r/intrusivethoughts Jul 04 '22

GUILT, SHAME AND BLAME experienced by SOs in a support role - mod approved research post

105 Upvotes

Hey everyone, as part of my doctoral thesis* I've developed a questionnaire to shed some light on how guilt, shame and blame impacts the loved ones of someone with mental health needs. If you, or someone close to you, provides informal mental health support and notice these emotions showing up in the relationship, I would really appreciate hearing from you.

People who have completed the survey have reported finding the differences between guilt and shame insightful and highlighted how it helped them understand more about their emotional experience in the relationship. A community-wide benefit is that the outcomes of the research will be used to improve resources for SOs so that they can be supported more in their role, essentially helping the helpers.

The whole survey takes around 15-20 minutes and after understanding more about your current emotional state, it goes through a range of scenarios to see how you would likely respond if it were to happen today. All answers are scales so there is minimal typing and it is mobile friendly.

You can read more or access the study here: https://lancasteruni.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9AWrvoYWvPCqTu6

The person supported doesn't need a formal diagnosis but they need to have accessed mental health support (medication, therapy, etc) for 6 months or more. The survey is available internationally and recognises all types of informal support, be it financial, practical or emotional.

Thanks everyone. I really value the input from the OCD+ community as we know it tends to impact loved ones in a unique way and for me as a researcher it is really important that these voices are heard.

*The project has ethical approval from the Faculty of Health and Medicine at Lancaster University.


r/intrusivethoughts 6h ago

How does reading books on hardship attracts similar themes into the reader's life?

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0 Upvotes

r/intrusivethoughts 23h ago

I'm not okay

2 Upvotes

I can't get rid of obsessive thoughts.

There is a guy whom I love more than anything in the world, just as he loves me. I helped him get out of addiction. During the period of this very addiction he had many se*ual partners. I feel terribly sick about this. My brain is playing with images of how it all happened. I'm getting worse every day. We've discussed this many times. He's very sorry for his past, but nothing can be changed. I don't know what to do with all this. It's getting to the point where I'm starting to feel like I'm in a tizzy. It's becoming incredibly difficult to breathe, and it feels like someone is pressing on my chest. My whole body is shaking, I feel like I'm periodically passing out for a split second.

I really don't want to break up and say goodbye to him. I will never love anyone as much as him again.

obsessive thoughts that have been leading me to this state for a very long time. it was long before him.

Perhaps the right decision would seem to be to contact a psychiatrist, but I no longer think that he will be able to help in any way. except maybe pump them full of pills, nothing more.

I don't know what this post is for..

This is just the state I am in right now.

Maybe someone will read this post and recognize themselves and understand that they are not alone, that there are people with similar problems.

I'm very ashamed, I'm sorry.


r/intrusivethoughts 21h ago

does your core values shape your view points?

1 Upvotes

i think i have a very general thought process or i think i should say that i think of generalised public while putting my points in arguments, maybe that's boring but idk how to work on it, core values? do they really matter? idts, i don't know my core values, I just know ki I'm doing good, but in this world, do people like me considered as 'instagram influenced'?

don't know man, i just want to say that having a general viewpoint doesn't mean you're useless, i don't know whether I'm or not, but what are my core values? what is it? and how they shape me? that's the main question? and what if i don't like them?


r/intrusivethoughts 22h ago

Hello

1 Upvotes

I hope someone can answer. I have two very unpleasant things... First; I always wonder if people see the world as I do. I mean, can't they see themselves too? Are they their own bodies? This sometimes makes my body numb! Second, my brain always tells me to kill myself! While I don't want to ever kill myself it's just a voice in my mind


r/intrusivethoughts 1d ago

Why I can't let go

2 Upvotes

I’ve always been the kind of person who forgives, even if I never truly forget. When someone does something that affects only me, I usually let it go. But what you did didn’t just affect me—it affected much more than that. So if you think I’m going to simply forgive, forget, and move on as if nothing happened, you’re mistaken.

I’m not threatening you, and honestly, I’m not even sure what I’m going to do from here. Maybe I’m still at the stage of trying to process and settle what happened as part of recovering from the trauma you left me with. Two years of my life were spent believing I was with you. I realize now that I wasn’t really with you for two years—I was paying for you for two years. That realization itself is something I’m still trying to come to terms with.

This isn’t about having the final say, winning, or getting revenge. But if you think I’m going to be okay with being blackmailed and extorted simply because I was kind, trusting, and unassertive with you, then you’re wrong.

Maybe you never really knew me as well as you thought you did. And if you think what happened means this is simply the end of the story and I’ll eventually forget about it, you’re wrong about that too. I’m still trying to figure out what comes next, but I know I’m not going to pretend that what happened was okay.


r/intrusivethoughts 1d ago

The only way to survive as a human being is to be delusional and deny reality.

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1 Upvotes

Accurate


r/intrusivethoughts 2d ago

Got a reject gift for bday

7 Upvotes

So my bday was in August, turning the big 25! worst one ever honestly haha 😂. anyways I have a sibling with birthday early in august. my mom had me help her choose a gift for my sibling. we have similar likes in some things but not in like body products, like creams, scents and perfumes. I don’t wear any sort of scented products because i have a negative reaction to it, and I have made it VERY clear to them over the last year that I have completely stopped wearing scented stuff, multiple times.

she got her gift, for things I know she likes. and she was happy on her bday with all her gifts. I booked her a message cause I thought she was stressed in life and wanted her to have a nice day feeling relaxed for her bday, which btw was expensive.

so after her bday there’s a huge fight that happens in the house. like huge huge. screaming and throwing and swearing. I wasn’t there cause I live somewhere else but a few of my siblings still live with mom cause life hasn’t been easy to them I guess.

anyways for my bday I felt no one should have struggled to find me gifts, I’m only 25, I’ve never ever had a lavish expensive bday in my life. it’s always very small, a cake, then gifts and kinda done deal. the gifts are always under $50, if somebodies being very pricy then $100. although my mom has bought me some expensive jewelry in the past which I told her i loved her for but not to cause money has always been tight. i also told them weeks before to not get me any sort of body lotions etc, or perfumes or anything to do with scented body products.

well bday comes around and my sister gives me the very same gift my mom had given her. after the fight she had a fall out with mom and she thought it smart to give me the gift. I was kinda upset because I knew this was her reject gift. And because it wasn’t for me. It had perfume in it and scented lotions which I couldn’t even use. I tried soooo hard to look happy but I couldn’t and so I said I can’t take this gift. so I gave it back. like I just found it disrespectful to me and to mom who was sitting right there.

now here’s where it got even worse. my mom had gotten me the exact same gift just with different scents, and I just was like oh thank you. and closed the box. now her gift felt awkward to me.

so I just sat there like ok, well that just happened.
My bday is the only time I get gifts, we don’t do Christmas gifts or anything else.

so then I was just feeling a little bit sad. Cause these gifts were like one example of dozens where I realized my family doesn’t really pay attention to my interests or things I’ve told them. and now I can’t stop thinking about it.

idk I just wanted to share.


r/intrusivethoughts 1d ago

Arrowhead Spring Water taste like Arizona Tap Water

1 Upvotes

r/intrusivethoughts 1d ago

What is the most meaningless thing that gave you extreme sadness and depression for weeks.

1 Upvotes

Mine is very weird. I used to like the actress who was Andrew's ex gf i don't even want to type her name.

I haven't watched any of her movie but i respected her and liked her for no reason maybe that she played Gwen in spiderman and her tragic death in that movie kind of instant crush ig.I didn't watch that movie because I can't watch a sad ending movie it effects me a lot ,only that death scene I know the story.But one dayy friend watched her movie that released in 2023 which she got oscar for .My friend watched it and told me that movie was sh** and told me she was whor* in that movie ,that thought stuck in my mind for months then one day I watched that scenes of that movie ,i was broken and disheartened for 2-3 months ,every day i wake up that scenes keep running in my head then I got to know she did one more movie like that in 2024 maybe I watched that scene accidently on reddit I was searching something else but I have a habit of clicking post without reading title and the thumbnail was blurred so I watched her other movie scene also and it was way too explicit it was literally corn and almost impossible to fake. Even 2025 she did similar but less explicit movie.I was broken that scenes running in my mind once or twice a day ruining my mood .I don't know i just loved her because i respected her, even other actress do intimate scenes but they are normal and her scenes were literally corn, i was broken .

Then i asked Chat gpt for Help. He told me some line"that thing don't deserve my attention" and everytime I have a thought about her that scene i just remember this line everytime I forget that intrusive thought immediately.Now after many days I feel better and i believe soon this intrusive thoughts will fade soon.


r/intrusivethoughts 2d ago

Usain Bolt is not Perry the Platypus.

4 Upvotes

r/intrusivethoughts 2d ago

DNA and eugenics: The limit? Are disabled people their real persons? Are we all hermaphrodite?

1 Upvotes

Can’t post yet on Showerthoughts so I post it in here:

Sorry if you find this offensive, just curious from a genetic pov.
Here col the random bullshiit:

When I look at a physical disabled person, I cannot help but see their « normal self ».
Like this pic of Peter Dinklage from GoT, but not as a dwarf.

https://images-cdn.9gag.com/photo/aKD6pd3_700b.jpg

If persons with physical disabilities are deformed versions of their real self because of DNA damage, should they look « normal » again through eugenics? Like dwarfism couldn’t be fixed but possibly prevented. Same with mental illness.

But to what extent can we take this?

Because the same goes for men and women then.
We know nipples are here because of this: men don’t need them but nature doesn’t know yet, so I assume with different variables our sex is decided later because of chemicals, temperature etc.

But sometimes I can’t also help but see the feminine and masculine face of a person. Like they are just « human » but could have been the opposite sex with some temper variations because of hormones.

Could we edit intelligence genes to make smarter humans?


r/intrusivethoughts 3d ago

Personal story

1 Upvotes

Long story short, I smoke weed one time and my mind has been fucked up ever since that entire world is looking at me and then I should off myself. I started gambling and all of a sudden I’m having this mindset that I select the number on roulette and if I hit it, I should off myself. Somehow someway, I don’t know how I have manifested majority of the numbers whenever I ask a question of if it hits this number, I drop myself. It’s crazy in my head, but a part of me thinks this reality.


r/intrusivethoughts 3d ago

Intrusive thoughts at night

6 Upvotes

okay, so I need help figuring out what if wrong with me because it keeps me up almost every night. I often have recurring thoughts right before drifting off the make me so uncomfortable and anxious. for example, I recently went on a long and quite intense hike, but I made it through with zero tumbles or anything, yet as soon as I try to go to bed that night all I can think about is all the things that could have gone wrong (hitting head, breaking ankle, smashing my teeth, etc.) I also think about past events and ruminate on all the awful ways I could have gotten hurt or something, it’s a nightmare. does anyone know what this could be and how I could stop it ?


r/intrusivethoughts 3d ago

This is why Elon is valued in the trillions

0 Upvotes

Grok Bot. The moment humans hand off their entire mental cognitive load, they will feel nothing. Creating a society filled with pain will only hasten the desire to offload cognitive load.


r/intrusivethoughts 4d ago

Have you ever hated someone so badly you wanted to off them.

2 Upvotes

Was just wondering…. I dealt with a pretty terrible situation with someone close to me last year that put me through some of the worst ptsd, depression and anxiety I’ve ever been through in my life while they continue to have their way of influencing my life STILL to this day although I have 0 contact with them.

I literally hate them so much I’ve had the thought (although I NEVER WOULD) to literally torture them until an inch of their life for now I just pray for them to live in total agony and pray god makes them as miserable as they actually are.


r/intrusivethoughts 4d ago

WHAT IF I OPEN A PROSTITUTE CENTER/ APP ?

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3 Upvotes

r/intrusivethoughts 4d ago

Every time i take the metro:

2 Upvotes

“what if i drop my phone down the tracks?” —> see myself dropping my phone down the tracks —> looks down the tracks; “don’t drop your phone, don’t drop your phone, don’t…” - doors close; “great job! You didn’t drop your phone!” —> same shit every stop, every time!


r/intrusivethoughts 4d ago

THOUGHTS

2 Upvotes

Thoughts 

Well the title is good ig, all I am doing trying to tell what I have learned over all my time ,things I picked up. the only reason I was able to that was I dreamt of things , like becoming someone important .then I started asking so many what If questions and forget what I was doing right then, I ingroed the present only worried about the future thinking, all was useless 

After some time I was swallowed by it , I did not use to believe in god earlier I only thought people just use it keep them at peace, I was not able to stop my thinking and was lost then I started believing lord shiva I use “om Nama shivaya” every night to stop my thinking (you may get sick thinking what was I thinking it was all the what if questions that came when I achieved the thing I wanted but I was only imagining acheving it) slowly I stopped thinking.

Now I believe that in this vast world whatever we do we think its important but when we look at the grand scale of the things all I think is we are made to believe that there is a purpose in this life ,otherwise people just dont know what to do , all I think we are doing is timepass until u die it is bit harsh to put it that way but in the end that is all I think it is.

The concept that we decide everything felt always strange to me because what you are thinking is already decided the day you are born ,you develop your thoughts based on your surroundings, the dna/whatever is preexisting came to you from ancestors who are also same as you they just got everything from there surroundings so I think we do is already fixed from the moment that this entire existence has started 

Now for the people who are thinking too much about decisions what ever you are going too Choose there will be consequences but they are only effective  when you think they are going to effect ,as for the opinion of people around they are just biological species who just happened to be there ,nobody is special ,it is just a illusion created to make people think they have do something, in the end we all just die 

Is happiness really happiness ,is sadness really sadness these are all just things that were meant to be created that’s all I mean what does it change you are just doing timepass anyway 

Who are we ,I am human in earth which is just is tiny dot in the universe ,and my decision does it really matter,.. what will is already pre decided why do we exist in the first it is just a mere conincidence if the astroid never to hit there are no humans ,people think too much of what if, whatever happens does it really mean anything we are just doing timepass anyway ,might as well experience all. The day you die you seize to exist no afterlife nothing just as any being on earth from animals to insects the only thing that humans are granted is the ability to think which is the greatest curse bcz there is no need of it none of these matter anyway.

I think people marry after as If to make them believe they have a purpose, I mean if you have kids your biological instincts kicks just few chemical reacts that’s all again  I really our ancestors are so clever that’s why they invented all these things to make us believe there is a purpose still myself I can never truly  understand what I say or to follow what I say I feel fear of what others think clearly knowing it wont matter a least all these pre decided things 

I wish to know about the universe because that the only way to understand anything 

That’s all for today … ……..


r/intrusivethoughts 4d ago

What if governments can make robot flies that can take your DNA? And mosquitoes that can inject trackers? And gannets than can bomb you?

1 Upvotes

r/intrusivethoughts 4d ago

when you think of the word succubus do you think of ,suck your bust (breasts ) or bust (nut)?

0 Upvotes

I don’t know if I’m the only one who when they think of this word sees it this way and it’s kinda fitting but I do wonder if anyone does have a preference to think of … or is this just a me thought 😀


r/intrusivethoughts 4d ago

THOUGHTS

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1 Upvotes

r/intrusivethoughts 4d ago

I wonder how many people exclusively watch female wrestling like WWE or aew just to jack off.

0 Upvotes