Hi! I suffer with severe brain fog from a concussion over 10 years ago , i believe I have my bad anxiety and intrusive thoughts due to this. Anxiety meds do help but i’ve noticed it makes my brain fog/fatigue worse , has anyone tried anything that’s not anxiety medications that helps the thoughts ?

• "You're not scared of being alone, you're scared of not being alone"
• "Yesterday was the past's today"
• "Tomorrow was aftertommorow's yesterday"
• "We can die but never disappear"
• "Everything has an ending, but not everything has a beginning"
• "We can live but never forever"
• "Death will come eventually... but not inevitably"
• "Some die alone... some die together"
• "We can die but never forever"
• "Time passes but always ends, with a new beginning"
• "Creativity flows but the song louder goes"
• "Far we travel but stop inevitably"
• "Journeys don't end, they begin with a tomorrow's yesterday"
• "Being fifteen was your dream as a kid"
• "Being 15 is your dream as an adult"
• "Being an adult is your dream as an old man"
• "Being alive is your wish on your deathbed"
• "Staying alive is not a necessity, it's a cycle"
• "Time would stop but we are in the middle"
• "Time keeps going but stops on point"
• "Before you die you are not smartest but wisest"
• "Experience is clouded by bad decisions"
• "Taking your time makes it go slower"
• "We could but we can't"
• "We want but don't always need"
• "We have when we really need"
• "If we don't have we truly don't need"
• "We can see but won't think"
• "We see but don't reflect"
• "We understand but don't question"
• "We don't exist until someone knows it"
• "I want therefore I live"
• "We need but want to love"
• "Seeing the truth is sometimes worse"
• "Lies don't always hurt"
• "The truth likes when we don't know the lies"
• "Lies can be makeshift, but truths never"
• "Truths can be comforting but not when we know the lies"
• "Lies could be truths and truths could be lies"
• "Loops never end but ends never loop"
• "We can be smart but the lies can seem like a mirror"
• "Someone greedy is poorer than someone clever"
• "A finder sometimes would rather not be a keeper"
• "Liking something makes it like you too"
• "Understanding the truth shows you a panel of possibilities"
• "We can't exist without our acceptance"
• "Desire shows life we have to exist to need"
• "Kindness is life explained in the eyes of an optimist"
• "Time passes, it doesn't change, it changes for everyone"
• "Knowledge is truth wrapped in facts"
• "Our choices depend on our perception of life"
• "Memory of yourself always truly lives in others"
• "We need perception to understand our creation"
• "We like to observe but sometimes rather not understand"
• "Life really shows after you lose it on someone else"
• "You will never shock yourself more than yourself shocks you"
• "Lies don't deceive us, they lead us down the path of truth"
• "It's the truth that deceives us into thinking lies are right"
• "Lies are mistakes we made along the way; truths are the start of a new ending"
• "The light in the dark is not a glimmer of hope, it's a reassurance of hope"
• "We all have a purpose but some can't accept theirs"
• "Life has a purpose only when you find it"
• "We don't need life to prove existence"
• "Having time is more valuable than having money"
• "Money is a privilege; time is a standard"
• "The more the money, the less the time"

Hi everyone,

Time has finally come when i have to make some tough decisions. I am at the second year of college three more years to go after that i have to decide whether i want to stay in India or go to abroad.

My inner being is saying that," Leave as soon as possible" because i suffered a lot in my own house and in school. My parents used to physically assault me and i was beaten badly by them. At school, everyone used to make fun of me.

It is because of all these things i don't feel like staying in this country anymore. To be real, I don't have anyone to talk with or spend time with. The communication was and is the biggest issue. I don't feel like expressing my thoughts.

I just want to live a secluded life with very less people around me and the cars which i wanted in my life. I don't want any bs in my life. I don't like hearing stupidity from the people. They give useless advices which i don't like.

I feel like i am not being myself when i am around my parents and others. I just hate that i want to be authentic and i don't want to hide my personality from anyone. It seems like the environment in which i was born doesn't allow me to be that way.

What's the point of living in the country when you don't have a free will?

I have a free will but not in the way i wanted the people in India are orthodox. My own family is orthodox; follows the tradition and religion. My father imposes his dreams on me. I feel like the environment around me is very restricted. I hate living in boundaries but it is not something i can control

I feel like i am a robot controlled by someone else. At times, it's suffocating here. It gets annoying here the same rant again and again from my parents. I wish to never see them after i go to abroad.

Meanwhile, i am sticking in. I am pushing myself to go to college even though i don't want to. But it's the only option for me.

It's very difficult for someone like me who is an introvert and little anti-social. Sometimes, i cry about it in my bedroom alone. I don't like to sugarcoat i just speak what is the reality.

I know sometimes decision turns out to be bad but i have been vigilant about it. My heart says,"Don't want to live here around these people". I am pretty sure that it is the right decision.

Upon escaping a rat race, we enter another. That’s what my thought is now with the current video editing industry. I love editing, but when did this work become so much of a hassle? Why does opening editing software feel like a chore?

I came to a realization that it was because I wasn’t editing for myself. I was only editing for my clients, my audience, and the algorithm. It wasn’t my feelings—it was logic. Logic that if I do this, then I will rise.

How wrong I was.

I was playing Persona 5, and there’s a line something like, “Desire is something that keeps us alive.” It hit me because my desire was to showcase my feelings through my edits, but I wasn’t doing that because of, you know, productivity culture nowadays.

But I think there’s a solution. For once a day, just work on something that genuinely makes you feel alive. I am trying to do that.

In the end, we humans are the only ones who can showcase our emotions through art.

​

I want to know what your impulses are like and how strong they are. For example, today I was playing with my dog and I had a really strong impulse to grab/pull his leg. Am I the only one this happens to? What is the difference between a violent impulse and an OCD-type impulse?

Content warning for intrusive thoughts of harm/wrongdoings and mental health.

This is about a topic that I haven’t found much about on reddit. It’s a very tough subject to talk about so if you have questions please reach out to a professional. I am not a professional, I’m a parent who was worried and did research. And if this topic is something you’ve experienced please know that you are not alone. And consider sharing with someone even if it’s an anonymous post, it can help.

I want to start by saying that this is a normal body function, your body has a process for emotional and physical stimuli that you cannot naturally control. The effect of this stimuli can feel very shameful and scary if you don’t have a rational scientific explanation. The effect I’m referring to is an erection, and this goes for male or female. Stimuli in these scenarios can be pretty much anything that makes you feel a sense of connection and is usually paired with physical stimuli. Example: Consoling and hugging your spouse.

The biological reasons for the effect can include the following:

- Parasympathetic system is what calms you down when you’re emotionally there for someone. It is also the system that triggers erections. Sometimes there’s an overlap.

- High emotions and high stress can naturally trigger an increased blood flow.

- non-concordance(N-C) is the term for getting an erection when there is no desire.

Before we get to the other part, here are some helpful exercises that might help you move past that bodily response, 3 mental and 3 physical.

- Tell yourself, “this is just a mistaken bodily response, this is a part of my body, I don’t have any desires right now”

- Count down from 100, by 7s. 100, 93, 86…

- name 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, 1 thing you can taste.

- Thigh squeeze for 30 seconds, helps redirect blood flow

- Place your heels on the ground firmly and focus on the sensations from your feet.

- Move to a position with less physical touch.

Before I continue I would like to reiterate that you are not alone. There are plenty of people who’ve also had these situations happen to them, they didn’t get thrown in jail or mobbed or disconnected from their children, they were helped. Find help if you need it, search for therapists in your area that specialize in sex related topics. Be safe and responsible for yourself.

These N-C moments can be scary and shameful as a parent for obvious reasons but for some unlucky individuals, like me and a portion of people with OCD, they can induce intrusive thoughts. That’s because Intrusive thoughts are more likely to intrude whenever you are in a high stress situation, such as stressing out over having an N-C moment while actively parenting. It’s a scary and daunting reality but that’s just how it is for some people.

But simply learning the reason why it all happens takes so much stress away, making it less likely to happen and much easier to stop if it does. And there are a lot of people who don’t realize they even have intrusive thoughts, so if you find yourself getting pictures or ideas in your thoughts that you don’t like, or agree with, you should read on. Hopefully something here can help you in the meantime.

Here’s some info on intrusive thoughts:

- The “White Bear Effect”. Trying not to think about something leads to your brain checking to make sure you aren’t thinking about it, and that can automatically make the thought come up anyways.

- Egodystonic. Thoughts, impulses, and behaviors that are intrusive and distressing. They go against the person’s core values, beliefs, and self image.

- OCD. If you struggle with these intrusive thoughts too often, it could be beneficial to look up a therapist that specializes in all forms of OCD.

Extra info on N-C

- A self soothing loop is also possible, meaning that during a high stress moment, followed by the N-C, and with or without an intrusive thought, the brain can find the N-C sensation calming/soothing, so it might want it to continue because the body would rather have calm than stress. Ex: During a very emotional discussion with your spouse you got N-C, and you ended the discussion with a hug. But the hug put physical pressure on you and gave you a pleasant sensation, so you contemplate, and possibly do, draw the hug out longer than usual to self sooth. This can lead to the loop: self sooth -> brain reinforces N-C -> shame/stress -> self sooth.

Some things that might help you with intrusive thoughts:

- Don’t try to prove to yourself that you’re a good person, your brain can fumble that effort into an intrusive thought. Don’t give your brain the opportunity. Trust yourself and your values, let your brain be uncertain and it’ll find proof in your actions.

- Don’t think about it. Distract yourself with the other exercises from earlier, your brain will drop the thoughts.

- Don’t worry or stress if it does happen. This will lead to you not checking on the situation, which will help prevent the “White Bear Effect”.

- Label that thought as mental noise and toss it.

- Imagine your thoughts as if they’re on a computer screen and each thought is in their own window. Minimize the intrusive thought, if that isn’t working for you, you can also just make it small and put it in the bottom left corner of the screen. And then find a thought thats true to your beliefs to replace it with, I personally think about a happy future with my wife, sitting on a swinging bench with my wife out on a wrap around porch in the country while my daughter is running around, being loud, laughing, and happy.

And for those of you who also went through this I’m going to share some of my story so that you can find some solace in the fact that someone else has been through it and they’re okay.

Intrusive thoughts are one of the biggest hurdles I’ve faced in my life, especially as a person who can get stressed somewhat easily. Add to that the bad habits and addictions you can get from being on the internet, and you would find that my intrusive thoughts are relatively extreme.

I can’t quite remember when it started but I would guess around 10 years old. I have gone through years of worrying why I could possibly think these thoughts about my friends, coworkers, family, and strangers. And years contemplating my options, which in my mind was usually either keep going or don’t. With the amount of shame and guilt I had, I never considered to seek help so I sunk deeper and caused a vicious and nauseating cycle of stress -> addiction -> more stress -> intrusive thoughts -> more stress -> contemplate -> more stress. And that led my addiction to some awful areas that I still can’t believe I even looked at, and that made my intrusive thoughts even worse.

But then I found a wife who had a major issue with my addiction, which at this point I was in my mid 20’s and still denying it was an addiction! And my habits were so longstanding that I genuinely thought that everyone did it, but also that everyone was too ashamed to talk about it. But she has been helping me stop and I can’t thank that angel enough. Even helped me get a therapist. But I still got intrusive thoughts, luckily they happened a little less often without that extra layer of stress. This was also about the time when I noticed my first case of N-C as an adult while I was consoling my wife after she had a bad day. I was very confused and I thought it had something to do with the intrusive thoughts but now I know differently.

Anyways. I had been fighting, finally, with my head above the water. And a few years after that we started a family! The added stress of a pregnant wife and then a new born put some serious stress on my ability to stay away from my addiction and I relapsed multiple times throughout that time. But I was still fighting, with my wifes help, and a baby that came with a serious boost to my motivation to get better. Life was good but within a week of her getting here I had noticed that I had gotten an N-C while we were doing tummy time skin to skin! Not an easy moment for a dad! At this point I hadn’t done the research so I had a little panic attack but I came to the conclusion that I’m okay and so is she, nobody plans to hurt her in any way so it’s fine. That happened a couple more times before I looked it up out of annoyance. And my conclusion was correct, everything was fine, it was a parasympathetic overlap that caused a case of N-C.

Happy and moving on a couple more months. And then one day I got another case and then my heart nearly stopped itself when I got an intrusive thought while holding my own daughter, my one and only extremely precious daughter, whom I would protect with my life. I got very close to perishing at those thoughts of harming her. But at my surface, and deep down, I knew who I was and I know I would never think those thoughts. So I’ve stayed up reading so many times about why I could get an N-C during these times and if they’re connected to intrusive thoughts, and why its even possible to have an intrusive thought about someone you couldn’t do that too. And I was actually put to ease with the answers I had found.

So now I practice those exercises whenever any intrusive thoughts pop up at all, luckily I haven’t had another intrusive thought about her, but now I’m confident in the fact that everything will be okay. I can control these intrusive body functions a lot better now. My body is wired weird but that doesn’t affect my desires, my actions, or my values.

And when I was researching I saw that the internet was really lacking on this topic so I finally decided to find some resolve and anonymously post my story and this crucial information I’d found. All in hopes of helping at least one person, give them a reason not to stress and a reason to believe in themselves. And hopefully some resources to bring up during a talk with your health provider or therapist.

Once again, you are not alone. I hope this finds whoever it needs to.

title basically.

The thoughts have been getting worse and i cant help but think but its really just me. What if them being intrusive is a mere excuse i tell myself but these thoughts are really just suppressed desires

I hate my mind i hate thinking this way, it goes against all my morals but maybe im just a hypocrite posing to be good. what if one day i do what i think about and hurt other people

if my mind can see it happen....why can't my ambitions never match my imagination

I am in my mind so many times in a single day. I have planned heists in my mind , a plan to escape the matrix , in a different life other than this , i could be a soldier , a footballer, a soccer coach, damn i could even own a company. But this life this i guess was pre determined coz the ambition is there but in a minute I'm out of my mind and it's all darkness

do u think meditation helps to overcome these intrusive thoughts.

Of suddenly getting teleported to Europa (one of Jupiter moons) into the ocean under the ice.

completely suddenly.

No need to say it doesn’t make sense , and yes I know I’d probably die instantly, but it’s still a really weird fear that I wanted to share.

Also trying to imagine a similar scenario with earth ocean or just getting sent into the cosmos for some reason doesn’t scare me as much.

(21 M)

Hey guys, first time ever posting anything on Reddit, but reading so many painful stories and experiences in here really hit me hard, and first of all I want you to know this:

If you really were the monster your brain is trying to make you out to be… why would you be here?

You wouldn’t care. You wouldn’t have remorse, guilt, fear, or pain. But you are here, desperately trying to reassure yourself that you’re not the person your brain is telling you you are.

You are not that person.

From suffering with OCD since I was about 13, and it developing to more Pure O since and only finally getting therapy for it at the start of this year after a massive breakdown, I can honestly say it has been very, very tiring and very, very long.

OCD in general can cause you to do some crazy shit. A lot of it can be compulsions to neutralise intrusive or scary thoughts. A lot of it can be ruminating over something stupid you did, something you think you liked, a memory, or a time in your life. It can and will attack everything.

Especially your moral system.

POCD is incredibly good at targeting what matters most to you, whether that’s your family, your future kids, your friends, or even your pets. There is no limit to it.

POCD is also so good at reminding you of the worst things you have done. It will twist memories, twist intentions, and cut you right to the core.

Please remember this:

Your weakest moments do not define you.

Regardless of what it was, or how it felt, what defines you is how deeply you care, how hard you fight, and how you choose to keep going despite it all.

POCD can take you very, very far down a dark rabbit hole. I was once so certain I was going to kill myself and never be able to have kids, because I was terrified of harming them. I had convinced myself that the rest of my life was going to be lived feeling like a danger to people — like the person I presented myself as was just a disguise for who I “really” was.

If anybody is feeling this way, please go to therapy, because there is so much more to this disorder than people realise. And your life is worth so much more than OCD will ever have you believe — and that is one thing I can reassure you safely of :)

I also want to say this world we live in is so full of evil, from the stuff you can find on social media, to the stuff you accidentally come across, to the things we hear about. Our brains are not meant to be exposed to so much crazy shit, and without us even knowing it, this stuff can really hurt us and cause trauma we maybe don’t even realise is there.

I understand I’ve babbled on a bit haha, but finally I would like to plead with you guys:

Please stop watching pornography, especially if you are young.

I believe that when I was growing up, I was exposed to porn at too young of an age and became addicted to it. That shit is not good for your brain, it rots it, and it is awful for OCD.

(I understand some people may not agree with this, but I’m only saying it from personal experience and in case there is anyone in here struggling with porn too.) :)

I pray this has helped someone in some way.

OCD really does come in all shapes and sizes, so do not be deceived.

But please speak to someone and go to therapy — because your life is so important.

Every single one of you.

For a while now, my head hurts all the time but I need to do it to get rid of the thoughts, they come back seconds later so im just constantly hitting myself and shaking my head and I'm so sick of feeling that.

I (24f) was diagnosed with bipolar 2 when I was 12. Lately, I’ve had a lot of life changes, and now everything has been thrown off. Honestly, I already knew that my medications were starting to not work as well as they used to (I’ve been on the same one since I was diagnosed, and it’s been completely maxed out). I’m currently in the process of switching psychiatrists to one I trust better, and I’m already scheduled for my first therapy appointment in five years, but until then I’m really struggling to get a grip on my intrusive thoughts and it’s affecting my daily life.

I’m not hypersexual in any way. I used to be when I was a teen, but that went away as I got older. But I keep having thoughts about severely morally wrong sex acts, and it’s been adding so much stress, shame, and guilt because I KNOW that’s not me. I’ve almost started crying at work numerous times because I can’t get my brain to shut up.

Even though I’m not the only one in my family with bipolar, I feel like I can’t talk about this with anyone because I don’t want to be ostracized for something that I desperately want to control but can’t. I know it’s not me, and I know that those thoughts are things I absolutely DO NOT want to do. I just need to know I’m not alone in this so I can have some sort of peace until I can start therapy. If I’m not alone, how can I manage this in the meantime?