Agreeing with intrusive thoughts
As OCD sufferers, we are subjected to intense, disturbing thoughts that can cause us a huge amount of grief. For sufferers of harm, sex, pedophile and other obsessional themes, the thoughts can be disgusting, revolting, and go against the core of who we are as individuals.
The key to recovery from OCD is, through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, to learn to control, resist and stop compulsions. We can’t directly stop intrusive thoughts but we can control how we respond to the thoughts. We can learn, with lots of practice, to not respond to the thoughts through compulsions. This leads to a state where we are not bothered as much by the thoughts and, indeed, the thoughts can become less frequent.
In a nutshell, OCD recovery involves learning how to do nothing about the intrusive thoughts. This presents a problem, however, for many OCD sufferers.
When intrusive thoughts go against the core of who we are (for instance, thoughts about children and sex), sufferers will often perform compulsions in an attempt to negate or prove wrong the thoughts. A sufferer may analyze a thought to try and prove to herself she does not want to have sex with children. Another sufferer may try to counter thoughts about being gay with thoughts about being heterosexual.
A problem presents itself when these people begin their journey on the road to recovery from OCD. Like all other sufferers, these people must learn to not respond to the intrusive thoughts by resisting and stopping compulsions. But for these people, not performing the compulsions can be akin to agreeing with the intrusive thoughts.
Because the compulsions have been done in order to negate or counter the intrusive thoughts, these sufferers feel that not performing the compulsions is equivalent to accepting as fact the intrusive thoughts. Not going through a mental ritual designed to ‘prove’ that sex with children is not wanted means to the sufferer they are agreeing with the intrusive thought that sex with children is okay.
During my many hundreds of hours spent on Internet forums dedicated to OCD, I have seen this problem crop up many times. Sufferers become convinced that not performing compulsions is in effect agreeing with the thoughts — something they cannot bring themselves to do because the thoughts go against who they are as people.
And yet, the way forward is to resist and stop compulsions.
These types of sufferers need to take an extra step along their journey and come to an understanding that doing nothing does not mean they agree with anything. An analogy can help to explain this situation.
OCD has often been described as a school yard bully. The bully throws insults at a victim (the obsession). The victim responds by crying, begging or running away (the compulsion). A bully continues his assaults on victims so long as there is a response. They want to see a victim cry or run away. It empowers the bully. But if the victim stops responding to the bully, simply by not reacting to the bully’s assaults, the bully eventually gets tired of the game and wanders off in search of a new victim. This is in essence how OCD works and how recovery proceeds.
In the case of not responding to a bully, the victim is not ‘agreeing’ with the bully’s insults. The victim is not buying into the bully’s harsh words and derogatory statements. The victim is simply refusing to give the bully what he wants, a reaction. The same holds true when it comes to OCD. Not responding to intrusive thoughts does not mean ‘agreeing’ with the thoughts. It is simply allowing the thoughts to pop up and not reacting to them, not giving them the fuel to continue their assaults in the future.
It is not easy to ignore intrusive thoughts. It becomes automatic to respond to the thoughts through compulsions. But sufferers can change their behavior and thinking and learn, over time, to not respond to the thoughts.
5 Comments Already
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Hello Dave,
first of all thank you about your dedication and efforts building a response community.
I have a question re intrusive thoughts. I am in a very healthy loving relationship. I suffered a breakup 18 months ago, but took my time for recovery and healed my heart. I felt that I am ready to date again and met my beautiful girlfriend who I can see marrying. We moved in together a few weeks ago and all of a sudden basically overnight I got intrusive thoughts about my ex gf. I am not sure what has triggered this spike. I am searching for a new job. That could be one reason. I see her face popping up when I am with my current gf and think that I might be still in love with my ex. However, I know that I do not love her anymore but my mind is playing tricks with me. I have OCD since I am 21 and went through a lot of cycles. However, I never had such thoughts and it is very disturbing. I know it is wrong to seek for reassurance, but would you classify my thoughts and images about my ex gf also as OCD? My self-treatment worked always very well and I have not taken any medication. At this point in my life, I am considering going to a Therapy because I will not allow that OCD is destroying my future. I was diagnosed with a mild form of OCD and have not a lot of compulsions just intrusive thoughts. I wanted to start a new post on the forum , but did not know how to login.
Thank you
You may well be dealing with OCD over this. This type of OCD is commonly referred to as Relationship OCD as it hones in on the relationships we have with other people. What you have described does sound a lot like intrusive thoughts about your ex. They are not uncommon types of obsessions to have. Many people have these types of thoughts. I caution you that you in all likelihood do have compulsions that you perform, though they may be covert and you just don’t realize that what you are doing is a compulsion. For this type of obsession it would be very common to partake in ruminating, which is a type of compulsion. Ruminating is going over the thoughts in your head, again and again, trying to figure them out and what they mean. Ruminating is probably the single biggest compulsion that OCD sufferers do. Like with any kind of OCD, you want to identify the compulsions you do and work hard to curb and then stop those compulsions. Getting images/thoughts about your ex is going to be disturbing, but the less you do about those thoughts the better. Try to let them go. When they pop up, take a ‘so what’ attitude about them and just get on with your day. Getting those thoughts doesn’t mean anything. It’s just OCD playing tricks with you. The less you pay attention to them, the better. Good luck.
Thank you so much Dave. I appreciate your feedback and guidance. Your comments pinpoint exactly my frame of mind and what is going on in my mind. I will follow your advice and just accept the fact that it is OCD. Thanks again.
It’s so hard because for me, I have an intrusive thought or “memory” around an actual event years ago and then I’ll think I’m over that obsession/ruminating but then I “remember” something “new” to tack onto the event., regardless of having ruminated over it for years with no new memory surfacing. How do you push it aside and know it’s ocd and not explore it when you believe you might just be remembering something you forgot happened for years ?
Unless you are almost remembering the location of the $5 million life insurance policy, chances are that trying to remember something from years ago simply doesn’t matter.
None of us remembers everything. And that’s okay.
On another note, where has all the ruminating got you? Are you 100% sure of what you remember? If not, you have to ask yourself why you keep trying to remember.