Medications that can help People may also use SSRIs to treat mental health conditions that can cause intrusive thoughts, such as: OCD. PTSD. generalized anxiety disorder.
There aren't medications that specifically target intrusive thoughts. However, people with OCD and PTSD who experience intrusive thoughts may benefit from medication. It can help you manage the underlying conditions that contribute to intrusive thoughts.
Intrusive thoughts are often triggered by stress or anxiety. They may also be a short-term problem brought on by biological factors, such as hormone shifts. For example, a woman might experience an uptick in intrusive thoughts after the birth of a child.
Unwanted intrusive thoughts are stuck thoughts that cause great distress. They seem to come from out of nowhere, arrive with a whoosh, and cause a great deal of anxiety. The content of unwanted intrusive thoughts often focuses on sexual or violent or socially unacceptable images.
While anxiety disorders are typically characterized by excessive worry, OCD is marked by unwanted thoughts that lead to compulsive mental or physical reactions. A person with an anxiety disorder will experience excessive worry, but not engage in compulsive behavior to reduce their anxiety.
Anxiety also changes the way your brain works so that it's harder to have positive thoughts, which also pushes these unwanted thoughts back into your mind.
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)
SSRIs are a type of medication people may use as a treatment for depression. People may also use SSRIs to treat mental health conditions that can cause intrusive thoughts, such as: OCD.
The specific causes of intrusive thoughts can vary from person to person. Some potential causes include: Stress and anxiety: Having intrusive thoughts is typical when you're facing stress and anxiety. If you are going through a tough time, you may notice that you have more intrusive thoughts.
When intrusive thoughts or obsessions become uncontrollable to the point that they are affecting daily function, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) may be the explanation. OCD-intrusive thoughts that occur repeatedly throughout the day are unhealthy and interfere with quality of life.
OCD is a common, long-lasting disorder characterized by uncontrollable, recurring thoughts (obsessions) that can lead people to engage in repetitive behaviors (compulsions). Although everyone worries or feels the need to double-check things on occasion, the symptoms associated with OCD are severe and persistent.
The good news is many intrusive thoughts can be considered normal and pass through a person's mind without leaving an imprint. However, Dr. Edwards says some intrusive thoughts may begin to stick in people's minds and bother them. They may ruminate on the idea and start to feel anxious.
Anxiety can be so overwhelming to the brain it alters a person's sense of reality. People experience distorted reality in several ways. Distorted reality is most common during panic attacks, though may occur with other types of anxiety. It is also often referred to as “derealization.”
The Relationship Between Thoughts and Urges
Jon Hershfield's text, Harm OCD, indicates, “people with harm OCD often describe their intrusive thoughts as 'urges' because it's difficult to find another word for the marriage of an intrusive thought and a sensation in the body that seems to indicated an imminent action.
Intrusive thoughts, say experts, have no bearing on a person's intentions or moral character. Rather, they are the product of the brain's constant motion — sometimes what it produces is inexplicably terrifying. Most of the time, people quickly abandon these thoughts.
People with generalized anxiety disorder can battle impaired concentration, difficulty sleeping and excessive worry when intrusive thoughts pop into their minds. For instance, they may have repeated worrisome thoughts about someone getting hurt or developing an illness. They may worry that they will lose their job.
The possibility that most patients with intrusive thoughts will ever act on those thoughts is low. Patients who are experiencing intense guilt, anxiety, shame, and are upset over these thoughts are very different from those who actually act on them.
If you haven't guessed, OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) wins the award for the anxiety category most of us would relegate solely to the violent criminals of this world. Unless of course, you suffer from OCD, and then you'd likely fear that wishing that may result in becoming a violent victimizer yourself.
Anxious Thoughts May Be Behavioral And Genetic
Examples of these how these types of irrational thoughts may manifest include: Health Fears - "My heart's beating fast - I may be having a heart attack!" General Worries - "I haven't heard from my mother. I hope her heart hasn't given out."
ASD and OCD can sometimes have similar symptoms. However, they are different conditions. Research from 2015 found that 17% of people with ASD also have OCD. This is higher than the percentage of people with OCD in the general population.
Symptoms of OCD include often include obsessions and unwanted or intrusive thoughts, as well as compulsions, or urges to act out specific — and often repetitive — behaviors. Meanwhile, schizophrenia typically looks like: hallucinations: seeing or hearing things that don't line up with reality.
However, they are not exclusive to ADHD just as anxiety is not exclusive to ADHD. Intrusive thoughts are associated with other mental health disorders such as Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
For some people, intrusive thoughts go away almost as quickly as they came. For others, it can be upsetting to have these thoughts, and you may find yourself questioning who you are, where the thought came from, or if the thoughts reflect your true self.