The Relationship Between Intrusive Thoughts And Depression

“This is beyond me, there is no way out, things are going to get worse and worse …”. Intrusive thoughts and depression are often closely related. This is known as depressive rumination and, in many cases, it leads the person to a state of profound helplessness, to a debilitating psychological reality that is seen with increasing frequency.

Often times, we tend to associate repetitive thoughts as an exclusive effect of anxiety disorders. Now, these conditions are often more complex than we might believe. First of all, it is necessary to bear in mind that the anxiety maintained over time can sometimes lead to a depressive state. Sometimes they can even occur together, shaping what is known as mixed anxiety-depressive disorder.

Be that as it may, there is something evident: the recurring ideas, the images that arise spontaneously, constructing catastrophic mental scenes where there is not even a breath of light for hope, they are not only exhausting. Intrusive thinking cuts off our balance, our ability to reason, make decisions, and be able to cope with difficulties with self-control.

These processes need to be detected and managed. Let’s dive a little deeper into this topic.

Intrusive thoughts and depression, how are they related?

Susan Nolen-Hoeksema was a Yale University psychology professor known for her research on mood disorders. It is she who has contributed the most work and research on the relationship between intrusive thoughts and depression.

Thus, among her best-known books are Women who think too much, Women conquering depression and her most interesting manual: Ruminant depression, diagnosis and treatment .

One thing we should consider first about these types of mental processes is that they are not always related to “being anxious.” As we have pointed out at the beginning, it is common to associate obsessive or ruminant thoughts with those states of anxiety in which the person does not stop thinking about certain things, thus feeding nervousness, worry, anguish.

In this psychological reality in which the mind is captivated by depression, we go one step further. It is overcoming your own anxiety to reach a more dangerous circle, more psychologically debilitating. Let’s see the features.

Passive intrusive thoughts: I have no control over anything

The relationship between intrusive thoughts and depression is based on a fact: what I think tells me that everything is going to end badly. While in states of anxiety questions such as “and what am I going to do when this happens?” or “What if this other happens and I’m not prepared?” In depressive rumination there is no doubt, the person assumes that whatever they do, everything will turn out negatively.

This passive approach leaves no room to search for solutions. The person feels incapable of looking for options, relativizing, reflecting on things from a more hopeful point of view. This happens especially when we have gone through a long period of anxiety; In the end, the mind is exhausted and falls into helplessness, into persistent negativism.

In this way, the most common examples that show us the link between intrusive thoughts and depression are the following:

• Excessive thinking The person falls into states in which the mind never stops. Something like this generates mental and physical exhaustion.
• The mind not only has a tendency to imagine the worst, but also the person gives full truth to the imagined.
• The person is unable to see or value positive or hopeful facts. His approach will always make you see adverse and fatalistic undertones.
• Minor errors are magnified.
• There is also another fact: one becomes so used to this style of thinking that he can no longer pay attention to the external world, to what others are saying to him, to the positive stimuli in his environment.

Intrusive thoughts and depression: how to handle this reality?

Intrusive thoughts have an unwritten rule: the more you try to control them, the more their intensity increases. It seems an irony but it is like that, the mind at the end of the day produces all these processes automatically and telling us that “I am not going to think about a pink elephant” what causes us is that we only see this image over and over again.

It is best to follow one of these guidelines:

• Those thoughts are motivated by a specific emotional state: analyze it. Do you feel fear, anguish, sadness? Perhaps it is a cluster of many sensations that you must reel off one by one. Do it without judging yourself, leaving space and presence for those emotions.
• Accept those intrusive thoughts, don’t resist or want to block them. What’s more, what you can do is record them, keep a journal and write down those ideas that come to mind. Once you have them registered, analyze them: what motivates them? Do they make sense and logic? Does it help you to have those thoughts? Are you doing something to streamline or disempower them?

The best thing to do in these situations is to go to a specialized professional. As we have pointed out, it is common that after going through a long period with anxiety, our mind drifts into a more complex state, the one that already points to a depressive disorder. In these situations, it is advisable to have expert help.

When the mind makes us captive to suffering, it is brave to understand that we need support, strategies to regain control and well-being.