Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Kilroy the Grand]

I will say this upfront, I am not depressed, I'm not even sad. I have nothing to be sad about, overall I lead a very nice life. I have a stable job, a house, a loving boyfriend, and two wonderful dogs. But still I get these odd urges.

It's mostly suicidal, or at the very least stupid urges. Crashing my car into a tree head on, gulping down bleach or coolant, shooting myself, that sort of thing. They're very low key thoughts, like a whisper pushing me to do it. I don't get these thoughts all the time, and most of the time I can just brush them off and forget about them. But right now you could say I've hit a low spot. As I said before, I'm not suicidal, I'm not even contemplating suicide.

Anyone else experience anything similar?

[Blargityblarg]

MetalSlimeHunt calls these 'intrusive thoughts' and claims everyone gets them. I do so only occasionally, but yeah, I don't think you're bonkers just yet.

[King DZA]

Sure do. Both suicidal, and homicidal. For me, it's really just when I notice that I have the opportunity to do something fucked up (which is pretty damn often), and begin to wonder "what if...". Doubt its anything more than simple, morbid curiosity. No big.

[penguinofhonor]

If you're afraid you're going to act on them, you might be manic. Otherwise there shouldn't be any real problem, just your brain trolling you.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

MetalSlimeHunt calls these 'intrusive thoughts' and claims everyone gets them.

Indeed.

[ShoesandHats]

I don't really get thoughts quite like that, but sometimes I get thoughts that are worthy of telling your brain to shut up. But like a noisy apartment-neighbor, banging on the ceiling with a broom doesn't get them to stop most of the time.

[Yoink]

Mostly around heights. If there's a long drop near me with no railings etcetera, I will start to imagine what it would be like to throw myself off. I'm kinda terrified of heights.

[Trapezohedron]

Mostly around heights. If there's a long drop near me with no railings etcetera, I will start to imagine what it would be like to throw myself off. I'm kinda terrified of heights.

Oh hey me. D:

[Aqizzar]

I used to get these a lot more often, and definitely in the violent vein.  Not around random people but instead familiar ones.

A few years ago, I'd go out hunting with my Dad.  And sometimes I'd see such vivid images of blowing his head off that I'd stand stock still for a minute because I didn't trust my muscles enough to move.  Same thing could happen when I'd be in the kitchen with my mother and she'd ask me for a knife.  Myself too, when I was younger.

It comes up a lot less now, and it's changed a bit.  Instead of violently murdering my family, I'll just be sitting in the room with my boss or something and think, I wonder what I could do if I just punched this guy in the face mid sentence.  The stupidest thing is that it grips tight to the ironic process, so now any time I'm in the same situation as I originally had one of these fucked up thoughts, I'll remember it and keep thinking about it.

As if it bears mention, these are not bidden thoughts, and used to scare the shit out of me.  I think it's stress related, because it only came up in certain times and places when I wasn't in the best frame of mind (except for the memory activated part).  Maybe most notably though, it definitely happened less since I found out how common it is for people to have these ideas.  Once I learned (or decided, I guess) that it wasn't a sign that I was pathologically insane and that it's actually perfectly normal and nobody wants to talk about it for obvious reasons, it practically stopped overnight because it didn't worry me anymore.

[RedKing]

Oh yeah, all the time.
Driving across a bridge? "Oh hey, wonder what it'd be like to swerve hard and go over the side"
About to cross the street? "Hey, wonder what it'd be like to jump out in front of that bus."

And those are just the mild ones. Other thoughts are more....predatory. 

Spoiler: Relevant comic is relevant. (click to show/hide)

[Azated]

I get these too.

When I'm on top of a tall building or mountain, I wonder what it'd feel like to jump off. When I see a gun, i wonder what it would feel like to shoot myself. Whenever I see a knife, I wonder what it'd feel like to stab myself.

I'm not suicidal either, but I'm very curious about everything. That's what I put it all down to; curiosity.

[Karlito]

I was lying awake in bed last night wondering what it'd be like to throw myself out the window. It's only like 10 feet up, so it's not much of a suicide plan, but still not a great thought to have.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

One hypothesis I've heard for these thoughts is that they result from the your brain trying to test the limitations of your free will. An interesting, if not testable idea.

[lordcooper]

Yeah, it doesn't seem that these are exactly rare (unless we're all just screwed up on this forum ).

Go and seek a shrink if you think you might actually act upon them, otherwise you're cool.

[RedKing]

One hypothesis I've heard for these thoughts is that they result from the your brain trying to test the limitations of your free will. An interesting, if not testable idea.

Oh, it's probably testable. Just not repeatable in most cases. 

The self-destructive impulses don't bother me nearly as much as the aggressive ones. Like Aqizzar said, you get those and you just freeze up because you suddenly feel like you're not alone in your own body anymore. It's like, "Here. I'm going to put the butcher knife down and let you pick it up, because I just had a vivid image of me slitting your throat with it, and I'm not even in a bad mood."

Of course, you don't want to say that out loud.