This journey is very common. Statistics indicate it can take a person with OCD up to 17 years to get appropriate treatment. It’s thought 1 in 50 people has it. In his book about obsessive negative thoughts, The Imp of the Mind, Lee Baer calls it “the silent epidemic”. I have not read the book, but almost any reason that brings someone to admit to having suicidal thoughts is going to yield the response, "get help immediately". Even if suicidal intrusive OCD thoughts are like most other OCD thoughts (irrational), most responses are still going to be "get help immediately". OCD has been shown by modern psychologists to be on the same continuum as Tourette's syndrome. In fact, many of the one illness also have the other, about 75% of those with Tourette's have clinical OCD, and ~25% the other way. I was hospitalized when I was 18. My first two roommates were suicides that were caught in time - accidentally (they fully wanted to do it). I have known suicides all my life, some who are gone and some who are still struggle and a few who are free of their depression. I have never known one that was afraid they would somehow get to be suicidal against their will, or have it somehow creep up on them. Why do I have such thoughts? I know all the psychological and physiological theories—which I will discuss in detail later—yet for me, a literary description often captures most vividly what is happening: Here is none other than my own personal Imp of the Perverse, perched perhaps upon my right shoulder, whispering thoughts about running the dog over into my mind's ear. Just who is my imp? For me, Edgar Allen Poe depicted him perfectly in his 1845 short story "The Imp of the Perverse":

The Imp of the Mind By Lee Baer, PhD | OCD in Kids The Imp of the Mind By Lee Baer, PhD | OCD in Kids

I think it gives good insight on individuals with OCD and one of the characteristics of OCD being intrusive or unwelcome thoughts that seem to not go away. What made me really enjoy this was that the book wasn't pretentious in just telling you the scientific views. Instead it delved into not just one but multiple different cases from actual patients. The included the bad thoughts, sometimes in graphic detail that these patients were experiencing. It also explored certain mental ailments that could make the "Imp of the Mind" more powerful. All those sentences are full of fear. You are scared. This is how anxiety screws up logic in the thought process. I t creates an internal dialogue that is full of contradictions, so it can end up with the perfect kind of fear. As a sufferer whose symptoms went largely untreated and only declined 'naturally' over many years, I am absolutely certain that this compassionate book has the ability to profoundly improve many lives.More often than not, the OCD sufferer is seen as quirky and oh-so-endearing, not dissimilar to a dim pet that you look on lovingly but pityingly. Usually, their function in the story is funny and silly and, most importantly, their illness is something they want to do, rather than something they would do anything to get rid of. As someone who has struggled with obsessive thoughts for as long as I can remember, it was amazing to read this book. I wish I found it years ago. Though I knew much of the information due to my own research and being in the mental health field, it was refreshing getting to read this book and hear individual stories and how Dr. Baer's clients worked through their issues.

Summary and Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Imp of the A Summary and Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Imp of the

There is a cruel paradox that any thought you attempt to suppress will instead recur with greater frequency and power. The old joke is to ask someone not to think about a white bear, and then watch them twitch in frustration as they find they can’t stop themselves doing so. Sadly, many of my patients, when they first experience violent, sexual, or blasphemous bad thoughts, believe that there is deep down in them—like the ruthless Mr. Hyde living deep within Dr. Jekyll and waiting to be unbound—an evil murderer or molester, their "true" self, whose appearance is heralded by the appearance of the bad thoughts. For my patients who come to this conclusion, thought suppression seems to them the only logical As you get to around half way this book switches gears and shows proven methods of how to "cure" yourself of these obsessive thoughts. It puts the solution into simple to understand means, things that when you read you think to yourself, "wow this makes sense, is that all there there is to it". Of course as this book points out, actually doing these steps to manage these thoughts can be more difficult that simply knowing or reading how to do it. Thankfully and encouragingly it does also show show examples of patients who have been "cured" of these obsessive thoughts by the methods prescribed in this book. Very few depict the true face of OCD: unwanted intrusive thoughts that can get fixated on virtually any topic at all. These thoughts are often of a “taboo” nature (sex, violence, morality), and the compulsions are anything that is done (or avoided) to try to make the thoughts go away. I found Dr Lee Baer's book, 'The Imp of the Mind', to be a short and easy read. In it he covers the most important aspects of that form of OCD, (also known as 'PURE O' 'Scrupulosity', or 'The Doubting Disease'), which manifests itself through distressing intrusive thoughts, often, though not exclusively, of a violent or sexual nature.I read this book after it was suggested by my therapist, after a recent diagnosis of OCD 13 years after its onset at the beginning of high school. I wish 13 year old me could have had access to this information, and in many ways reading this was an experience of grief. While it was often difficult to read, I'm glad that Baer places special emphasis on intrusive thoughts of harm/violence, especially considering the tremendous fear and stigma accompanying these themes as well as the huge gulf between the violence of these thoughts and the dispositions of those suffering. It also shows that most people are to afraid to speak up about this. No mother wants to admit to having thoughts of killing her child, no boyfriend wants to admit to having thoughts of stabbing his girlfriend so unfortunately they live a life of trying to repress these thoughts, thinking they are evil people that will one day snap and commit these atrocious acts. An example of the latter outcome was Isaac, a patient of mine in his midtwenties who had always loved animals. Yet by the time I met him he cringed every time he passed a dog or cat on the street. Just a glance at the wagging tail was enough to start the bad thoughts—he felt compelled to stare at the dog's anus and his thoughts would start. They were always the same, thoughts of intercourse with the dog, followed by the worry that this meant he was really a pervert. He was often convinced it was true: "Why in the world," he asked himself, "should looking at a dog or a cat on the streets lead me to stare at their private parts or trigger these thoughts about having sex with them—unless that is what I really want?"

Imp of the Mind: Exploring the Silent Epidemic of Obsessive

He confides to us that everything went well for several years after that: his crime had not been discovered, and he had, to all intents and purposes, got away with it. Indeed, he becomes convinced he’s invincible and his guilt will never be found out. The interesting thing about how the author (who, incidentally, is also a psychiatrist and researcher, making this so much better) looks at the problem is that he takes a look at a condition, obsessive thoughts, as the main problem of the individual themselves, and then helps them come to an understanding of why they are obsessing over those thoughts. A useful resource, though I think the author should have made an effort to distinguish more between OCD and "pure O", where the former is accompanied by a compulsive action often unrelated to the nature of the obsession, i.e. the seemingly nonsensical repetition of flipping a light switch on-and-off to prevent someone's family member from getting into a car accident, and where "pure O" is limited to intrusive thoughts without the accompanying compulsion to perform a specific action to rid oneself of such thoughts. Induction, a posteriori, would have brought phrenology to admit, as an innate and primitive principle of human action, a paradoxical something, which we may call perverseness, for want of a more characteristic term. In the sense I intend, it is, in fact, a mobile without motive, a motive not motivirt [Poe’s mistaken German rendering of the word ‘motiviert’, meaning ‘motivated’] . Through its promptings we act without comprehensible object; or, if this shall be understood as a contradiction in terms, we may so far modify the proposition as to say, that through its promptings we act, for the reason that we should not. In theory, no reason can be more unreasonable, but, in fact, there is none more strong. With certain minds, under certain conditions, it becomes absolutely irresistible.

whatever prayer, whatever request for favor may be made by any man or by all your people Israel (for each one knows his own plague and his own pain) when they spread out their hands toward this house, then may you hear from the heavens, your dwelling place, and may you forgive; and reward each one according to all his ways, for you know his heart (you alone truly know the human heart)..." I was introduced to Dr. Baer’s book by my behavioral therapist, while in treatment for OCD. At the time, I was in the depths of my struggle with intrusive thoughts, drowning in shame and disconnected from what I labeled the “normal” human experience. This book was the first step in reconnecting me to humanity, by offering this simple truth: we all have thoughts, some thoughts perceived as “good” and some perceived as “bad.” This was the first time experiencing in written form that others had gone through what I was going through – and what a normalizing and impactful experience that was. I endorse this engaging book because reading it provided me with the needed foundation to begin treatment and participate in the hard and worthwhile work on my journey to recovery. My family and I are grateful for the entire OCD community and for authors like Dr. Lee Baer. in bed, depressed and thinking about suicide, certain that his classmates would soon discover the truth and begin teasing him mercilessly.

The Imp of the Mind - Google Books

You’ll sometimes hear OCD experts cite studies that show virtually everybody has intrusive thoughts (the foundation of OCD; essentially the “O” part). Intrusive thoughts are thoughts that are unwanted and distressing and are in opposition to our core values. OCD folk just can’t turn these thoughts off. Similarly, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the biblical story of Eve in the Garden of Eden casts the serpent—here an agent of Satan—in the role of the imp. As soon as God specifically tells Adam and Eve that there is only one tree in the Garden that they may not even think about eating from, the release of humanity's troubles (as in the Pandora myth) seems inescapable. I am sorry for what you are suffering. I have suffered even more irrational and illogical worries. All of them seem real.

In the first book to fully examine obsessive bad thoughts, Dr. Lee Baer combines the latest research with his own extensive experience in treating this widespread syndrome. Drawing on information ranging from new advances in brain technology to pervasive social taboos, Dr. Baer explores the root causes of bad thoughts, why they can spiral out of control, and how to recognize the crucial difference between harmless and dangerous bad thoughts. Skim the surface of the OCD community and you’ll see this terrifying reality clearly: there are people with OCD all around us who don’t know they have OCD. They live in secret, terrified to tell anyone about the intrusive thoughts they hate. And this is due in large part to how media presents OCD: at best shallow and quirky and at worst downright incorrect. Well that's the thing. I don't think these are intrusive thoughts caused by OCD. I am in not really scared of these thoughts. They're almost comforting... and that's what scares me. What if my harm thoughts are not caused by OCD? What if I'm truly having these thoughts but fighting them because of my moral upbringing? What if one day I give in? That's what scares me. I just don't want there to be a link. I pray to God that my harm thoughts are from OCD. For some people, the way they react to the Imp of the Perverse can determine whether their bad thoughts will reach clinical severity, requiring treatment.