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You're not broken: People share experiences with intrusive thoughts to help normalize them

'I was today years old when I realized there was a word for this.'

mental health; intrusive thoughts; anxiety; OCD; ADHD

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People share experiences with intrusive thoughts.

When I was younger I used to think I was dying or that I would get kidnapped by a random stranger, but I kept it to myself because I thought something was wrong with me. I thought that telling people would confirm this fear, so I kept it inside my entire life until I was an adult and learned it was part of ADHD and other disorders, such as OCD and PTSD. But it doesn't have to be part of a disorder at all—a vast amount of people just have intrusive thoughts, and a Twitter user, Laura Gastón, is trying to normalize them for others.

Gastón tweeted that parents should talk to their children about intrusive thoughts and normalize them so children aren't afraid that they're broken. The response to her series of tweets was overwhelming, with more than 144,000 likes and 19,000 retweets. People chimed in with their own stories of intrusive thoughts and the stigma attached to them. One Twitter user was told that they were possessed and their parents sought spiritual counsel to help them. But intrusive thoughts aren't a spiritual attack, they don't even have to be negative thoughts. Intrusive thoughts are simply thoughts that pop into your head with no reason or logical connection to what is currently happening.

\u201cTalk to your kids about intrusive thoughts. They\u2019re more common than you may realize, and they can be disturbing and scary. Kids don\u2019t know what they are, and they aren\u2019t likely to share they are having them. I cannot even begin to tell you the relief upon learning what they are-\u201d
— Laura Gast\u00f3n, Beloved \u2764\ufe0f (@Laura Gast\u00f3n, Beloved \u2764\ufe0f) 1664121581

The name for the phenomenon sounds scarier than it actually is. It may help to think of the thoughts as a pop-up on an online article you're reading. There you are scrolling along, really invested in this article and an ad for teeth whitening strips is suddenly obscuring half the page, so you find the camouflaged "X" and close it out. But somehow before you make it to the bottom of the page, there's that dang pop-up again. That's what it's like to have an intrusive thought most of the time. It's not always scary, it's not all-consuming, it's just there.

There are some intrusive thoughts that are distressing, especially if it's a new thought. Often the thoughts that cause the most distress are the intrusive thoughts around hurting a child or doing something illegal. Having an intrusive thought that is concerning doesn't mean you're going to act on it. Our brains think thousands of thoughts daily and most of the time we are unaware of all of the activity because we're focused on one particular thing, but then we have a pop-up.

Photo by christopher lemercier on Unsplash

You could be struggling with finances in general but at the moment you're working on a collage of sea turtles with your 9-year-old, next thing you know you have an intrusive thought about robbing a bank. Are you going to rob a bank? No, because you're not a bank robber. Well, most people are not bank robbers so having the fleeting thought isn't going to make you become one. It might make you think you've lost it for a few minutes, but it's a completely normal human experience. Intrusive thoughts, not robbing banks.

Kids have intrusive thoughts as well, and it seems from the Twitter thread, that sometimes they're dismissed by parents. Anna tweeted, "yes. I had severe intrusive thoughts in childhood, starting before age 7-8. I told my parents & asked for help but they refused. It was terrifying. I had no idea what was happening." She went on to say that she was diagnosed with OCD as an adult and is currently in therapy.

Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash

Another user, Benjamin tweeted, "I was today years old when I learned that there is a word for this. I have a few of these that come in ebbs and flows over the years - at least since early elementary age. Literally have just ignored it and tried to move on 😳 Kinda relieving to know others experience this."

Alicia explained that as a teen she contemplated suicide. "My intrusive thoughts made me fear for the safety of others and I felt the only solace was my passing. I cried tears of joy upon learning they happened to a lot of people."

The responses to the tweet go on and on with people sharing their experiences with intrusive thoughts and some sharing ways they have learned to cope with them. What it all comes down to in the end is that these thoughts are much more common that people realize and it should absolutely be talked about more. No person deserves to walk around assuming they're somehow broken for having a human experience.

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4 simple hacks to help you meet your healthy eating goals

Trying to eat healthier? Try these 4 totally doable tricks.

Photo by Anna Pelzer on Unsplash

Most of us want to eat healthier but need some help to make it happen.

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When it comes to choosing what to eat, we live in a uniquely challenging era. Never before have humans known more about nutrition and how to eat for optimal health, and yet we’ve never been more surrounded by distractions and temptations that derail us from making healthy choices.

Some people might be able to decide “I’m going to eat healthier!” and do so without any problem, but those folks are unicorns. Most of us know what we should do, but need a little help making it happen—like some simple hacks, tips and tricks for avoiding pitfalls on the road to healthier eating.

While recognizing that what works for one person may not work for another, here are some helpful habits and approaches that might help you move closer to your healthy eating goals.

man pulling chip out of a chip bag Our mouths loves chips. Our bodies not so much.Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash

Goal: Snack on less junk food

Tip: Focus your willpower on the grocery store, not your home

Willpower is a limited commodity for most of us, and it is no match for a bag of potato chips sitting on top of the fridge. It’s just a fact. Channeling your willpower at the grocery store can save you from having to fight that battle at home. If you don’t bring chips into your house in the first place, you’ll find it a lot easier to reach for something healthier.

The key to successful shopping trips is to always go to the store with a specific list and a full stomach—you’ll feel much less tempted to buy the junky snack foods if you’re already satiated. Also, finding healthier alternatives that will still satisfy your cravings for salty or crunchy, or fatty foods helps. Sugar snap peas have a surprisingly satisfying crunch, apples and nut butter hit that sweet-and-salty craving, etc.

slice of cake You can eat well without giving up sweets completely.Photo by Caitlyn de Wild on Unsplash

Goal: Eat less sugar

Tip: Instead of “deprive,” think “delay” or “decrease and delight”

Sugar is a tricky one. Some people find it easier to cut out added sugars altogether, but that can create an all-or-nothing mindset that all too often results in “all.” Eating more whole foods and less processed foods can help us cut out a lot of ancillary sugar, but we still live in a world with birthday cakes and dessert courses.

One approach to dessert temptation is to delay instead of deprive. Tell yourself you can have any sweet you want…tomorrow. This mental trick flips the “I’ll just indulge today and start eating healthier tomorrow” idea on its head. It’s a lot easier to resist something you know you can have tomorrow than to say no to something you think you’ll never get to have again.

Another approach when you really want to enjoy a dessert at that moment is to decrease the amount and really truly savor it. Eat each bite slowly, delighting in the full taste and satisfaction of it. As soon as that delight starts to diminish, even a little, stop eating. You’ve gotten what you wanted out of it. You don’t have to finish it. (After all, you can always have more tomorrow!)

A naturally colorful meal is a healthy meal.Photo by Anna Pelzer on Unsplash

Goal: Eat healthier meals

Tip: Focus on fresh foods and plan meals ahead of time

Meal planning is easier than ever before. The internet is filled with countless tools—everything from recipes to shopping lists to meal planning apps—and it’s as awesome as it is overwhelming.

Planning ahead takes the guesswork and decision fatigue out of cooking, preventing the inevitable “Let’s just order a pizza.” You can have a repeating 3-week or 4-week menu of your favorite meals so you never have to think about what you’re going to eat, or you can meal plan once a week to try new recipes and keep things fresh.

It might help to designate one day a week to “shop and chop”—getting and prepping the ingredients for the week’s meals so they’re ready to go in your fridge or freezer.

Organic foods are better for the Earth and for us.Photo by andrew welch on Unsplash

Goal: Eat more organic/humanely raised food

Tip: Utilize the “dirty dozen” and “clean 15” lists to prioritize

Many people choose organic because they want to avoid pesticides and other potentially harmful chemicals. Organic food is also better for the planet, and according to the Mayo Clinic, studies have shown that organic produce is higher in certain nutrients.

Most people don’t buy everything organic, but there are some foods that should take priority over others. Each year, researchers from the Environmental Working Group (EWG) analyze thousands of samples of dozens of fruits and vegetables. From this data, they create a list of the “Dirty Dozen” and “Clean 15” fruits and vegetables, indicating what produce has the most and least pesticide residue. These lists give people a good place to start focusing their transition to more organic foods.

To make organic eating even simpler, you can shop O Organics® at your local Albertsons or Safeway stores. The O Organics brand offers a wide range of affordable USDA-certified organic products in every aisle. If you’re focusing on fresh foods, O Organics produce is always grown without synthetic pesticides, is farmed to conserve biodiversity, and is always non-GMO. All animal-based O Organics products are certified humane as well. Even switching part of your grocery list to organic can make a positive impact on the planet and the people you feed.

Healthy eating habits don’t have to be all or nothing, and they don’t have to be complicated. A few simple mindset changes at home and habit changes at the grocery store can make a big difference.

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Education

Mother of 7 stunned to learn the ‘Alphabet Song’ has been changed to get with the times

There's a good reason for the update. But it's jarring, to say the least.

via Pixabay/Pexels and JessFamOfficial/TikTok

Jessica Skube can't believe that they changed the 'Alphabet Song.'

The oldest published version of the melody to the “Alphabet Song” was in 1761. However, because it’s the same melody as “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and “Baa Baa Black Sheep,” it's hard to trace it to its original composer.

The “Alphabet Song” is so deeply entrenched in American culture that it almost seems sacrilegious to change a piece of music that’s one of the first most of us ever learned. But after all these years, some educators are altering the classic melody so that there is a variation when the letters L-M-N-O-P are sung.

This change shocked popular TikTokker Jessica Skube, who documents life raising 7 children with her 2.6 million followers. Nearly 10 million people have watched her video revealing the significant change, and it’s received over 56,000 comments since first being published in late 2020.

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Prudential

Meet the 18-year-old advocating for teen mental health, one inspiring podcast at a time

All images provided by Prudential Emerging Visionaries

Collins after being selected by Prudential Emerging Visionaries

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A changemaker is anyone who takes creative action to solve an ongoing problem—be it in one’s own community or throughout the world.

And when it comes to creating positive change, enthusiasm and a fresh perspective can hold just as much power as years of experience. That’s why, every year, Prudential Emerging Visionaries celebrates young people for their innovative solutions to financial and societal challenges in their communities.

This national program awards 25 young leaders (ages 14-18) up to $15,000 to devote to their passion projects. Additionally, winners receive a trip to Prudential’s headquarters in Newark, New Jersey, where they receive coaching, skills development, and networking opportunities with mentors to help take their innovative solutions to the next level.

For 18-year-old Sydnie Collins, one of the 2023 winners, this meant being able to take her podcast, “Perfect Timing,” to the next level.

Since 2020, the Maryland-based teen has provided a safe platform that promotes youth positivity by giving young people the space to celebrate their achievements and combat mental health stigmas. The idea came during the height of Covid-19, when Collins recalled social media “becoming a dark space flooded with news,” which greatly affected her own anxiety and depression.

Knowing that she couldn’t be the only one feeling this way, “Perfect Timing” seemed like a valuable way to give back to her community. Over the course of 109 episodes, Collins has interviewed a wide range of guests—from other young influencers to celebrities, from innovators to nonprofit leaders—all to remind Gen Z that “their dreams are tangible.”

That mission statement has since evolved beyond creating inspiring content and has expanded to hosting events and speaking publicly at summits and workshops. One of Collins’ favorite moments so far has been raising $7,000 to take 200 underserved girls to see “The Little Mermaid” on its opening weekend, to “let them know they are enough” and that there’s an “older sister” in their corner.

Of course, as with most new projects, funding for “Perfect Timing” has come entirely out of Collins’ pocket. Thankfully, the funding she earned from being selected as a Prudential Emerging Visionary is going toward upgraded recording equipment, the support of expert producers, and skill-building classes to help her become a better host and public speaker. She’ll even be able to lease an office space that allows for a live audience.

Plus, after meeting with the 24 other Prudential Emerging Visionaries and her Prudential employee coach, who is helping her develop specific action steps to connect with her target audience, Collins has more confidence in a “grander path” for her work.

“I learned that my network could extend to multiple spaces beyond my realm of podcasting and journalism when industry leaders are willing to share their expertise, time, and financial support,” she told Upworthy. “It only takes one person to change, and two people to expand that change.”

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Prudential Emerging Visionaries is currently seeking applicants for 2024. Winners may receive up to $15,000 in awards and an all-expenses-paid trip to Prudential’s headquarters with a parent or guardian, as well as ongoing coaching and skills development to grow their projects.

If you or someone you know between the ages of 14 -18 not only displays a bold vision for the future but is taking action to bring that vision to life, click here to learn more. Applications are due by Nov. 2, 2023.

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Single dad receives letter from late wife and immediately gets a DNA test

"She wrote a letter for me before she died, but I couldn’t bring myself to read it until now."

via Nathan Cowley/Pexels

A devastated man sitting by the ocean.

Ten months after a man’s wife passed away, he finally got the courage to read a letter she left him, which contained a devastating admission. The 4-year-old son they had together may not be his.

“My ‘darling’ wife passed away 10 months ago,” the man wrote on Reddit’s Off My Chest forum. “She wrote a letter for me before she died, but I couldn’t bring myself to read it until now. She told me how sorry she was that she didn’t have the guts to tell me this to my face when she was alive.”

In the letter, the wife revealed that there was a “good chance” that the son he thought was his wasn’t his biological child. A few weeks before their wedding day, the wife got drunk at her bachelorette party and had a one-night stand with another man. Soon after that night, she became pregnant but was unsure who the father was.

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3,700-year-old Babylonian stone tablet gets translated, changes history

They were doing trigonometry 1500 years before the Greeks.

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Dr. Daniel Mansfield and his team at the University of New South Wales in Australia have just made an incredible discovery. While studying a 3,700-year-old tablet from the ancient civilization of Babylon, they found evidence that the Babylonians were doing something astounding: trigonometry!

Most historians have credited the Greeks with creating the study of triangles' sides and angles, but this tablet presents indisputable evidence that the Babylonians were using the technique 1,500 years before the Greeks ever were.

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Mom proves the pain of being the ‘default parent’ by counting her 3 kids’ non-stop requests

“This validates my burnout, right?”

via Anna Shvets/Pexels and Jordan Klein/TikTok

Jrdan Klen counts the number of requests her 3 kids make in a day.

There never seems to be any downtime when you’re the default parent. You know, the parent that the kids go to first when they want anything, especially food. They're also the go-to person for school forms and bedtime stories, and the parents that the school reaches out to when a student is sick has to go home.

Some parents are the default because there’s an imbalance in the home, which forces them to assume most of the day-to-day child-rearing responsibilities. In other families, one parent is the default because the other is busy with work or other obligations.

Popular TikTokker Jordan Klein wondered why she becomes overwhelmed halfway through the day while watching her children. "I have three boys, ages 5, 3, and 1, and I continuously lose my sh*t. Sometimes it comes out. Sometimes," she said in a recent post. "I lose my sh*t right around 2 or 3 p.m. every day without fail. My husband works from home. But he does not lose his sh*t consistently. So, what's going on?"

To get to the bottom of her situation, she conducted a scientific study where she counted the number of requests she gets from her children on a given day, and the results were unbelievable.

This validates my burn out, right? #momtok #momsoftiktok #sahm #boymom #toddlermom #toddlersoftiktok #3under5

@jothemama
This validates my burn out, right? #momtok #momsoftiktok #sahm #boymom #toddlermom #toddlersoftiktok #3under5

"I downloaded one of those little counter clicker apps on my phone where I could just push the screen, and it ticks up one number, and I was just gonna hit it every time one of my children ...made a request,” Jordan said in her TikTok video.

Just ten minutes after downloading the app, her kids made 86 requests of her. She even didn't count repeats, and kids love to repeat themselves. “I guarantee you that if I were to ask my husband how many requests a day he gets at work... it's in the single digits, for sure," she added.

And they say being a stay-at-home mom isn’t a full-time job! “This validates my burnout, right?” Jordan captioned her post.

"I feel this completely, and point it out often to my husband. Like yall, Dad is RIGHT THERE. Ask him," CrochetFeen wrote in the comments. "I have 3 kids too and ‘Mom’ is now a triggering word," Sandra added.

The quasi-scientific experiment gives Jordan some excellent ammunition when talking to her husband about how they divide parenting duties. Even if it doesn’t mean he takes over the default role after work, it at least makes a great case that Jordan deserves more than a few lengthy breaks throughout the day and a few days off every month.

There is only so much stress and mental anguish that parents can take before they are no longer effective and cannot provide a happy and healthy home for their children. When evaluating domestic responsibilities, we often consider having a professional job more stressful than raising children. However, Jordan’s experiment proves that parenting can mean a lot more emotional labor, and families should take a second look at how default parents are valued.

From Your Site Articles

default parent

You're not broken: People share experiences with intrusive thoughts to help normalize them

'I was today years old when I realized there was a word for this.'

Trying to eat healthier? Try these 4 totally doable tricks.

Goal: Snack on less junk food

Tip: Focus your willpower on the grocery store, not your home

Goal: Eat less sugar

Tip: Instead of “deprive,” think “delay” or “decrease and delight”

Goal: Eat healthier meals

Tip: Focus on fresh foods and plan meals ahead of time

Goal: Eat more organic/humanely raised food

Tip: Utilize the “dirty dozen” and “clean 15” lists to prioritize

There's a good reason for the update. But it's jarring, to say the least.

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"She wrote a letter for me before she died, but I couldn’t bring myself to read it until now."

They were doing trigonometry 1500 years before the Greeks.

He couldn't keep it together, and his joy made everyone laugh.

“This validates my burnout, right?”

This validates my burn out, right? #momtok #momsoftiktok #sahm #boymom #toddlermom #toddlersoftiktok #3under5