hmm rock

Intrusive thoughts are terrifying. It's a testament to our collective willpower that we haven't horrifically murdered each other.

Also, I'm really glad the phrase "intrusive thoughts" came along. It made the whole thing a lot easier to talk about.

Collective willpower? Or centuries worth of social contract? Humans are kind of just animals who can predict the future by writing down the past.
- I've had some pretty nasty intrusive thoughts. I'd like to believe it's more than just social conditioning that kept them under wraps. But maybe.
- There was the concept of "devil told me to do it"
I would like to believe that despite it is hard for most people not to have intrusive thoughts, it is much easier not to act on them.
I just learned their name thanks to your comment.
I'm sorry if this sounds callous but I utterly disregard your notion with predjudice.
They aren't intrusive thoughts, they're just your thoughts, stop being afraid of thinking.
Now if you lack impulse control, then we have a problem.
Edit: We need a new term for the phobia of imagination and thought. I suggest Thinkophobia.
- Not all thoughts are consciously summoned, wanted, or pleasant. The term intrusive thoughts is a good way to describe those thoughts we find unpleasant. Yes, they are natural and normal, and often how we grapple with and process experiences, but that doesn't make them unobtrusive.
  Additionally, many people have intrusive recollections of upsetting events from the past. Intrusive thoughts is a good descriptor that helps avoid over using terms like flashbacks or PTSD.
  Clarifying such things as intrusive helps destigmatize these thoughts for people who have them and feel the weight of social expectations, like new parents as in the comic. Feeling guilty about having these thoughts isn't healthy, and properly describing them as unwanted helps people process them. I don't see what is particularly objectionable or hard to understand about the term and why being more specific in the description of one thoughts is off-putting to you.
- I think a good term for what you defined in your edit might be "intrusive thoughts"
- They are intrusive thoughts, because that's the phrase that was coined to describe these types of thoughts. Sometimes we come up with specific phrases in order to describe more specific concepts.
- There absolutely are intrusive thoughts. Two examples:
  Once in a long while, I'll be talking to a black person and I'll think of the N-word. It will just pop into my head for a split second and I'll think "oh my god, no!" and it will be gone. I've never said that word out loud, I've never thought of anyone black that way, and I certainly don't want to think of anyone that way. It's not a thought I meant to have or even a thought that would ever represent how I felt. It isn't even a thought that is pointed with malice at the person I was talking to. It's literally just "N-word" and it's gone. It's purely unconscious and intrusive racism that I think is just part of being white.
  Every so often, I'll be talking to a couple I know and imagine them fucking. Just for a split second again. I don't want to imagine them fucking. It's not titillating to me. I don't get a rise out of it. I don't fantasize about it later. But just for a moment, I imagine what it would be like if my perceptive versions of them fucked. We won't even be talking about anything remotely sexual. But sex is part of the human condition and sometimes we have unconscious, intrusive thoughts about sex.
  I don't think either of these will lead me to murder. In fact, in general, I don't have violent thoughts, not even intrusive ones. But it could lead me to other atrocious behavior if I dwell on those thoughts and if I let them become more than momentarily intrusive. It's not being afraid of thinking them, it's not wanting to think of them and doing my best to will any such thoughts that stray out of my head as quickly as I can. Because those thoughts are not thoughts I want to have about people. I don't care if I don't act on them either. I don't want to think that about any black people I ever encounter in my life. I don't want to think that about any couples who I know. But sometimes those thoughts just pop into my head and I can't help it. But I can help moving past them as fast as I possibly can so they don't end up accumulating and turning me into a person I don't want to be.
- Intrusive thoughts are a big part of OCD.
  And they are unwanted thoughts that a person doesn’t want to have. That’s why doctors call them “intrusive thoughts.”
- Intrusive thoughts are a big part of OCD. And they call them “intrusive thoughts.”
  Maybe it’s OCD?
- Maybe stop trying to analyse these things or put Buddhism into a box too yeah?

our brains run simulations of awful situations all the time as a diagnostic self-test system. The fact that we recoil in revulsion from destructive intrusive thoughts is a sign that we are still at least nominally sane. Those who yearn for peace prepare for war. Likewise, those who care for their loved ones prepare to face terrible events that might befall them.

"why yes indeed brain, it would fucking suck if i jumped off this cliff, thank you for verifying that even if i had no plans of doing so anyways.."
- I'm the guy who thinks it would be great... for 3 seconds anyway.
- That's why I hate Ferris wheels. Every time.

Wat da fuk

These urges are what the Chao garden in sonic adventure was made for.

Damn chao garden… now that’s some good nostalgia

The call of the void. I think?

Seems similar enough. I thought it was more for random suicidal thoughts than ending someone else.
- It gets used for all of that but I think it's also more literally the feeling you get standing near a tall edge and picturing what it'd be like to jump. Translated from the French "l'appel du vide" I believe. I have it very strong, all the forms..

I have these kinds of thought all the time lol

- Here, have some of mine!
We all do, intrusive thoughts and "call of the void" are basically your brain doing hypothetical situations to get better at prediction and other brain things (or at least that was the hypothesis last time I read about it)

Borderline c/LemmyBeWholesome

Is so wholsum

Shin Sekai Yori is an light novel / anime about what happens when these thoughts have power and how a society might develop to control the destructive consequences of said thoughts.

Big Saturn energy

Just whisper even worse things back. Karma bitch
THE VOICSS THEY WONT SROP
- CRAZY WHATS CRAZY... THEY... THEY STUCK ME IN A RUBBER ROOM A RUBBER ROOM WITH RATS AND THE... THE... THE RATS MADE CRAZY
Or in the case of Disturbed, make it into a music video to try and help others.

Someone learned about intrusive thoughts.

Intrusive thoughts like that must be human nature. I doubt there is a single person who has never had a single thought about something like that.

YEET

Am I the only one who doesn't do this?

Are you trying to say you’ve not experienced intrusive thoughts?
- for me at least intrusive thoughts are basically equivalent to someone just saying it to me, and my response is simply "well, why would i do that? stop being dumb"
Yes, you're the only one in the world. The chose one. The boy who survived.
You opted to throw the baby against the wall?
- Who doesn't do this every once in a while. Just a bit of tomfoolery
One of the very few at least. Around 90% of people have these kind of thoughts from time to time.

Lol my mom and I have OCD. She's got a bit of this type, fortunately mine is a bit more of the I really really love filing and collecting things (data hoarding) borderline autistic type.

Unless you are in psychosis and then the intrusive thoughts win 😭

I have this all the time with my daughter and it scares me.

OP is like James Joyce if James Joyce grew up with rotten.com

when crazy stuff happens and people ask me "can you believe a person would do such a thing?", i'm like "actually yes, very much so"

Next pane: splat

I heard the yeet in my head

It's not exactly "thinking about hurting my children" and more having depersonalised thoughts of someone who looks like me and has ny life, but isn't me, hurting my children.
I'm happy to hear you never personally experienced that symptom, that makes you lucky. It is a very common symptom of postpartum depression, and anxiety.
They are terrifying thoughts. No one who experiences true intrusive thoughts is even entertaining the idea of acting on them, removing someone from society is overkill in most cases. There is cause for concern when there are pre-existing mental health conditions that tap into impulsivity, hallucination, and derealisation, but that's why you need to act on a case by case basis.
I agree that people who are experiencing intrusive thoughts of harming others need professional pshycological support - but not because they are a danger to society, that's not the nature of the disease. Intrusive thoughts are a source of anxiety and trauma in and of themselves, and left untreated can trigger OCD symptoms in people who didn't previously have OCD.
Trust me these thoughts can come easily when you do work with meat. Just having to gut a rabbit once in my life, causes me to this day intrusive thoughts that I find incredibly uncomfortable whenever I'm handling any living being. My brain suddenly going "By the way, this is how it would feel to cut through that animals skin".
A person can experience many things that can cause these intrusive thoughts from past experiences. In my case it was cutting meat. Videogames also massively further provide fuel for uncomfortable pieces of imagination. Notable is that people do not have the urge to act upon it, rather so it's literally just the brain forcing you to imagine it as a possibility.
Your narrow anecdotal evidence does not match with everyone.

Thinking of kids as extensions of yourself is narcissistic as fuck.

You're not wrong. But I think that statement is supposed to illustrate the parent's attachment to their child despite the horror show going on in their head.
It depends on how you think about it. I think of it as giving my kids a piece of myself in my love and effort to care for them. They are their own people, but they carry a part of me, just as I carry a part of my parents and those who helped shape me into the person I am.
Genetics hated that.
I don't think the last part really relates to the familicide but perhaps it could I dunno
Okay...?

Don't be sorry for these intrusive thoughts. It's from our ancestors, when they could only survive through killing their offspring. It's an old part of your brain that plays devil's advocate. Use it, redirect it, of course, be aware, especially when you're a sleepwalker.