Intrusive Thoughts Quotes

“Thoughts are only thoughts. They are not you. You do belong to yourself, even when your thoughts don't.”
― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

“I’ve gotta stop thinking I know what other people think, cause most of ‘what other people think’ is something I’m making up. So I should just let them have their experience, I’ll have my experience and not pretend to know, and just get past that. [I think that] is a major obstacle: manifesting that insecurity, that fear. Believing the audience in your head as opposed to what’s really going on in the world—not responding to the one I’m making up, which is always going to judge me harder than the real one.”
― Marc Maron

“What daily life is like for “a multiple”

Imagine that you have periods of “lost time.” You may find writings or drawings which you must have done, but do not remember producing. Perhaps you find child-sized clothing or toys in your home but have no children. You might also hear voices or babies crying in your head.
Imagine that you can never predict when you will be able to have certain knowledge or social skills, and your emotions and your energy level seem to change at the drop of a hat, and for no apparent reason.
You cannot understand why you feel what you feel, and, if you are in therapy, you cannot explore those feelings when asked. Your life feels disjointed and often confusing. It is a frightening experience. It feels out of control, and you probably think you are going crazy. That is what it is like to be multiple, and all of it is experienced by the ANPs.
A multiple may also experience very concrete problems, even life-threatening ones.”
― Alison Miller, Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control

“I can’t think again. Not ever again. I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you do exist. Or something like that. I think wanting that is very morbid, but I want it when I get like this. That’s why I’m trying not to think. I just want it all to stop spinning.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) also has dissociative symptoms as an essential feature. PTSD has been classically seen as a biphasic disorder, with persons alternately experiencing phases of intrusion and numbing... [T]he intrusive phase is associated with recurrent and distressing recollections in thoughts or dreams and reliving the events in flashbacks. The avoidant/numbing phase is associated with efforts to avoid thoughts or feelings associated with the trauma, emotional constriction, and social withdrawal. This biphasic pattern is the result of dissociation; traumatic events are distanced and dissociated from usual conscious awareness in the numbing phase, only to return in the intrusive phase.”
― James A. Chu, Rebuilding Shattered Lives: Treating Complex PTSD and Dissociative Disorders

“I must stop remembering... The more I remember, the greater my agony. These thoughts stuttered in my mind...

I must be more watchful, I told myself. I must shut them out.

I couldn't always keep this up.”
― Sonali Deraniyagala, Wave

“Yes, I am a prisoner of sorts, but my prison isn't the house. It's my own thoughts that lock me up!”
― V.C. Andrews, Pearl in the Mist

“He tried to sleep, but his head was filled with the faces of lunatics, their palsied hands, their shattered eyes.”
― Sebastian Faulks, Human Traces

“An image from one of the photographs comes back to him. He tries to push it away and focus on the present, but he sees the past.”
― Renée Knight, Disclaimer

“Sometimes my thoughts were hard to digest. Sometimes my brain would get stuck on a concept that troubled me and would create endless rabbit holes in my head. It seemed like the more I tried to find an answer, the more complicated it would become. And sometimes unsettling images would randomly flash into my head. I didn’t want to describe what they were. I knew the images weren’t true, but they often made me feel uneasy.”
― J. Aleong, A Most Important Year

“Forget all the weird stuff. Forget all the bad things. Forget it all.”
― James Dashner, The Maze Runner

“my thoughts are spirographs;
think intricate patterns of loops,
think waves that never break.”
― Sabrina Benaim, Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“I really didn’t want to see a horror flick, even a stupid one. I didn’t need any more fodder for my already gory imagination.”
― Shala Nicely, Is Fred in the Refrigerator?: Taming OCD and Reclaiming My Life

“I thought when the abuse stopped I could move on with my life. Instead I am still running from Brian. The only difference is now I am running from him in my dreams.”
― Erin Merryn, Stolen Innocence: Triumphing Over a Childhood Broken by Abuse: A Memoir

“Was it the arc of the universe? The natural result of centuries, millenia of wrong headed politics? Was she trained to find you, or were you trained to be found? Was it the fact that you'd already been tenderized like a pork chop by: never having been properly in love, being told you should be grateful for anything you get as a fat woman, getting weird messages that relationships are about fighting and being at odds with each other? The fact that your heart had been broken that one time and you desperately wanted to feel it unbreak? That you felt complete with someone loving you? That you just straight-up loved being desired, desiring someone, coming all the time? That you got addicted to her smell, her voice, her body? That you figured this was what you deserved?

The super predictable result of a religion that pathologized sex but never talked about relationships? Terrible sex ed? Bad timing?

You feel as if there is a box you can open to find the answer, but with the lid closed, the answer is all of these things, all at once.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“…sometimes my thoughts were hard to digest. Sometimes my brain would get stuck on a concept that troubled me and would create endless rabbit holes in my head. It seemed like the more I tried to find an answer, the more complicated it would become. And sometimes unsettling images would randomly flash into my head. I didn’t want to describe what they were. I knew the images weren’t true, but they often made me feel uneasy.”
― J. Aleong

“These choices are part of the butterfly effect of my life, whether I like it or not. If I make the wrong decision, it will affect the rest of my day. It sounds crazy, but I know from experience the complete and utter devastation caused by one misplaced judgement.”
― Whitney Amazeen, One Carefree Day

“Old scars whisper to me their stories at night”
― C. L. Adams, Barely Awake: A Poetry Collection

“Are you familiar with intrusive thoughts?"
"Oh yes. You don't want to think them but they then they get thought anyway."
"More or less. I don't have intrusive thoughts. I have an occasional intrusive bear.”
― T. Kingfisher, Paladin's Strength

“Don't let the silence eat you alive when your mind tries to tell you your voice isn't worth hearing.”
― Courtney M. Privett, Faelost

“It feels sacrilegious to have his hands upon me, a travesty. I want to cut them off at the wrist, could hang them from the ceiling, an art installation to go among the classic brothel art, dismembered body parts casting shadows on the pastel nudes and yonic oils.”
― Tilly Lawless, Nothing but My Body

“I beg them to leave;
They play a reprieve,
But now i believe, this message it sends:
The serenade never ends.”
― Michelesthird

“Then it occurred to me that I could walk outside and contrive to take a spill, or squeeze out the window on the rear staircase on HmH and fall several meters to the steep embankment below, being sure to land on the bad ankle and hurt it, so I’d not have to play. That I could carefully plan out a fall from the courts’ observation transom or the spectators’ gallery of whatever club C.T. and the Moms sent us to to help raise funds, and fall so carefully badly I’d take out all the ankle’s ligaments and never play again. Never have to, never get to. I could be the faultless victim of a freak accident and be knocked from the game while still on the ascendant. Becoming the object of compassionate sorrow rather than disappointed sorrow.



I couldn’t stay with this fantastic line of thought long enough to parse out whose disappointment I was willing to cripple myself to avoid (or forgo).”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“The thoughts keep coming, but I tell myself they're just thoughts. They're not true. They don't mean anything.”
― Sarah Grunder Ruiz, Last Call at the Local

“It is quite easy to settle with feeling helpless in life, but this doesn’t have to be your reality. Fight those intrusive thoughts and consistently remind yourself that you can make anything happen. You are the Alchemist. Do not forget this.”
― Robin S. Baker

“I have been afflicted too many times by that curiously bleak despair that the small hours of the night can impart not to welcome its more munificent twin with open arms.”
― Dixe Wills, At Night: A Journey Round Britain from Dusk Till Dawn