These fleeting thoughts that cause distress and are often unprompted are known as intrusive thoughts. Intrusive thoughts are not uncommon, and in fact, studies have shown that more than 94 percent of people have experienced intrusive thoughts at least once in the last three months.
Intrusive thoughts are common
“Intrusive thoughts are a normal part of human life and many people have them,” Dr. Monga said. Up to 90% of people may have intrusive thoughts at times. Having them doesn't mean you will act on them.
Everyone has thoughts that are upsetting or strange, and that do not make a lot of sense, from time to time. This is normal. In fact several well-conducted studies have discovered that close to 100% of the general population has intrusive and disturbing thoughts, images or ideas.
Everyone experiences intrusive thoughts from time to time. But they can cause a lot of distress, especially when they're negative. Allowing intrusive thoughts to pass by without giving them much attention can be helpful. You can label them as “just thoughts” and remember your brain has thousands of thoughts each day.
In fact, research has found that over 90% of the population experiences intrusive thoughts (Abramowitz, Deacon, & Whiteside, 2011).
The good news is many intrusive thoughts can be considered normal and pass through a person's mind without leaving an imprint. However, Dr. Edwards says some intrusive thoughts may begin to stick in people's minds and bother them. They may ruminate on the idea and start to feel anxious.
An estimated 1.2% of U.S. adults had OCD in the past year.
What Age Do Intrusive Thoughts Start? Unwanted thoughts that elicit anxiety can appear at any age but often begin between ages 8 to 12 and in between the late teen years and early adulthood. Some have been as early as 5-years-old when diagnosed with compulsive thinking.
On average, people have about 6,200 thoughts each day. Inevitably, some will be unwanted, alarming, or just plain strange. You know the kind: You're driving down the freeway and suddenly visualize yanking the steering wheel to the left and careening into a ravine.
When an intrusive thought occupies your brain, it can sometimes feel like it will never go away. But thoughts are always temporary, and there is no such thing as a permanent state of mind.
Intrusive thoughts are often triggered by stress or anxiety. They may also be a short-term problem brought on by biological factors, such as hormone shifts. For example, a woman might experience an uptick in intrusive thoughts after the birth of a child.
People who find that intrusive thoughts are exacerbating mental conditions like depression, anxiety and OCD should seek professional help — as should those who are unable to undertake daily tasks or sustain relationships because of intrusive thoughts.
Whether you have OCD or not, you'll continue to experience them from time to time. However, there are several things you can do to decrease the degree to which they interfere with your life and make them less distressing when they do occur.
Symptoms fluctuate in severity from time to time, and this fluctuation may be related to the occurrence of stressful events. Because symptoms usually worsen with age, people may have difficulty remembering when OCD began, but can sometimes recall when they first noticed that the symptoms were disrupting their lives.
Intrusive thoughts can occur due to various factors, including anxiety, stress, depression, trauma, or other underlying mental health conditions. They may be due to imbalances in brain chemistry, environmental stressors, or learned thought patterns.
BRAIN FACT: Every day your brain processes about 70,000 thoughts.
And if your intrusive thoughts are related to a mental health condition, they will likely last as long as you have symptoms. In some cases, fear- or trauma-related intrusive thoughts may never go away completely. But with treatment, you can learn to manage them so they cause much less distress.
While dealing with mild OCD isn't always ideal, some people can get by with the condition. In many cases, though, it doesn't have to be that way. Left untreated, OCD symptoms can worsen over the years and become even more debilitating, causing you to: Suffer from depression.
OCD has peaks of onset at two different life phases: pre-adolescence and early adulthood. Around the ages of 10 to 12 years, the first peak of OCD cases occur. This time frequently coincides with increasing school and performance pressures, in addition to biologic changes of brain and body that accompany puberty.
around 3 per cent of Australians experience OCD in their lifetime.
Pedophilia OCD
It can occur in people who have their own history of childhood abuse, because they may have been told somewhere along the way that being a victim of abuse means they will go on to abuse someone else.
Primarily obsessional OCD has been called "one of the most distressing and challenging forms of OCD." People with this form of OCD have "distressing and unwanted thoughts pop into [their] head frequently," and the thoughts "typically center on a fear that you may do something totally uncharacteristic of yourself, ...
Effects of Ignoring Symptoms
That's not the way OCD works. In fact, ignoring symptoms, telling yourself that you're not really that bad and you can manage the disorder by trying self-help for OCD will only exacerbate the situation. OCD generally tends to worsen over time without treatment.