#ALSO DISCLAIMER I DON'T HAVE SUPER VISIBLE OUTWARD COMPULSIONS that is a different conversation altogether

[eternalgirlscout]

i agree that there should be pushback against using "intrusive thought" to describe any kind of impulsive urge. thinking "lol should i cut my hair at 2 a.m." is not in itself an intrusive thought. at the same time, how people describe actual intrusive thoughts in these online conversations is frequently way too reductive and i think might loop back around to unhelpful when it comes to the actual stigma around OCD.

i've seen more than one person say stuff along the lines of "that's not an intrusive thought because REAL intrusive thoughts are VIOLENT" and "if i let my intrusive thoughts win i'd be in prison." this is true to many people's experiences. it's also not true to everyone's. "maybe i should cut my hair" isn't an intrusive thought, but "i can't stop imagining that i might have lice. for days and days on end i have thought about having lice. even though i have spent hours in the bathroom combing through my hair and have not seen any lice, they might still be there, so i'll check again and again. i'm repeatedly lying awake all night feeling nauseated because the lice are getting on my pillow, and now it's 2 a.m. and oh, maybe if i shave my head it will be easier to see the lice (which were never actually there)" very well could be.

my brain likes to play me a slideshow of images of my own bloody corpse after a grisly car accident that are so vivid they actively distract me from driving. for me, this doesn't come with the pretense of an urge (there's no sense of a metaphorical or literal voice saying crash your car, just one saying this is going to be you, and by the way everyone will like you so much better when you're a martyr for the anti-automotive industry cause, because the other thing about some intrusive thoughts is that they're absolute nonsense); the actual behavior, the thought, is already happening. the harm of an intrusive thought is always against the person experiencing it. so in that sense intrusive thoughts are universally violent, but not always in a way that would be legible as violence if you just described them to another person, and they are not a thing you secretly want to do but are barely holding yourself back from. they are an intrusion. intrusive thoughts are intrusive because they impact the quality of life of the person who has them; the specific themes around which those thoughts center are only the mechanism by which that happens.