Does anyone else experience intrusive thoughts like this?

Hi.

Not really sure how else to word this, but I get basically pop up intrusive thoughts of people in my life and then the immediate response that they would prefer if I was dead...so essentially I'll be doing something and sudden thought pops up that "x would be happier if you were dead" or "y would be so relieved if you were just gone" and I don't know what to do. I can't just "maybe yes maybe no" my way out of those. I'm not supposed to ask for reassurance that the opposite is true. I try not to engage with the thoughts but the problem is that it feels like I genuinely BELIEVE it to be true. Right now I cannot stop thinking that both my soon to be ex wife and my prior friends are all hoping I'll end my life.

It happens to me too.

I don't know how to deal with it. I think it is very hard to know when people like you or not. Some people spend their whole lifes seeking validation just because they don't feel loved.

The brain is working 24/7 even when we sleep. It's my understanding that it's even technically working when we're dead. But I'm not a scientist. Anyways what I'm saying is that the mind is always thinking. So when we have intrusive thoughts, we can't simply right-click on these thoughts and click delete. Although that would be pretty cool. I believe the only option is to change our relationship and associations to these thoughts.

I used to have this gf named Jenny. She wasn't exactly a positive force in my life. For a long time I would feel triggered if I heard that name or that name just simply entered my head. There was a good while there where I refused to watch Forrest Gump because I knew the Jenny character wasn't going to help. In the past decade I learned to associate that name with Jennie from BlackPink. So now I get a little excited when I hear that name or it just enters my head.

If I were in your situation I would probably keep reminding myself that these are not good people and I shouldn't care what they think. And maybe associating their names with something else might be good. And we need to remember that these thoughts are in no way a reflection of ourselves. Because somebody wants you dead doesn't mean you should be dead.

Those are my thoughts. I hope you find a solution that works for you. And I hope you get to feeling better.

Thank you- the real problem is that I am the one telling myself that they want me dead, not that any of them have ever said something to that degree. But I fully BELIEVE it to be true. It is really destroying me that my wife and friends don't want to hear from me at all, so they are completely unaware of how dangerous and disordered my thinking has been since March. I was in psychosis, and I hid it quite well- too well, to the point I'm not sure I'll be believed...but them not knowing, or caring to know the reasons 'why' I betrayed my spouse, that hurts and is causing me to believe they wish I had succeeded at my most recent attempt.

Nobody would be happier if you were dead. I mean, first of all, it's quite likely that, even if they are angry at you and disappointed in you, they almost certainly do not think you have done anything that deserves the death penalty. Secondly, nobody wants that kind of guilt on their conscience.

In the society my father came from, the rate of suicide is quite high. His own father attempted suicide, but was rescued (by my dad) and went on to live a long life. His second step-father succeeded in killing himself (his first step-father left one day and never came back). I once asked my mother, who comes from a different culture, why the suicide rate was so high in my dad's culture. She didn't even stop to think. She said, "Spite." She meant that in my dad's culture people kill themselves as a way of hurting others, by making them live with that burden. She said it's their way of saying, "See what you made me do?"

Now, I think almost everybody here probably has better insight into suicidal ideation than my mother. I don't necessarily think she was right. But I do think it's true that, far from coming as the relief we often imagine ("they'll all be better off without me"; "they'll be glad when I'm gone") suicide imposes an often intolerable psychological burden on the ones left behind, and excludes forever any possibility of closure. And so that is why i am pretty sure your ex and your angry friends would not find it easier if you were dead.

As for intrusive thoughts, I have all kinds of bizarre intrusive thoughts. Probably the worst one is when I see something really disgusting on the sidewalk - like a squashed snail, say - my brain says, "You should eat that." (Obviously, I don't eat it.) And that is something I have never told anybody before.

I'm sorry that you're having those horrible thoughts. I have never experienced it, but I can kind of relate to it a bit because I tend to overthink a lot like for example I feel like people hate me and turns out they don't (sorry if this not a good comparison).

What I do to handle is I'd say it out loud that those thoughts are not true. I would say it multiple times and most of the time it did trick my brain to get rid of those thoughts. Or I would just simply do others things I enjoy and keep myself busy to distract me for them. Because those thoughts would pop up randomly when I'm alone and not doing anything.

I hope you’re able to find what works best for you, and I wish you all happiness

When I'm able to logic it out, and talk myself through it, I can get to the point that I logically know no one wants me to die because of what I've done. It takes so. much. effort. to pull myself out of my brain and do it, but today I can. Somedays, like yesterday, I couldn't and truly believed it to be reality. Really hoping meds and time are the cure here.

I'm rooting for you

You are not alone; I am often troubled by intrusive thoughts. I would say very often! And sometimes it is unbearable. Almost every time I try to learn something new, I have intrusive thoughts. It's like hell in my head.

When I told my mother about suicide, and even after my suicide attempt, she said: "No problem, it's your life. If you want to die, go ahead and die."
I no longer talk to her, or to anyone who sides with her.

I wonder what part of you is creating those thoughts, and why its doing that. Maybe it's trying to protect you? Maybe it thinks it has your best interest in mind? I'd be curious to have a conversation with that part. And maybe once you understand it a bit more, you can be grateful for what it's trying to do, and say thanks, and ask it to step aside so you can try something new.

I get those intrusive thoughts, too. It’s really some certain thoughts that I have obsessed on so much that they are on autopilot now. I call it the hamster wheel. They are not my thoughts, as they are from a long time ago and I am less depressed now. So they are thoughts of past Jack, but they have grown habitual.

The rational response would be that we cannot know what others are thinking about us. I used to think I had a general guess, but it turned out to be wrong every single time! I was assuming that most people couldn’t stand me, because I was so unlikable. This is not true, but I had projected my bad self hatred on to everyone else. I am saying that this is what worked for me, but it took a while of directed practice at disputing my distorted assumptions and replacing them with more realistic ones based on evidence.

It may or may not work for you, but I am pretty sure they will only get worse if we don’t take active steps to replace them.