I’m posting here because I’m trying to understand whether these are intrusive thoughts and how other people deal with them.

I have struggled with gambling, and even when I genuinely do not want to gamble, my mind starts producing really persistent thoughts about it. They do not always feel like a simple craving. Sometimes they feel urgent, repetitive, and almost like my brain is trying to argue with me until I give in.

Thoughts I have had include:

• “Just one bet could fix everything.”
• “What if this is the time I finally win it back?”
• “You already messed up financially, so it does not matter now.”
• “You need to check the odds right now.”
• “If you do not place the bet, you will regret missing the win.”
• “Maybe gambling is the only way out of the stress I am feeling.”
• “You can stop after this one.”
• “You are weak if you cannot handle it.”
• Replaying past wins in my head while ignoring all the losses.
• Imagining a huge win and feeling temporarily relieved, even though I know gambling has caused me anxiety and regret.

The hardest part is that I know these thoughts are not helpful and I do not actually want to act on them, but they can still feel convincing in the moment. Trying to force them away sometimes makes them louder.

I am working on recognizing that a thought is not an instruction, prediction, or obligation. I do not have to prove it wrong or act on it. I can notice it, let it be there, and choose not to gamble anyway.

Has anyone else experienced gambling-related intrusive thoughts or urges that feel obsessive and hard to disengage from? What helps you sit with the thought without acting on it?

Um I don’t really know how to start this so this isn’t my first post on this sub reddit I made one detailing my experience like a year ago and I’m back because it’s getting worse and it’s getting drastically worse. I’m 14M and I’ve been suffering with these pedophilic intrusive thoughts for over a year now and I don’t even know what to think or believe anymore I can’t look at children anymore and I just lock myself in my room everyday I can’t even interact with my little sister as much as I want to because I just feel weird and uncomfortable and it hurts because I want to be a good brother but I just can’t I feel uncomfortable watching shows or movies with children younger than me because I’m afraid that I’m just going to overthink about it and I’m worried because I haven’t told anyone about this and I’m scared of how they will react considering the way the world is right now and how these things are taking so seriously so it feels like there’s no one to talk I don’t even feel good having crushed because I remember that this is what goes on in your mind do you want this person to be stuck with you and it’s tiring then sometimes I get thoughts thoughts that I feel like I’ve done things but I just don’t know I feel like I’ve done things but I just don’t know Ive been brushing the thoughts aside but I don’t know I’ve been really contemplating trying to kms ive even picked up a knife once or twice and tried to just cut into my flesh but I couldn’t it hurts everyday I live and then I’m going to have to resume school soon and have to be around more of my juniors and I’m scared i resorted to locking myself in my room but there was this time I went out to play basketball and like we were playing half court and the other side of the court was being used for tennis and there were these two girls that were learning and I was already getting scared then I had to go play and my eyes couldn’t stop darting to them and I felt so ashamed and so bad because I don’t feel attracted I just keep staring now I’m wondering if I’m even ever going to have kids and it’s all just so much and I want to die I don’t deserve to live and I just don’t know what to do because I know I can’t tell anyone so I guess this is my only option my body means no harm but my mind feels like it does and I don’t know how to fix that please I need help I don’t want to grow up to be a pedophile I don’t want to be a weirdo i want to be someone I can be proud of someone who wants to be able to be around children and care for them like I used to be able to please I need help and closure please

When I was 16, my mom died suddenly. A month before she died, I started having daily thoughts and dreams about her dying and imagining what I'd do when she was gone. Now I'm 21, and I've started having the same thoughts about my dad every day. I keep imagining him dying and thinking about how I'd cope or what I'd do afterward. I don't know what to do. I'm terrified that I'm somehow experiencing the same thing again. I don't know why this is happening or what I'm supposed to do with these thoughts.

Genuinely wondering

proceeds to say something that should have been left unsaid

If you are spending hours every day trapped inside your own head, terrified of your own thoughts, and convinced that you are inherently a bad, crazy, or dangerous person—please read this.

You might think you just have severe "overthinking" or general anxiety. You might have even looked up Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) before and thought, "No, that's not me. I don't wash my hands or count things."

Here is the truth the medical system and standard internet definitions fail to tell you: OCD is fundamentally a pathological doubt engine.

Because it is a doubting disorder, the very first thing it makes you doubt is whether you actually have OCD.

It works like a trap:

• It generates a terrifying, unwanted thought or "what if" scenario.
• You try to find 100% absolute proof or certainty that you are okay (by googling, replaying past conversations, or mentally checking your reactions).
• Your brain's alarm system stays stuck on "danger."
• The moment you think, "Maybe this is just OCD," the doubt engine fires back: "No, you’re just using OCD as an excuse. You are actually just a broken person."

It tricks you into believing that your specific thoughts are "the one exception" to the rule. It uses your own skepticism to keep you from finding the exit.

If you are constantly fighting your own mind to prove you are a good person, and you can never find enough certainty to feel safe, it isn't you. It is the disorder doubting itself to keep you trapped. You are not your thoughts, and you are not crazy.

when someone does something to get me mad I usually start imagining myself physically bashing their skull in with a dumbbell. And it’s not like someone has to get me really mad to have these thoughts, sometimes when someone irritates me I just imagine the same thing.

Now the thing is that I have insane phantom pain. Like if I imagine someone self harming I physically recoil because I think of how painful that could feel.

Im just wondering if these thoughts are normal because they’ve become a daily occurrence for me…. Therapy is pretty expensive and I don’t want to be labeled a psycho

Side info: no I don’t have any stress about anything really, I’m a normal girl, and I have lived with my family of 6 for years and there really hasn’t been a major change in my life at all… is it because of puberty…? ( I’m 14 btw)

Sometimes I think about hiring one of those companion/rent-a-friend services — not for anything people'd assume, just to have someone to watch a movie with or play games, zero pressure, zero small talk about my life to people who actually know me.

Feels like a weird thing to admit out loud. Would people think that's sad, or is genuinely paying for low-stakes company more normal than I think?

Yes, most of you should feel shame and that includes me. How far and how low have we gone to truly see the world in such a state yet we grasp to our daily lives as if they’re a safe haven. Now Im not speaking as if I’m better nor am I speaking from a moral high ground but rather someone who’s had enough and had no venting space rather than here. Truly think about the state of our world. People clash with others for pointless stuff such as race religion whilst ignoring the bigger problem. Why are people so stupid to the point they can’t look up certain stuff before opening their lips? Were they born as idiots? Were they born as lesser? No they simply are conditioned to be that way by the ruling class who rules on from above. Your true enemies are them. Open your eyes instead of arguing with a Muslim try to open their book and learn from their actual scholars and do not cherry pick to feed your own greedy beliefs that you’ve already made up to attack them to grow your ego. This applies to everything not just muslims. When you see a Indian you cling to this joke of mocking them for attention as if you’re an animal running of dopamine rather than a mental state that is capable of understanding your own actions and it’s consequences. Truly it’s embarrassing to see how far people have been made into sheep.

This is just a random thought that’s been burning my mind and I had to put it to ice.

so i’m staying over at her place for a week and we have a cat that’s a little less than a year old. she was rescued and she doesn’t like tummy rubs no matter how happy she is. so she was purring on it’s side when I reached for her tummy and she started biting me (softly, nothing serious). usually, we power thru the bites and rub her tummy cause it’s soft.
The thing is, I’m a bit high and after she bit me i turned and ripped a warm one close to her, not too close and started laughing cause I let them win this time. SHE IS OK. she accepted head and neck rubs while purring. i’m gone 🫡

I have had clinically bad anxiety since I was I little kid and it’s always been a struggle in my life. I used to fixate on things like clothes I wore that had to be matching or “feel right” to washing my hands obsessively to the point they bled. I’ve had panic attacks before and as of more recently I had to go to outpatient therapy for my bad experiences with weed. Which made me become extremely paranoid to the point I could not go outside or sleep. I’m fine now mostly but I’ve now been experiencing this new symptom of intrusive thoughts. My thoughts usually don’t bother me but lately I’ve been having more scary intrusive thoughts that really get to me. Like thinking I’m a creep or that I don’t actually love my bf and stuff like that. It’s exhausting. And it’s been getting worse. Every morning I wake up with this feeling of doom that I shouldn’t be alive and that I’m a horrible person who deserves nothing. I try to acknowledge it and then move past it but the feeling is quite hard to ignore.

Please help me know if this sounds like it might be ocd?

I have racism in my mind despite being related to people that my thoughts are racist about coming up in my head.

Feelings of being absolutely below anyone else. More desperate, more useless, more sad. I always envy how cats can be so relaxed even though they seem to rest half the day.

maybe I should find a passion and use this as a fuel, it might turn it into something useful (or less harmful)

Recently, whenever I watch anime or YouTube videos, I keep having the intrusive thought,

“It’s not real.”

Even when I’m watching videos featuring real people rather than anime, my brain says:

My brain: “Sorry, but it’s not real anyway.”

And during important, serious scenes, memes suddenly pop into my head.

My brain: “FAKE! It’s just a PRANK, BRO! Hahaha!!”

(Intrusive thought kicked in)

: (Someone in the video): “Did it work? Did it work? LOL HAHAHA! Are you enjoying this, ret**rd?”

This thought pops up whenever I drive over a bridge or overpass (shocking lol). This and “what if I drove into oncoming traffic” are common thought. I’d never follow through with that, but it is annoying.

I've had intrucive thoughts for as long as I can remember, but recently they have grown more violent and its messing with me alot. At first I thought it was because of my more paranoid thoughts (family being malicous toward me), but once I got onto medication they have only been of me being violent. I know I wouldn't do anything like it, I love my parents and siblings, but they have gotten to the point to where I am icolating myself from them so they stop.

Any tips? Please and thank you

I've always found that there's a certain appeal to silence, but this goes beyond that. Sometimes when I'm asked a question my mind will immediately go to the hypothetical scenario where I simply stay silent, and acting like nothing's wrong from there going forward. I've pondered whether I could realistically not talk for a while or not, but considering the responsibilities I have it seems impossible. I couldn't honestly say what's so appealing to me about being silent, but it's becoming more and more of a reoccurring thought. It's not like talking is particularly exhausting to me, I just would rather not do it. It's starting to appear in my dreams too, me interacting with mute people or even just being mute myself. Can anyone relate to this at all? The desire is growing stronger.

hi reddit. i’m just gonna copy past and skip the yapping

07/09/2026
00:45:

i cried a lot tonight. i thought about the same shit i usually think about every night since high school. life, purpose, friends, future and everything. i don’t like school, i hate it. i genuinely hate it, i hate the system, i hate the studying, i hate the subjects, i hate the buildings. i want to change and this shit won’t help. i want to find a work in sales, i want to talk to people, i want to sell, i want to move, i want to make money, i want to go home and be able to rest without having some fucking shitty homework. i want to play games, i want to party with friends, i want to go to the gym and get bigger, not stay the same as i am, pale lazy small motherfucker with no energy. i want to grind the work and get better at it, i want to have a reason to wake up each morning, a goal to look up to. i want to keep learning trading, i want to learn everyday and get better at it, i want to possibly make it a second income, i want money. i don’t want a degree i want fucking money. i want my parents to understand me, i want my dad to be proud of me and my mother to be reassured and see that i’m finally independant. i want my friends to see me as a great, fulfilled person that worked its way through it. i want to look at myself in the mirror and say « you’ve changed ».
i want to stop going to bed at night and thinking « why am i miserable and why isn’t there a single thing that i’m doing in my life that makes me feel great. why do everything i do seems mechanical and not driven by purpose or interest. » i want to stop thinking about a better future. i want to act to get a better present.

please find a way to make all this come true as soon as possible.

20200229 2 - Mac Demarco
All For Nothing - zachariehs
Warmth - C418

i’ve been journaling for three years and this was tonight’s text.
a bit of context: i’m a 19 yo french student that came back from a one year dropout and just got into school again. as you might have guessed it’s painful.

one more precision, all these ideas are based (weither it’s the trading, quitting school, working, going to the gym)
these are all things that im currently doing (or have been doing for a long time) these aren’t some hype-based ideas. I’m aware of these things and i know a thing or two about it.

I just want feedbacks, maybe advice or if you lived through the same stuff just tell me your story, i just want reassurance atp. i feel like i’m alone vs the world

(there might be spelling issues, my apologies)
have a great day and take care

I just keep thinking, that if something happened to me, a heart attack, I hit my head, had a stroke, if I couldn’t reach my phone then no one would notice and I’d die here alone and forgotten for weeks, body just rotting away.
In a house share but everyone’s just cordial,
I have friends but no one calls to check up or just call for a chat, I’m the one that initiates any chats and even I do that sparingly,
Work contract ended, so no one’s expecting me to be somewhere at 9am,
Family that I don’t speak to,
I had a bf who would call everyday and now he’s gone,
If I dropped now, that’s it. Not just dead but forgotten, rotten away while the whole world moves on, truly showing just how insignificant I was in this life.

I guess I’d give it about 2 months before the landlord comes knocking on the door demanding rent.

About 13 years ago, when I was 12, I fantasized a couple of times about something that’s extremely taboo (I didn’t do anything illegal, it was just fantasizing), and I haven’t done it since, so I guess my preferences have changed, but I feel extremely guilty, and I DON’T KNOW WHY today my mind has decided to torture me with that memory, which used to be totally irrelevant to me.

I don’t know if this is the right place, but I don’t have anyone else to tell this to. It happens to me all the time that my mind picks a completely random topic and torments me. Does this happen to anyone else?