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Joe90
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24 Jun 2021, 2:43 pm

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.

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Intrusive thoughts are unwanted thoughts that can pop into our heads without warning, at any time. They're often repetitive – with the same kind of thought cropping up again and again – and they can be disturbing or even distressing.


I definitely suffer this. Until now I've never known what these sorts of thoughts I have were, and whenever I expressed them to other people, even other autistics, they don't relate and it makes me feel alone. Does anyone here have intrusive thoughts, and if so can you describe them? (If you can, that is, as intrusive thoughts can be so weird and illogical that it can be like explaining the colour blue).

I can definitely relate to these thoughts being disturbing and distressing.

I have synesthesia so that can make some of my thoughts weird like I see emotions on objects, which can make me sound insane to others.


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24 Jun 2021, 2:47 pm

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


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HeroOfHyrule
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24 Jun 2021, 2:49 pm

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.



Shadow1888
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24 Jun 2021, 2:51 pm

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.



Edna3362
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24 Jun 2021, 2:55 pm

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. :lol:


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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24 Jun 2021, 3:01 pm

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! :D 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.


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24 Jun 2021, 3:06 pm

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


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Minuteman
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24 Jun 2021, 6:02 pm

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.



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24 Jun 2021, 7:25 pm

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.



quaker
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26 Jun 2021, 2:35 pm

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



A_minor
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06 Sep 2021, 6:38 am

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 :roll:


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A_minor
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06 Sep 2021, 7:24 am

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.


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carlos55
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06 Sep 2021, 1:30 pm

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.


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Edna3362
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06 Sep 2021, 5:21 pm

carlos55 wrote:
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.

Hmmm... That's more or less I initially did when in came to anxious thoughts.
.. Except in a more reckless fashion. But it worked fine for me.


Yet how about non-anxious based intrusive thoughts? :o

Because experience tells me, doing the same thing would lead to seemingly random or something more unproductive while at work...
Enough to resemble like ADD.

But when alone at home with nothing to do... It ended up involving hours of laughing and roleplaying.
Enough to seem like a form of maladaptive daydream.

And trying to counter said thought takes more energy and pull of attention.
Either I may or may not have either ADD or MD,
the former I doubt -- or something else...


Maybe just really autism -- internalized repetitiveness and out of time responses, just minus the anxiety and with several levels of boredom. :lol:
Or maybe it is what it looked like without the constant layer of anxiety.


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Last edited by Edna3362 on 06 Sep 2021, 5:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

carlos55
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06 Sep 2021, 5:33 pm

Quote:
Yet how about non-anxious based intrusive thoughts?


I think the whole point is they cause anxiety that’s why they are unpleasant and feared.


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kuze
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07 Sep 2021, 12:34 am

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


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