I imagine really grim scenarios.
I have googled pnd and list natal pschycosis but its not exactly either of those its just intrusive thoughts

I haven't done anything weird though. Life carries on as normal
I'm just not enjoying it much.

can you try diverting your mind when you feel like that. I count from 10 to 1 backwards whilst concentrating on my breathing. sometimes I will watch tv or a movie or read a book.

if none of these work I get one of my brothers to take me on a drive & have a cigarette! of course I'm not saying u have a cigarette but maybe go for a drive or a walk. HTH... :)

your absolutely not the only person to have these thoughts so don't beat yourself up.

I told a friend about them who thinks I need professional help. Another just thinks its kind if normal. I can bring myself out of it, they just got a bit overwhelming for a while. I think they got worse when it became me imagining not being able to cope with the kids but I can they are fine

I would advise u to seek professional help too. intrusive thoughts can be normal if u can deal with them but it seems to me you needs professional help as you seem like you have low mood. low mood + intrusive thoughts are not something you can deal with on your own. it's likely to get worse!

I get 'doom scenarios' as part of my OCD and they can be quite distressing.

Mine mostly focus on horrible worst case scenarios involving the DDs, and because they're about the most important things in the world to me, it's impossible to ignore them.

It's like the thoughts are threatening you with the worst thing you can think of, and that's pretty powerful.

But if you think about it, they're totally reasonable worries, it's just that you're going one step further into creating nitty gritty details.

Could it be that other things are weighing on your mind and it's coming out in a more than usual anxiety about your DC?

How long ago did you split with your ex? Could that have made you feel a bit insecure about how unpredictable life can be?

This happens to me sometimes. I lie in bed at night and all these terrible scenarios of what could've gone wrong with DS wash over me. Ie, we were walking along the rd, DS runs out into rd/lorry ploughs into us/DS gets abducted by man in white van.
I also googled PND but it didn't fit my situation either. I know it's natural to worry but its distressing too.
Wish I had some advice for you.

Sounds like Pure O, a variation of OCD. There's a great book called 'Brain Lock' out there. It would be worth you looking at it.

Agentzigzag and sucks - exactly, exactly that!
Saigon I'm off to google the book imediately thank you

Split was a year ago. All the hoo ha has settled right down now but the intrusive doom is worse

The daft thing about it is that I have no problem taking the dds about and about and driving abc swimming and letting exh look after them yet these are all scenarios I imagine doom about. The thoughts are so irrational but I do manage to live normally if that makes sense?

I had this exact thing! It's anxiety related. I saw a councillor and used CBT - thankfully I am much better now.

Please see your GP who can refer you.

Like sucks suggested, are the times you're thinking about it times when you haven't got any other stimulation and your mind's wandering onto the subject, in a kind of routine way?

I have to be really strict and steer the thoughts I have when I'm trying to get to sleep, (and thinking about MN threads can be useful I've found ) else I just end up in a continuous loop of shitting myself up at the thought of something happening to the DDs.

Hi

Keep on living life as normal and then they are. My mother and mother in law both have told me they have these and even now they will lie awake imagining these catastrophes sometimes.

It becomes a disorder when you change your behaviour because of these. There is research to say that 98% of women have these thoughts. If that isn't normal, what is??? I doubt many other areas of motherhood are even as common.

I had these thoughts and I ended up worrying myself sick. It was the worry about the thoughts and taking them as premonitions that was the problem,not the thoughts themselves. The mind can generate thoughts about pretty much anything... It is the basis of all art and literature. If you start worrying about having these thoughts they will increase, kind of like when you get a new car and everyone seems to be driving one or every new baby seems to have the same name as yours. It is like if I told you to erase this morning's breakfast from your memory. You would have to remember it and would put more work into forgetting it which would keep making it strong in your mind.

We actually all have 'intrusive' thoughts more or less all the time, most of us are planning or worrying or evaluating or fantasizing every two seconds. The mind has a life of its own and most people are not able to 'control' having thoughts that are unpleasant. I have so many female friends who report this. Proper mini movies, like internal horror films. When it happened to me I thought I was going nuts and no one else in the world had ever felt this! I wish then I had been told how normal this was because instead I started worrying that I had OCD and before long, it became a self fulfilling prophecy. Mindfulness has really helped me because it involves just sitting and watching your thoughts and soon you realise how they do just come and go. Trying to avoid thinking just makes things worse. Control is futile I would say!

Good books:
Dropping the baby and other scary thoughts
Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life
The Happiness Trap
Wherever you go, there you are
Full Catastrophe Living
Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a frantic world

Lots available on audible and kindle.

Ps the 'clinical threshold' is that it takes up at least an hour a day, you are significantly distressed and it is interfering with your ability to do everyday things.

Now watch when I say that how your mind will automatically start looking for positive evidence that you are doing all of this even if you aren't currently. This is also normal. Just try and think objectively of whether this is true of you over the last two weeks.

I would say that trying self help first stuff is best. I don't think it helped me to get a diagnosis when I got one as I was then put on an 8 month waiting list for CBT when I was now worried sick by having the diagnosis and what it meant. If you do feel professional help is needed, try and get it as fast as possible. You could try an eight week.Mindfulness course first.. that has good research support.

I am a bit suspect about the value of psychiatric labels as when you stick a label on someone, it can feel like a dead weight very quickly. I definitely have/had OCD and pretty severely but naming these things as disordered or viewing experience as pathological is never any good unless you are getting the right support right when you need it. Any old fool can describe something but if you are suffering you need someone to DO/offer something helpful and practical to help you manage that suffering rather than just say 'yes, you are suffering' and then describe that in scary psychiatric terms, calling thought s intrusive or disordered or excessive etc. My psych actually told me at 28 weeks pregnant I wouldn't feel better until four months after birth. That was like a life sentence at the time as I was having intrusive thoughts literally all day every day and was spectacularly unhelpful, though at the time I thought he was the expert.

I have OCD and GAD and I get these thoughts all the time about my children, having said that my partner doesn't suffer with either of those disorders yet he has been getting these thoughts since our DS was born, I think it can be typical for parents to get them. The difference with my thoughts to my partner's is I dwell on the thoughts, obsess and start avoiding.
I don't think you need professional help though.

Hi all. Thank you so much for this thread. I have felt immeasurably better this week. I think partly its reassurance that this intrusive thought thing might not be a symptom of something really scary. Now I see it as a complete concept on its own it seems to have lost its power over me and I feel like my emotions are more in the normal range in the last few days.
It's kind of like that episode of the symptoms there they make the adverts disappear by ignoring them

Nice one

There have been a couple of threads about the 'normal' everyday intrusive thoughts people have (I've had a look and can't find them) things like seeing someone bending over and wanting to give them a kick up the arse nudge with your foot to make them topple over

If you're anxious it's possible those kinds of totally normal thoughts are influenced by the anxiety.

Glad you're feeling better though.

Hello a bit late I know, have a look at Anxiety No More website by Paul David. It is a good explanation of how intrusive thoughts work, they are totally anxiety related and should be just thought of thoughts that have no value or meaning. I have found his site helpful. I have obsessive thoughts about my sister who is a very toxic personality. I'm still suffering with obsessive thoughts, but I hope they will pass. Good luck.