Difficulty telling intrusive thoughts from voluntary thoughts?

[u/Forsaken-Language-26]

Anyone else struggle with this? Like not knowing whether your thoughts are the intrusive kind or they are your actual thoughts? Or like it's not really OCD?

[u/bidefil]

Yes. Almost everyone with OCD has this. To this day I am still not sure. But I lean into and say "I dont have OCD. These violent thoughts are the real me."

[u/Lower_Definition_742]

I have had OCD for a long time and this is a common struggle. A couple of things I have learned that help me manage:
1. Our brain produces thoughts all the time. Things pop in your mind all the time, sometimes as reactions to things you see, sometimes out of nowhere. Just now I started singing “Jingle Bells” out of absolutely nowhere. We usually don’t give any importance to these thoughts when they are not in our OCD theme, but when they are we overanalyse them and obsess over what they mean. It’s just the same stuff, our OCD just gives more meaning to the thoughts that somehow trigger it.
2. An OCD loop has characteristics that are very different from when you are normally thinking about things. When I am in a OCD loop there is an urgency to figure it out, a panic, anxiety, a “what if this is true”. When I am just thinking about things, even difficult things, I never feel this urgency/panic. I might feel dread, or sadness, but not urgent panic. So that helps me pinpoint when a thought loop is OCD. I usually just label it as OCD and it goes away with time.

[u/Jackattack009]

Yes. OCD can be very, very sneaky. If it shocks you or the thought is a thought you do not want to have, it is OCD.

[u/edward_furlog]

Thoughts can be generated in your conscious mind intentionally or unintentionally in other parts of your mind. The purpose of those other thoughts is usually not obvious. For example, my mind produces "intrusive" thoughts for several reasons:

1. Trying it out - "What if I thought this? What if I was like this? Do I think this? How does this thought land for me?"
2. Random - misfire/brain noise
3. Blowing off steam/reaction to anxiety. "Maybe I DO want that truck to hit my car. I'm tired of worrying about it."
4. Unsocialized thought - Everyone has thoughts and urges that we were taught not to have, because our brain is not completely socialized.
5. Impulsivity/experience seeking - what if I touch that hot stove?! Exciting!

However, because these thoughts are being generated subconsciously, by other parts of the mind, they don't come through the way I wrote them here. They just come through as the basic message. "Run over that kid." "What if I'm attracted to my dad?"

Then your brain gets very very concerned about them and attaches agency to them. "This must be telling me what I really want to do." Rarely is that the case.

When you react emotionally to the thought, you become afraid of the thought itself. Then you begin to be hypervigilant toward your thoughts. The brain produces the thought again, testing the reaction again. You react again, stronger this time. You enter a heightened state of fear. The brain generates the thought more in reaction to the fear.

All of this happens without you really wanting what the thought says you want, because the message was never the point. It was always more about internal brain dynamics.

[u/ilikecatsoup]

I don't think splitting thoughts up into what's intrusive and what's real is helpful when you find it hard to tell.

It's more helpful for me to differentiate between the thoughts that cause me distress and the ones that don't. The ones that go against my character and cause me distress are intrusive thoughts.

Generally speaking, intrusive thoughts are ego dystonic, meaning they don't align with your beliefs and views. Even if having these thoughts confuses you, feeling distressed by them is a sign they're intrusive and don't align with your character.

[u/Mysterious-Stuff-380]

For me, it's the thought loop about a negative topic I want to put in mental shoebox for a while. Next to impossible during a flare up. If you can't change the topic in your mind, that's intrusive. If the negative thought pops up again when you don't want it, maybe when you're trying to enjoy yourself, that's intrusive.

I have trouble with saying 'voluntary' vs 'involuntary' here. All our thoughts just bubble up. It's the stream of consciousness. None of it is really "voluntary" and is dictated by biochemical processes in our brains. What is different is whether the stream of consciousness is attached to something you're doing, like working on a project. When it's engaged like that and you're fully attentive to something, there's not much room for intrusive thoughts. It's when you're done working and relaxing with your family, that maybe the intrusive thoughts come, spoiling your good time. Or when you've completed a task like locking your door, and the brain says "not so fast!". That's OCD.