Just a little rant about intrusive thoughts

I've moved this into OCD, because it's very OCD-like. I used to suffer from having intrusive harm thoughts very like that. Have you any formal diagnosis? Not to say you have this or that, but this is a common OCD thing, and family members and pets are the most common things associated with harm thoughts. You wouldn't know it from all the sexual theme posts here, but really, this kind of thing is common as dirt. It took me a long time to learn how to disregard such thoughts. Once you can manage to cop an attitude of not caring 'I'll worry about it when I've done it, not before', then you'd be surprised how much such thoughts lessen.

Well, I confess with my personality, I found it mildly shocking about that fight with your friend, and what you did. But I know people who have a streak like that in them. That doesn't equate to being murderous, however. I mean even for someone who might be a little vindictive, that doesn't necessarily mean that they might be prone to violence.

For me, the idea of losing control has been a large feature in my experience with intrusive harm thoughts. The idea that I'd lose control, or black out, or do it in my sleep- for me that's always been my Achilles heel OCD has used to beat me over the head with- I'm going to kill someone- my partner, traditionally- in my sleep. Like sleepwalking, except it's killing. It'll wait until I've composed myself for sleep, then it'll sneak up and try to ambush me. I've learned to disregard such thoughts, and as a result I hardly ever have to deal with them any longer. It takes practice but it's doable. It's ceasing to worry about something I can't control. I haven't a history of losing control and hurting or killing people. Mere thoughts certainly can't make me do it. If I go out of my head so bad I do something like that, well, there's no point in worrying over something that hasn't happened yet- I've had many decades to act out to such thoughts, or 'lose control' and do the feared thing, and yet I haven't- so what makes me think it'll happen now? Nothing. OCD ain't got nothing but hollow threats that I'll do something horrible. Once I'd really convinced myself of that, things got a lot better for me. At some point, I had to stop caring so much about if I'd ever do such a thing or not. Not going to, so why should I care about these thoughts? After that, I get thoughts like that only infrequently, and when I do I'm able to ignore them and forget I even had such a thought after only a few minutes, rather than worry and obsess and act on compulsions over them. Some days it takes a little more effort than others- I've learned to slowly put such thoughts down, and slowly back away from them. Figuratively speaking. When I get an intrusive harm thought and I'm particularly vulnerable to anxiety from it, I mentally set that thought down, leave it be, and back off. It'll go away on its own, because I instinctively know if I chew on that thought even just a little, I'm liable to undo all the progress I've made in learning to ignore them. I do that also with POCD themed thoughts. I just mentally shake my head and tell my OCD 'nope not going there. NOT going there at all!'. If I don't let myself get started on it, then it can't become a huge anxiety for me.

What have you been prescribed?

I take two antidepressants: escitalopram (Lexapro) for general anxiety, and also I've been given trazodone to use as a sleep aid. In the U.S., both of those are off-label (but common) usages. I'm not sure what class of drugs trazodone's in, but it's not an SSRI the way Lexapro is.

I've read in Europe, escitalopram is prescribed explicitly for OCD, and trazodone is mentioned as being sometimes prescribed for OCD. As far as my OCD goes, it does seem to me that one or both of those together has taken some of the edge off my OCD. I used to have severe job anxieties and obsessions, and while I still have them, they've dulled quite a bit. I went through some job turmoil, and had to change employers, and was idle for a couple years, during which I began taking those medications. So some of my experience may be due to merely having changed jobs, but I don't think that's all of it, either. I do think those two meds (minimal doses on each of them) have managed to ease anxiety/depression just enough to at least function without throwing myself into mental histrionics most of the time.

failedatlife wrote:Hi, it's me again. Sorry if I'm being annoying, but that's the place where I let my thoughts off

failedatlife wrote:I just need to let these thoughts off

Have you considered starting a blog or journal thread? You'll have freedom in those to be as off-topic as you want, in addition to being able to post your thoughts.