Reader’s Question

I’m 20 years old, and for the past 8 months I’ve been having some really upsetting obsessive thoughts and it’s driving me crazy. I started having random thoughts that I might be gay even though I know that’s not true. Then I started to think maybe it wasn’t that I was gay but rather wanted to be a woman, and this upset me even more because I knew this certainly was not true. After I got over the gay/woman worry, I started worrying that I might be the kind of person who might want to kill someone or do some horrible thing. What brought this up was that I watched a program where this kid killed a bunch of people and no one would ever have thought that this kid would do this type of thing.

It makes me sick and anxious when these crazy thoughts pop up in my head, but it feels like I can’t control them. I would never ever hurt anyone, but my mind is telling me that there’s some dark side to me and that I just might. It’s like there’s a constant power struggle in my brain which makes me feel crazy and anxious.

Why does my brain latch onto these ridiculous ideas? I’m really confused and depressed, and it’s hard for me to go through the day. I would deeply appreciate your input.

Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

An obsession is an unwanted thought that intrudes into your mind, and a compulsion is an undesired behavior you feel pressured or compelled to do. Both obsessions and compulsions can indeed be troubling. But you can take heart in knowing that they can both be controlled quite effectively, sometimes with specialized therapy, sometimes with medications, and often with a combination of both medication and other therapy. So, the best thing to do is to seek appropriate professional assessment and counsel.

It also sounds like your obsessions revolve around a particular “theme” of fearing that you will lose control and act-out urges and inclinations that lie in the deepest recesses of our unconscious mind. This suggests at least the possibility that as a personality you might tend to be somewhat “over-controlled” most of the time, not accepting various aspects of yourself that might be regarded as undesirable. If this is true, then in addition to learning how to manage your obsessive thoughts, you are likely to gain an additional benefit from therapy in the way of increased self-acceptance and confidence. So, stop worrying and seek the assistance you need today.