Intrusive thoughts are unwanted and distressing ideas or images that can appear suddenly and feel impossible to control. With obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), intrusive thoughts can become ...

Many people think they know what Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) looks like. They’re mostly wrong, and often misinformed by cruel jokes or inaccurate portrayals. Most have a very superficial, and ...

'Seeing the irrational and weird things OCD makes other people obsess over helps me to separate my condition from reality' ...

Imagine you’re enjoying a romantic evening; everything feels perfect, and then out of nowhere, your mind throws in a ...

When you think about obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, does being a “neat freak” or “germaphobe” come to mind? In fact, OCD is not a personality quirk. It’s a distressing and disabling ...

One of my most vivid memories of the disturbing intrusive thoughts inflicted by my OCD is an incident in middle school. This is not my worst memory of the disorder, not by a long shot, but it’s ...

Everybody has an occasional upsetting or shameful thought. For some people, the thoughts feel uncontrollable. It doesn't take long for someone to worry they're going "crazy" or wonder if they're just ...

Many of us have wild thoughts that pop into our heads out of nowhere. But what if those thoughts were harmful and seemed to want to destroy good things in your life? And what if they happened all of ...

We have thousands of spontaneous thoughts a day. Most of them are mundane, such as “Where did I leave my car keys?” But every now and then a strange and distressing thought might pop into our mind, ...

Intrusive thoughts are sudden, involuntary thoughts, mental images or urges. They often cover difficult themes such as causing or experiencing harm, contamination, making a mistake, or sexual or ...