Teens with an eating disorder may have intrusive thoughts about food, their body, what they eat, and weight loss or gain. Like OCD, PTSD can significantly interfere with one’s daily functioning, but with therapy and healthy coping tools, it is possible to manage PTSD symptoms, including intrusive thoughts. These thoughts can also cause other PTSD symptoms to arise, such as problems with sleep and hyperarousal. Someone living with PTSD symptoms may experience intrusive and unpleasant thoughts connected to the traumatic event that led to their PTSD diagnosis. They can also dramatically limit their social and academic success. Obsessions can become so overwhelming that they can interfere with your teen’s overall health and well-being. Obsessions involve repeating certain rituals or behaviors over and over to ensure the subject of an unwanted thought does not occur. Unwanted thoughts as a symptom of OCD are known as obsessions. A teen with OCD typically goes to great lengths to stop, avoid or hide their unwanted thoughts. The intrusive thoughts that accompany OCD can lead to serious and sometimes overwhelming distress. What Mental Health Conditions Involve Intrusive Thoughts?Īlthough not all intrusive thoughts are connected to an underlying condition, several mental illnesses include unwanted thoughts as a symptom. Also, if intrusive thoughts lead to anxiety and distress or make your teen feel as though they need to control or hide their thoughts, their thoughts may be more than a passing concern. Intrusive thoughts that last longer than a brief moment or continue to recur may have an underlying cause. So how are parents and guardians to know if their teen’s intrusive thoughts may be related to a medical or mental illness? It is necessary to consider the duration and persistence of the thoughts. In other cases, they are a symptom of an underlying mental health condition such as post-traumatic stress disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder or a medical condition such as a brain injury, dementia, or Parkinson’s disease. In some instances, they are simply random ideas that come and go from the brain, leaving little lasting impression or cause for concern. There are two primary reasons intrusive thoughts occur. Is there something that Causes Intrusive Thoughts? If your teen’s intrusive thoughts involve hurting themselves or someone else, it is a reason to seek help right away. Often, they do not have a particular meaning, but it is still common for the individual to want to keep them a secret or feel shame or guilt about their thoughts. When someone experiences intrusive thoughts, it is natural to worry about what they mean. Some teens may have intrusive thoughts that are not part of any of the above categories. Thoughts about violence, aggression, or causing harm to others.Doubts about completing tasks properly or failing to complete them.Thoughts about infection, germs, or contamination.Acting or saying something wrong in a public setting (public embarrassment).Examples of ideas and images that are often the subject of intrusive thoughts include: Types of intrusive thoughtsĪs mentioned previously, there are many types of intrusive thoughts. Although intrusive thoughts are a part of life for everyone at some point, they generally do not have any meaning and present minimal impact as long as the individual can recognize they are only thoughts and the individual does not have the desire to act on them.īut, if your teen experiences frequent and recurring thoughts that cause notable concern and worry or they interfere with their ability to actively engage in their day-to-day obligations and responsibilities, it may be important to reach out to their primary care provider or a specialist here at Beachside in Los Angeles. They can be aggressive, violent, sexual, or fear-inducing. Intrusive thoughts are wanted ideas and images that are often unpleasant and seem to occur out of nowhere. For some, worrisome and unwanted thoughts occur daily (or several times each day), leading to difficulties with many aspects of their daily lives. For someone who lives with frequent, recurring intrusive thoughts, the ability to push them aside is different. In most cases, when this occurs, we can recognize such thoughts as meaningless, and they disappear as quickly as they appeared, never to reappear. We all have thoughts or ideas that enter our minds that are stressful, distressing, or unpleasant.
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