Danielle Jhiani, an anxiety and OCD recovery coach, explains that intrusive thoughts are unwanted and distressing, unlike ordinary worry. The real problem isn't the thought itself but how you respond to it. She describes recovery through accepting uncertainty and exposure therapy, and shares that she's had no intrusive thoughts for years.
Welcome back. My name is Danielle Gianni. I'm an anxiety and OCD recovery coach, helping people reach the lifetime recovery stage for any anxiety or OCD subset, just like I have, so you can have a happy life and amazing relationships. Today, I want to answer the question, are intrusive thoughts normal? Remember, normal doesn't mean good, and not normal doesn't mean bad. Intrusive thoughts are thoughts that cause extreme, extreme discomfort. They're unwanted, and they typically cause what we call a spike in your anxiety. Maybe you feel it in your body, maybe it's just mental discomfort, but they tend to be uncomfortable. These are very common with anxiety, ocd, and other mental health disorders. Now, those without anxiety or OCD don't actually get intrusive thoughts, but they get the same types of thoughts. So a thought like, what if there's something wrong? Or what if something bad happens? They get those thoughts just like somebody with anxiety and ocd. But those thoughts don't cause anxiety. They don't get a lot of discomfort. They're not upset by that thought coming. They just respond essentially with exposure and response prevention naturally, which you do in some areas too, with, yeah, maybe it will, but I can handle that. So they get the same thoughts, they're just not intrusive. For somebody who doesn't have anxiety or OCD because they've learned or they know how to accept uncertainty or imperfection, or they feel confident in being able to deal with the challenges of life while somebody with anxiety or ocd, they give their thoughts too much meaning. They think that a thought means that something bad is going to happen, and this erodes their confidence in themselves because they start to experience more anxiety when they give these thoughts and feelings attention, which increases the severity of the feelings. And the cycle continues with more attention on the thoughts, more uncomfortable feelings, and less confidence in oneself to be able to deal with uncertainty, discomfort thoughts, and then life situations, it gets worse and worse over time. So the problem isn't the thought. The thought is just a thought. The problem is your response. And if you're questioning this and saying, well, yeah, that sounds really easy, trust me, I know what you're going through. I used to be there and struggle with very bad anxiety and ocd. And I've learned how to respond differently so that the thoughts aren't intrusive, I don't get as many of them. I haven't had an intrusive thought for years now. I still may get uncertain thoughts from time to time, but I respond to them with exposure and then response prevention. I'M not doing compulsions in response to them. I'm accepting uncertainty, I'm leaning into uncertainty. I'm moving towards discomfort regularly. So if I get an uncertain thought, I'm responding really quickly with exposure and it doesn't stick. In fact, there's no spike of anxiety anymore. Now, some thoughts are always going to have the tiniest bit of discomfort with them because there are certain things in life that are never going to be comfortable or easy. But when we're okay with that and we have the confidence that we can handle it, they're not intrusive anymore. Just understand that the thoughts that you're getting, especially at the beginning when you start struggling with anxiety and ocd, very normal. They're not necessarily intrusive for other people, but the way that you respond is really, really important. If you want help learning how to respond to these thoughts so that you can eliminate anxiety and OCD as part of your life, check out the link in the description below. We have very cost effective programs, coaching courses. There's options for everybody. No matter where you are in the world, no matter what your financial situation looks like, we want you to be able to get help and recover from anxiety and ocd. We'll talk to you really soon.
