![]() ![]() I also try to use ‘grounding’ statements to see if the worry settles down. “Most often, I try to help them understand the nature of the thought and the feeling it may represent. (Note: She has never treated me as a patient.) Juli Fraga, a licensed psychologist based in San Francisco, works with many patients that experience intrusive thoughts. More importantly, I couldn’t control when or if they popped into my head.ĭr. Instead, my intrusive thoughts were more like curiosities. I could think something over and over again, but that didn’t mean I wanted to act on it, consciously or unconsciously. The revolutionary thing my psychiatrist told me is that my disturbing thoughts didn’t equate to desired actions. The American Psychological Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) defines “obsessions” as “recurrent and persistent thoughts, urges, or images that are experienced, at some time during the disturbance as intrusive and inappropriate, and that cause marked anxiety and distress.” When you obsess over intrusive thoughts, it can be debilitating. It’s no surprise given that my panic disorder itself is composed of anxiety, panic, low-grade depressive episodes, and obsessive tendencies. The difference in my case was that, due to my panic disorder, I was fixating on these thoughts, whereas others might be like, “Oh, that was weird” and brush them off. The ADAA defines intrusive thoughts as “stuck thoughts that cause great distress.” These thoughts can be violent, socially unacceptable, or just out of character. In fact, the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) reports that an estimated 6 million Americans experience intrusive thoughts. She explained that I was experiencing intrusive thoughts, which are totally normal. Then, when I mentioned the terrifying thoughts I was having, she provided me with the relief and clarity I needed. I was diagnosed with a panic disorder, a mental illness I’d never heard of before, and put on a daily dose of 10 milligrams of Lexapro, an antidepressant, which I still take to this day. When the day finally came to see the psychiatrist, I blurted out everything I was thinking and feeling. Intrusive thoughts don’t equate to wanted actions I had to wait about a month for an appointment, and the days ticked by slowly as the frightening thoughts continued to circulate in my head. She immediately referred me to a psychiatrist, as psychiatrists are able to diagnose and prescribe medicine, who came to my campus to see students twice a month. I felt so relieved that she had suggested exactly what I, too, thought I needed. When we met, she, thankfully, agreed that I should go on anti-anxiety medicine and see her regularly. However, I waited until the summer was over and I was back finishing my senior year of college, scared to admit I needed help. ![]() These horribly unsettling thoughts were a large part of the reason I finally went to see a psychologist. On the other hand, I was questioning what it would feel like to be in pain or potentially endangered enough to die. On one hand, no matter how awful I was feeling mentally, I knew I didn’t want to die. With more regularity, I found myself thinking about things like, “What would it feel like to be stabbed by that knife right now?” or “What would happen if I got hit by a car?” I’d always been curious about things, but these thoughts felt far beyond regular morbid curiosities. On top of the frequent panic attacks I was having, I was dealing with something else that was equally frightening: intrusive thoughts. I had just come back from a year abroad in Italy, and I was experiencing reverse culture shock that was incredibly triggering. In the summer of 2016, I was struggling with flaring anxiety and poor mental health overall. ![]()
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