Intrusive thoughts

[cooperbug]

Does anybody have them and If so what helps?

Are they related to anxiety or depression and will taking anti depressants help with them?

I’ve found antidepressants to be really helpful - they made the intrusive thoughts ‘quieter’ until eventually they stopped bothering me. However I also had CBT based therapy to support overcoming my anxiety. Hope you find a way through this.

My intrusive thoughts were related to a bereavement.
I didn't want to be here anymore. The only thing that stopped me acting on them, I was 7mths pregnant.
After dd was born I started taking antidepressants and started counselling.
Its awful to have to go through something like that.

I developed them after I had my daughter 2 years ago and they settled down for a while following some CBT and reassurance they were quite common?!

Have just started having them again a couple of weeks ago and more frequently. I’m not sure if I’m depressed. They are making me feel anxious but it’s just a conscious cycle really as the anxiety feeds them.

I suffered with intrusive thoughts for around 10 years, two years ago I had a few sessions of EMDR through my workplace to treat a trauma and the best thing was that it completely eradicated my intrusive thoughts. The therapist was not expecting that to be a side effect of the treatment so it was an added bonus, I have now heard of others using EMDR to treat intrusive thoughts so there’s definitely something in it.

I had intrusive thoughts as a young child aged 8/9 which were telling me to harm myself and others, I remember I eventually told my dad and the thoughts stopped.
It didn't occur to my dad that I needed help from a dr.

The thoughts came back aged 15 after I suffered a breakdown during my GCSE's.
I suffered them for 26 years until I was put on high dose anti psychotics (30mg Aripiprazole) & diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder as I was delusional & paranoid.
Well, due to the Aripiprazole the thoughts just went & when I finally got the courage to tell my psychiatrist what i had suffered he was very good, he asked if there was a real risk I would harm someone & I said I didn't think so.
I thought for years I'd get locked up for having these intrusive thoughts but obviously that wasn't going to happen & I was so relieved.

I'm not suggesting that anyone here has schizoaffective disorder but it's definitely worth confiding in a trusted individual about the intrusive thoughts as it takes away their power over you, also it's worth looking into whether certain meds will help get rid of them.
Basically it depends on the cause of the thoughts, which is what needs to be treated,