Intrusive thoughts

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Over the past 3 years or so, I started having intrusive thoughts. At first, they would only pop up a couple days before my menstrual cycle and linger for about 5 days, but then they started to be around a lot more often. They seem to be tied to my hormones or depression levels. They are predominantly self-attacking thoughts, but if I get frustrated at work, they will turn to thoughts about attacking others.

I have started to counter my automatic negative thoughts with self-affirming, loving thoughts. And although it feels ridiculous and silly, it also has helped. Rather than getting caught up in feeling bad about having bad thoughts...you know that classic loop of attacking yourself for having self-attacking thoughts....I instead do a trick similar to the Big Red STOP sign and go into a tirade about how I will not tolerate an attack on myself, how I am worth defending from attack, how I am precious and love myself and will not tolerate any thoughts to the contrary.

Now to contradict what I just said, I also did that trick mentioned earlier...playing with the thoughts,making them more intense...and despite the goriness and excessive levels of torture I imagined putting myself through, it really did help. It felt good imagining it, and the thoughts did go away after that. In some ways, it felt like a playful indulgence, a gift to myself. I woke up worried that I could imagine something so brutal, but decided to be happy for the relief regardless.

When I have automatic negative thoughts about work or people at work, I am now trying to take it as a sign that I need to just face the truth of my frustration at work and make a step towards relieving the frustration. There is a lot of frustration there because I have spent years trying to pretend and convince myself everything was just fine.

I have OCD and I lean more towards the O than the C. Intrusive thoughts have certainly been part of my existence. If I'm near a stair well, I stop and think about throwing myself down it, thinking how it would feel as I hit the sides, crashed on the steps, I can feel it and it's bizarre. I also have the thought of driving into oncoming traffic if I'm driving down the road, especially if a semi truck is coming my way. Again, I can feel the truck drive through me. It's a weird jolt. Sometimes I think about randomly kicking someone or putting a cigarette out on their leg. I wouldn't do any of these things, but the thoughts come and then go.

I experience this too.

Thoughts about something terrible happening to someone or something you care a lot about. Sometimes they pop up even when things go really well -- I guess I get uncomfortable when things are in order because it feels like any moment everything could be thrown into disarray.

I used to get them constantly before I took my antidepressants. Now I still get them but less often and they disturb me way less. I used to curl up in a ball sobbing because of them... When I was younger they would be very violent but now they are usually some sort of horrific sexual thought that make me wince.

There needs to be more discussion about how ASD and OCD interact with each other. I think that as bad as OCD can be on its own if a sufferer also has ASD then you've got an amplification of the consequences of such a condition. You'll see the intrusive thoughts potentially become overwhelming and impossible to suppress much like the problems autistics have with sensory input management. This though is cognitive input management.

ASD sufferers have higher rates of co-morbidity with Tourette's syndrome and I'm not sure if all manifestations of OCD tics are classed as Tourette's or the latter is some level of severity higher than the 'compulsive' elements of OCD. Someone will have to explain this to me...

I've suffered what has been self referred to by sufferers as 'Staring OCD' which is specifically visual focus related and is particularly concerned about peripheral and private area staring when engaged in social interactions. It is effectively an overlapping disorder with Alienation OCD and severe Social Anxiety. For some people Staring OCD might just have 'obsessive' elements and does not manifest in tics but cause discomfort and distraction to the sufferer. For those with the 'compulsive' elements then you see tics which reflexively manifest in 'focusing on' or being distracted by objects or people on the periphery of vision or private areas like the cleavage or genital areas of a person.

As you can imagine the aforementioned situation for a sufferer of 'Staring OCD' can lead to them being labelled a 'perv' or 'creeper' or something slur similar. The severity of the reaction is for certain effected by intersectional factors like attractiveness or popularity. I think for those with ASD who are effected by this type of OCD you've a higher chance of a strong hostile reaction if your tics are picked up. I know my tics have caused my public reputation to suffer an onslaught of pile on mobbing and I've been targeted by doxxers who have spread ever more salacious rumours about me that have damaged my standing with pretty much everyone in my life.

I think social anxiety related OCD subtypes need more attention as they will likely be the most serious in terms of negative impacts on people's lives as I've experienced. When I was looking up my problem online though I was getting itty bitty information which was vague and limited. Hopefully with more time and conversation we can build up a dialogue and look at solutions in the form of treatments therapies and safe spaces.

I have intrusive thoughts. They are of the disturbing kind, but they're so far-fetched that I'm no longer phased by them. Such as;

- How would that person react if I just kicked their dog right now? Or 'What if I stole their baby and threw it into traffic?'

I know that I am not going to do those things, so I recognise it as an intrusive thought and I usually make a sarcastic retort to myself in my mind, such as 'Ah yes, for everyone knows that's how I like to spend my time'.