Comment on Intrusive thoughts

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Heavybell@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

In my understanding, intrusive thoughts is something like this: you`re walking along the street and pass a woman pushing a pram, and a thought pops up reminding you that you could kick it into the traffic if you wanted, and here’s all the consequences. And because you’re not a psycho you reel at the idea, wanting to smack your head for even imagining it. But there is no temptation, no urging. The thought cannot “win” because it is not trying to get you to do it, it’s just an imagined possible scenario.

This is something different from having an impulse, which is something you could act upon as you describe. Or, I suppose, it is indeed to just decide to do something from your intrusive thoughts, but that seems unlikely because a key part of the definition of “intrusive thought” is that the thought must be unwelcome and/or distressing.

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