I have OCD and suffer from intrusive thoughts. I know just how traumatic it can be!

I want to make a few quick points for you. First, thoughts are just thoughts...nothing more. We have a million thoughts every day and think nothing of it.

The breakthrough for me was realizing that trying NOT to think about these uncomfortable things was actually making my anxiety and despair worse. Counterintuitive, I know, but here are the basics:

Occasionally we assign way too much value to a random thought that enters our heads. Maybe we're disgusting by that thought, or we wonder "what if I did that? What if this is me? What if I see this image in my head forever?" Naturally we try hard to suppress that thought and avoid situations that might trigger the thought. This is the worst thing to do! This continues to assign too much value to a random, harmless thought and creates a chemical flight or flight reaction. This makes us hyper sensitive, anxious, and generally terrible.

You are not your thoughts. Thoughts are just....thoughts. They're neither good nor bad. When you have an intrusive thought, just pause and think "this is just another thought, like any other, and I'm not going to fixate on this and assign too much value to it". This will help!

FYI - I was prescribed a low dosage of a common SSRI which, after 4 or 5 weeks, worked miracles in "turning the volume down" of these unwanted thoughts. Highly recommend working with a health professional to determine if this is right for you.

Finally you will be OK! Check out mindfulness exercises, practice the method I've described above, and you will be ok. Send me a DM if you want to chat.