hey there everybody and welcome to this
brief presentation on how to stop intrusive thoughts i'm your host dr donnelly snipes
so let's start out by defining what intrusive thoughts are intrusive thoughts think intruder
they are like thoughts that you have that you don't want to have and they can be a variety of
different flavors if you will according to the anxiety and depression association of america
intrusive thoughts are involuntary often have no bearing on reality and are perceived by the
person having those thoughts as unacceptable you have this thought and it's just like oh no
i would never do that but it keeps coming back or you're having this thought that you don't want to
have it's a thought that you want to get rid of intrusive thoughts are often triggered by stress
anxiety insomnia or even hormone fluctuations even in males they are often totally random now it's
important to recognize that intrusive thoughts can be an aspect of anxiety depression postpartum
depression ptsd or obsessive compulsive disorder so if you are having a lot of intrusive thoughts
or if your intrusive thoughts are impairing your quality of life it's important to talk to your
doctor or talk to your therapist who can help you identify strategies in order to be able to better
handle them this presentation is just going to hit the highlights of some techniques that
might be able to be used in the moment in order to help quiet some of those intrusive thoughts
types of intrusive thoughts that people have they can be negative thoughts like i'm an idiot and i
have no business doing this or pretty soon somebody will see that i am a total fraud
or they could be violent thoughts of hurting your child or failing to protect them now it's
important to recognize here a lot of women have intrusive thoughts or unwanted thoughts during the
postpartum period and it does not mean they have postpartum psychosis if they have these thoughts
and they are appalled by them being appalled by them is a good sign it means they recognize this
is not something they want to do postpartum psychosis is when they have these thoughts
and those thoughts make total sense to them and they're not appalled by those thoughts at all
it's important if you're in the postpartum period and you're starting to have intrusive thoughts to
develop a support system and talk to your ob gyn or your pediatrician if if you're having these
thoughts and they are bothersome because there are strategies that can be used to help you deal
with them more than what i'm going to go into here other violent thoughts can be thoughts of
a fire breaking out or a burglar breaking in when you go to sleep some people lay down and they feel
very unsafe or you can have compulsive thoughts like i need to have that last piece of pizza
that chocolate cake is calling my name or i need to have a cigarette or a drink or something else
those are compulsive thoughts or cravings which still fall in that intrusive thought
category because they're thoughts you don't want to have but they're thoughts that seem to
not go away sometimes so how can we handle them well i encourage you to think of intrusive
thoughts like a salesman and we've all had the occasion where we have encountered sales people
that have been very um persistent if you will so think of these intrusive thoughts like a salesman
trying to get you to buy into something that you don't believe and their claims really have
no basis in reality you know you watch these infomercials and they say this pan will never
stick and you get it home and it sticks or this cream will make you look 30 years younger and you
know good and well there's no cream in the world that's going to make you look 30 years younger
so you know their claims have no basis in reality but they're still trying to convince you of that
well do you argue with them do you buy into them or do you say no not worth my energy i'm
gonna move on remember giving them any attention makes them stay around longer if you acknowledge
them if you make eye contact with them then they may have a hook and then they'll start to try to
um connect with you and they'll they'll stay around longer so instead of connecting with them
ignore them and it goes against the very fiber of my being to ignore a
person who's trying to talk to me but i found that for example at the at the mall
when you're walking past kiosks and people are trying to get you to check out their products
if you make eye contact if you acknowledge them at all it's even harder to break away
attention makes them stay around longer same thing for your thoughts so don't overthink don't start
thinking i wonder why i'm having this thought i wonder what this thought means you can go down
this whole rabbit hole of thinking about your thought and that's not going to get you anywhere
and it's going to strengthen the memory pathways to that thought we want to break them down not
strengthen them so instead of overthinking instead of wondering why you're having it or if it has any
basis in reality or any of those questions just distract yourself distract don't react
do something to turn your attention to something else you may do sit-ups you may walk around you
may call a friend there are a variety of things you can do instead of giving that attention
just like a salesman the thoughts may come back just like you did the first
time it's important not to give them extra attention don't talk back distract don't react
the next technique i'm going to talk to you about is unhooking recognize thoughts are
merely words and bits of images they don't have to result in actions thoughts are kind of like
a bad movie these intrusive thoughts you don't have to sit there and keep watching it it's not
forcing you to sit there and keep watching it you can change the channel and with intrusive
thoughts you want to change the channel what else would you rather watch in your mind right now
you can also unhook from your thoughts by saying to yourself
i'm having the thought that instead of saying i am in danger saying i'm having the thought that
i am in danger assuming you're not of course um i'm having the thought that i'm an idiot
i'm having the thought that um i'm gonna make a fool of myself okay you're having this thought
pack it up put it into a thought box pack it up and put it over here on a shelf
if for some reason that i can't foresee but if for some reason you need it it's
over there on the shelf but it's not with you anymore you put it in storage
and that can be helpful in the moment if you continue to have that thought
again you may want to talk to a therapist who can help you figure out ways to deal with it
but a lot of times these random thoughts we just pack them up and put them over on the shelf and
we forget all about them kind of like some of the sweaters that i have in my closet develop a guided
imagery script or think about something else you can't think about two things simultaneously
i cannot think about writing a powerpoint and what i'm gonna make for dinner at the same exact time
so if you're thinking about something else if you turn your attention and sometimes you have
to forcibly turn your attention and say no i'm going to think about my vacation that's coming
up i'm going to think about what i'm going to do tomorrow i'm going to think about something else
but that can help you turn your attention away from the distressful thought
guided imagery can be used if you develop a an image of being safe and feeling empowered
if you have a particular image for um for example that can protect you from
one particular thought that may be something that you call upon when you start having that thought
and it's also important to note successes or what i call proof
negative when after i had my son i had really bad postpartum depression and i had a lot of
intrusive thoughts and it was terrifying to be alone with him um for for quite a while and
i didn't understand what's going what was going on and i didn't understand all this stuff about
intrusive thoughts at that point so i was you know stressed out being alone with him and
i would take it sometimes minute by minute sometimes hour by hour noting hey i went an hour
and everything's fine i went two hours and didn't have this thought when i would start having those
thoughts i had distraction techniques i would call a friend or i would call my husband or
i would put the baby in a stroller and we would go out on a walk i had a variety of different
things that i could do in order to get out of that situation break that thought loop but then
i would start looking back over it and recognize how many days that i had had him in my life
that things had gone just fine you know i'd had those thoughts come and go hadn't acted
on them that was proof negative for me that was proof to me that i could have these thoughts
and i wasn't going to act on them so then i started feeling more empowered in what i was doing
but proof negative can also apply to negative thoughts if you tell yourself that i'm a screw-up
and i shouldn't be doing this because i have no business being here noticing
when you do whatever it is you do you know maybe you're an electrician or a therapist or a resident
and you have a good day you notice that hey i did a good thing noticing um proof to the contrary
of those intrusive thoughts can also be helpful forcing yourself to focus on
all of the things that you do right instead of the one mistake you made
can be helpful at preventing those intrusive thoughts
if the thoughts keep coming back or you can't seem to extinguish them it may be a sign that
you're also dealing with something more than just a random intrusive thought you may be dealing with
as i mentioned before anxiety depression ptsd or obsessive-compulsive disorder any of these
have a lot of treatments that can be very effective so talk with your doctor
or your therapist about the thoughts you're having and about strategies in order to deal with them