Are my Thoughts Really Just Thoughts? Am I going Crazy?

What is most important for you to know is that you are not crazy! Your thoughts are just that.. thoughts. They can be overwhelming and disturbing, but they don’t have to be perceived that way. You could meet those same thoughts with any other emotions, which we will teach you when we introduce the mindfulness component. With that being said, there is nothing abnormal about wanting to keep your loved ones safe. What is important to know is that we want to teach you how to meet those thoughts in a way that it’s not as overwhelming. In fact, we want you to eventually get so comfortable with those thoughts that they don’t bring on much emotion at all. Why? Because your desire for certainty is driving your need to do anything to reduce the anxiety.  Your desire also feeds into keeping the obsessive thoughts alive and flowing. We want you to learn to let those thoughts be. Problems start to form when you try to answer why you are having these thoughts in the first place and why they won’t go away. They also become more present when you start to evaluate if they are predictive of future behaviour (Hersfield 2018). Remember, thoughts are just thoughts. I’ve been thinking about becoming a bodybuilder for decades, unfortunately it hasn’t happened yet and just thinking about it, didn’t make it happen.

Is it Normal to Have Violent Thoughts?

Many of us at times have violent thoughts. Hershfield argues that throughout time our ancestors had to rely on violence for our personal survival. As communities have progressed, we no longer have the need or desire to rely on those means to get by. Theorists, including Baer, have suggested that violent thoughts may be influenced by old survival mechanisms. We needed to be violent and thus, we need to have violent thoughts for our perceived survival. Freud’s theory suggests that these thoughts arise because of the norms and constraints put on us and our inability to express these needs and desires. Thought suppression can also bring on difficulties. As you are probably aware already, trying to control a thought only leads to more thoughts in your awareness.  

Control becomes a very important topic when it comes to harm OCD. People with OCD in general attempt to control certain situations. According a study presented by Riskind, Ayers, and Wright, people who fear losing control are more likely to become upset by aggressive thoughts when provoked by an imagined situation. Those who do not fear losing control are less burdened by intrusive thoughts. How does this apply? In treatment, we want you not to be so fearful towards your thoughts. We want you to learn to embrace your thoughts and learn to accept them with compassion and understanding. As a result, you will be less burdened by them.

Why Do I Have These Thoughts So Much?

Many people with OCD have specific cognitive distortions that influence the way they think and feel about certain situations. Those with harm OCD often over value their responsibility and think that any contribution to harm makes them responsible for all harm that could occur in a situation (thinking you are a murderer if someone got into a car accident, because they looked at your car when passing by). Thought-action fusion describes putting greater emphasis on the fact that because you have these thoughts and a lot of them, they are more likely to come true. Thought control is the belief that because you can’t fully control your thoughts, this will lead to failure of being able to control anything. Many OCD suffers who have these types of distortions become overwhelmed and anxious. We try to help people understand the distortion and how it doesn’t reflect reality.

The key point to remember in our treatment is that just because you think it, it doesn’t mean that you are being violent. Violent thoughts are events that occur strictly in the mind, not poor choices that you are making with horrible intentions. Understanding that we have little control over our thoughts and what we are aware of at the moment allows us to view them with more freedom and less judgement.

There are many different ways that violent thought can evoke different feelings. Some people see violent thoughts as humorous, thrilling, or creative. We see this often in old sketches of Seinfeld when one of the supporting characters do something silly to harm themselves. Having violent thoughts doesn’t necessarily equate to failure or disdain. In fact, it’s a part of the human experience and our feelings about violence can vary significantly.

Important points from this article:

  • You are not going crazy.

  • Thoughts are just thoughts.

  • I can’t seem to workout more often just because I think of it.

  • You are seeking certainty that you aren’t going to harm someone. Anyone is capable of making an impulsive act (even non-ocd sufferers).