Intrusive thoughts

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This was mentioned in another thread but I didn't want to derail the thread on to myself so I thought I'd do a separate thread.

Sounds like OCD, or the "obsessive" part of obsessive-compulsive. It is a frequent co-morbid of ASD but not always.

I have OCD so I have intrusive thoughts/obsessions about my pets and family members getting hurt, inappropriate sexual things, etc. I have almost no control over them and they bring me a great deal of anxiety.

I have them all the time.
But as for my experiences their is a lot of them so may be good to give some examples so maybe I can see if their the same. If that is ok? As i don't have great focus when it comes to thinking off the top of my head.

I do have intrusive thoughts.
Yet not necessarily unwanted, though not any less distracting.

It is just as random and just as repetitive...

Yet far from disturbing or distressing.
Most of my intrusive thoughts are mischievous or funny. Sometimes happy than traumatic.


I'm not sure how or what I'll make of that. Except from time to time I have always the urge to laugh or make something laugh.
Or randomly do something spontaneous and positively memorable or enjoyable.

But I'd take it over the usually depicted anxiety driven intrusions or intrusions triggering anxiety.


My only main issue is that it is distracting. Derailing from the relevant and present.

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I relate, I think I have some sort of OCD related to social anxiety.

Like I'm fine on my own but around people I have a history of really debilitating intrusive thoughts - violent, sexual (I'm basically asexual so that's ironic) and thought contamination. Or at some point, I had the unnerving thought that others could read my mind or that I could somehow change reality with my thoughts. I say it's related to social anxiety because on my own I don't have any issues like that, my thinking becomes really lucid and I feel like I'm able to problem solve and think about things really logically.

So, I guess it's a byproduct of autism - I mean in the sense of autism vs environment! I'm quite happy in my own brain otherwise, actually think I'm happier than most people on some levels and less likely to cause harm.

maybe it also has something to do with dealing with uncertainty?

What I get are not so much intrusive thoughts but fixations. I will remember a random person or event from my past and cannot stop thinking about it. It might exit my head for a few days, weeks, months or even years, then out of nowhere it pops up again and it's all I can think about. I usually keep it under control but you could imagine what would happen if my wife knew I fixate sometimes about an ex-girlfriend.

I've had one or two, but not to a clinical degree. I do have recurring fixed ideas about certain things when those things come up, which feel more like prejudices or presumptions, so I'm always having to tell myself "but I don't know that." And a lot of my thinking seems to be about the same old stuff, but apart from sometimes getting a bit tired of my own thoughts for having such a recycled, unprogressed feel to them, none of this happens to a degree that worries me.

Hi Joe,

I recognised that my Intrusive thoughts were OCD before my diagnosis with AS.

As mentioned, OCD is a very common comorbid condition connected with Autism.
I go to a support group which meets twice a week and you're welcome, as with everyone here, to come along. It's called OCA:

http://www.obsessivecompulsiveanonymous.org.uk


to come e along

Yes I do suffer from intrusive thoughts. They are the result of frustration about other people being egocentric, anti-social or inconsiderate.
They are quite nasty thoughts where I get into screaming arguments with people, usually followed by me applying extreme violence just to get my point across (I mean sick medieval violence). It's so intense that my adrenaline level and heart rate go sky high and I breathe heavily, if I'm walking when it happens I have to stop and pull myself together.
I have these thoughts on a daily basis, but no longer all day long. When it happens I try to stop it by picturing a red stop sign and saying STOP! to myself, which sometimes smothers the thought.

Note: I'm a total pacifist, I've never as much as slapped someone

I also experience a lot of reccuring thoughts about situations/conversations in the past, wondering if I didn't understand or was misunderstood, mulling about what happened or what it was about, and if I could or should have acted/responded differently.
To a point that's normal I guess, for NTs also.

Some advice on this i read once, dont try to block the thought, rather let it in & play with it, make it more extreme unless you have a serious psychotic disorder where you can`t tell what`s real or not you have no danger in carrying it out.

One woman wrote "she had a patent who feared running people over in her car", she was trained to think "cant wait until i drive home then i can run them all over again".

Eventually you`ll get borred of it & stop being anxious & they will go away.

Its the same with panic attacks, rather than block it out treat it like a brief rain storm endure & head for the eye of the storm and it will pass.

You can run but you cant hide as the saying goes, if you turn around and face these things you`ll see that its nothing to fear, the anxiety will reduce & then you`ll stop getting them.

Hi all, these are amazing comments. I have never told anyone about my intrusive thoughts! I sometimes get flashes of absolute horror when the moment should be a pleasant one or if I am listening to someone in real life talking. I love my two cats way more than most humans and would defend then until the end but sometimes when I stroke them, in my head I see flashes of mutilation. It is as though my mind is purposefully trying to destroy the beauty of the moment, or whatever.

I also relive moments of letting someone down, memories from years ago, for example when i was younger, I had the ability to say horrendous things to people, brutal honesty in the extreme. Every now and again I relive awfulness of the moment. It takes my breath away and I get a real sinking feeling.

Also, I think someone else mentioned this but I dont like cruelty to animals or humans like in the film Hostel, I have to walk out the room as it is too much to bear. Basically the justice element of my personality prevents me from accepting unfairness. Something like that.

kuze