Avoiding negative and intrusive thoughts in a healthy way

What are intrusive thoughts?

Intrusive thoughts could be considered as a higher extent of overthinking. They are usually negative thoughts that pop up in your mind after an event or randomly when you are being happy. The simpler ones could be compared to the thoughts that go through your mind when you have relationship anxiety. For example “they don’t love me anymore,” “they probably hate me and are just with me because they want something,” etc.

These thoughts happen when you are in a happy moment with your partner or when they change their attitude slightly. Unrelated to relationships could be that you are in your car and a thought or an image of you crashing crosses your mind and then you start overthinking. Some intrusive thoughts can be really violent and can affect your stability even further. These may come with several types of mental illnesses like OCD, PTSD, depression, and anxiety. Although mentally stable people may come across them as well.

When do they tend to come up

As I previously mentioned they can either pop up into your mind or they can happen after an event that you deem negative. It is hard to deal with these thoughts since they normally stay there for a while or become frequent. It gets harder when you indulge in them and start creating stories and overthinking the situation. What you shouldn’t do when you get intrusive thoughts is act on them.

I will give an example in relationships since it is what I experience most often. Let’s say that while you are cuddling with your partner in bed the idea of them with someone else goes into your mind. You could just let it pass but you decide to act on it. Starting to ask your partner questions in a shaky manner and basically proving them that you don’t trust them. You then ask to see their phone and start to get jealous of every person you see. Then you start crying and get mad at him, he gets annoyed because you do this very often and you don’t trust him.

What just happened is that you went down a spiral, you kept adding to the problem because of a thought that passed your mind and you ruined a perfect, happy moment with your partner. As this happens more often, that person might leave because they don’t feel comfortable with you not trusting them. Intrusive thoughts can also come up for an unconscious need for conflict like the previous example. Some people don’t feel comfortable with being happy so they find a way to ruin it.

3 ways to avoid them

1.Distraction therapy-

This consists of distracting yourself at such a higher level that you can’t allow your mind to wander to those intrusive thoughts and feed them. It is easier to distract yourself when there are people around because you have to put attention to what people are saying in order to follow a conversation. When you are alone it is easier to indulge in your thoughts. But be careful because it is not about neglecting your me time because you are trying to escape yourself.

2.Meditation–

Meditation has always helped me shift my mind towards positivity. It can be really hard at first and it will make you tired but it is worth it. You always have to start by acknowledging your thoughts and understanding why are they there, maybe letting them linger for a bit of observation. Be grateful for your mind’s process and way of understanding. After that, it is important to let those thoughts vanish as they come by to stay in a state of calm. The intrusive thoughts will come back but you will know how to get rid of them in this state of meditation. With practice, you will be able to do this even when you have not paused to meditate.

3.Confrontation-

When I say confront your intrusive thoughts I mean kind of fight them and analyze them. One way of doing this that I love is talking to yourself. You can ask yourself why did this thought decide to come into your mind, you pretty much become your own therapist. What is my subconscious sending me these negative thoughts? Is there trauma relating to the issue?

Another way of confronting them is by writing them down and maybe not at the moment, but later writing how you felt when the thought came and when it left. The second part is also important because some people tend to feel comfortable in their intrusive thoughts for their need for conflict. Explaining how you feel to someone and pulling apart the thoughts helps as well to understand yourself.

Although intrusive thoughts are not something that you can control, you can practice how to deal with them and how to make them disappear. Learning how to do this will ultimately help you to not put attention to them and reduce their appearance. Always remember that turning them into a positive thought will have the greatest outcome since you turn something you hate into something positive. This will also have an effect on your attitude in a positive way as the intrusive thoughts have a negative impact on it.