# Troubling thoughts that get stuck in your head?



## Puzzler (Nov 12, 2008)

Hi everyone,

Lately I've been bothered by something that's just seemed to get permanently stuck in my head. It's so bad that it'll frequent pop up in my head throughout the day while I'm doing whatever, and it causes me quite a lot of anxiety and stress. This isn't the kind of thing that might bother you for a couple days -- I'm talking weeks here. I'll even often wake up and have it be the first thought to enter my head, which is obviously extremely annoying and makes me feel like I can't even get a proper night's sleep.

Anyway, in this particular case the thing that's bothering me isn't related to my social anxiety, but I have had this sort of thing happen to me in the past and a few times it was related to a social incident I just couldn't get out of my head. Back then I thought it was directly connected to my SA but now that I've had the same sort of thing happen with non-social issues, I'm not so sure. I know logically that whenever this has happened to me, the event that "caused" it was nothing traumatic or worth obsessing over, and yet it would end up stuck in my head for weeks at a time before finally going away. It's honestly to the point now where I feel like I'm almost going crazy and just losing control of my mind, being this troubled by something so insignificant for such a long time.

I really have no idea if this is OCD or something else (almost like a kind of response to a "trauma"). From the little I've read of OCD, what are called "intrusive thoughts" are generally violent or immoral thoughts, which this isn't. Has anyone else gone through something like this? I know that people with SA tend to ruminate and obsess over negative social experiences, but it seems to me like there's more to this than just plain SA (and not just because the thing that's currently bothering me isn't social in nature).


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## debiski (Oct 28, 2008)

I have OCD and my obsessive thoughts are not always violent or immoral. I can obsess over just about anything.


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## DeeperUnderstanding (May 19, 2007)

I have reoccuring thoughts about what people think about me. Sometimes even after they react positively, I'll think for a while that they didn't like me. Then later, I'll come around and realize that I was putting words in their mouths.


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## gaz (Jun 27, 2008)

Hi it sounds like ocd, but from what i have read ocd intrusive thoughts are usually things which are shocking o'r immoral. I also get random thoughts stuck in my head for sometimes weeks, for example i might get a word o'r phrase stuck in a loop constantly o'r a song. I find that looking at horrible o'r pornographic material get's stuck in my mind even more so i stopped looking at stuff like that. The worst thing i did was look at gruesome Iraq beheading videos and the imagery stayed in my head for months, in the end i ignored the imagery untill i forgot them alltogether. I find myself getting peoples voices stuck in my head also and keep remembering stuff people have said.


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## pita (Jan 17, 2004)

I had this problem for a while. I don't want to share the troubling thought because a) it's really weird and b) I'll probably just start thinking about it again.

I trained myself to turn off the thought whenever it came. I would force myself to do something else or think about something else. It also helped to tell somebody that I was having the weird thought again and that I needed to be distracted. After a while, I was able to stop having the troubling thought.


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## Lydia (Oct 18, 2008)

I experience troubling thoughts quite often too. Nothing terrible but they haunt me for years. Something that might not matter to anyone else, like me falling off of a chair, will just follow me for years and pop into my head randomly and keep me up at night. I just watch TV or play around on the computer to occupy myself with something else.


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## millenniumman75 (Feb 4, 2005)

Scary thoughts are part of anxiety. We are literally scaring ourselves to replace the fear of having to do something that we need to do - completely different from the thought patterns. These thoughts are nothing more than a distraction.

Having the thoughts is normal......being freaked out by them is even better. If you truly know that you would never do anything you are thinking, then that is worth letting the thought go.


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## Opportunities (Nov 16, 2008)

I tend to obsess about comparing myself to people around me, particularly people I'm attracted to romantically. 

I start overanalyzing how wonderful and "normal" their lives are compared to mine, how they have more friends/fun/etc.

It may sound silly, but for the time being it feels terrible.


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## JohnIZZLE (Nov 17, 2008)

I used to have some awful, vivid thoughts about people I know being ruthlessly murdered. What was worse was they were almost always people that I liked, people that were kind and would never cause harm to others.


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## Snickersnack (Jun 21, 2008)

Opportunities said:


> I tend to obsess about comparing myself to people around me, particularly people I'm attracted to romantically.
> 
> I start overanalyzing how wonderful and "normal" their lives are compared to mine, how they have more friends/fun/etc.
> 
> It may sound silly, but for the time being it feels terrible.


I did this for years, but have gotten a much better handle on it now. I still think that way, but try to pay less attention to it.


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