What are Intrusive Thoughts?

As mentioned previously, everyone experiences some level of intrusive thoughts, both positive and negative. Thinking repeatedly about your dream job or a holiday could be categorized as intrusive thoughts. However, for people with OCD, the thoughts are overwhelmingly negative, unpleasant and repetitive. They are involuntary and can cause extreme distress as sufferers will repeatedly question why they are having such awful thoughts.

Intrusive thoughts can be about almost anything, but the most common OCD related thoughts relate to:

  • Violence
  • Relationships
  • Sexual activity or orientation
  • Germs, illness, or other causes of contamination
  • Religion
  • Magical thinking
  • The body (inflicting injury on yourself)

OCD sufferers do not have any control over these thoughts, and they are not impulses or fantasies on which the person will act. In fact, people with OCD are the least likely to act on these thoughts as it is the very fact that they are so appalling and disturbing that causes them so much distress in the first place!