If you’re experiencing intrusive thoughts about the people you care about most, it can feel deeply upsetting — and frightening. You might wonder, why am I thinking this? or what does it say about me that I can even imagine something like that?

You’re not alone. This is something I’ve seen time and again, both in the people I’ve worked with and in the messages I get through this site. And I want to start by saying this clearly: having intrusive thoughts about someone you love does not mean you want to hurt them. It does not mean there is something wrong with you.

In fact, it often means the opposite.

These kinds of thoughts — images, urges, what-if scenarios — tend to latch onto what’s most precious to us. It’s a strange and uncomfortable trick the brain can play when your nervous system is on high alert. I often describe it as a misfiring of the brain’s threat detection system. Your brain thinks it’s protecting you by scanning for danger, but instead of spotting something in the outside world, it turns inward, starts asking what if, and offers you the worst possible answer.

For example:
What if I lose control?
What if I snapped and did something terrible?
What if I could never live with myself afterwards?

These aren’t fantasies. They’re fears. And they cause distress because they go against your values. That’s one of the things that makes them so upsetting — and such a key indicator that we’re dealing with OCD or an anxiety-related process rather than something dangerous.

When people love deeply, they fear losing that. They fear hurting the very people they would do anything to protect. Your brain picks up on that fear and magnifies it. And if your nervous system is already dysregulated — maybe from stress, burnout, illness, or just a period where things feel overwhelming — the thoughts can become sticky. They get caught in a loop, and the more you try to push them away, the stronger they seem to get.

That’s the exhausting part, isn’t it? You’re not just experiencing the thought once. You’re analysing it, questioning yourself, replaying things over and over to check if you’re still a good person, or if something has changed in you without you realising.

People often come to me feeling utterly worn out. Not because anything bad has happened — but because they’ve been mentally wrestling with these thoughts for weeks, months, sometimes years. And no one around them knows, because they feel too ashamed or scared to speak the words out loud.

But here’s what I want you to hear, if this is you: thoughts are not facts. They’re mental events — some important, some complete nonsense. Having an intrusive thought about hurting someone doesn’t mean you ever would. The very fact that the thought causes you distress is one of the clearest signs that it doesn’t reflect your true character or desires.

What’s often happening is something called thought-action fusion. It’s a psychological term for when your brain starts to believe that thinking something is the same as doing it — or that having the thought increases the chance it will happen. It’s common in OCD and anxiety, and it’s incredibly convincing when you’re in the middle of it. But it’s not true.

And the good news is, there are ways to work with this.

One of the most important shifts is learning to step back from the thought instead of engaging with it. That’s easier said than done, but it’s a skill you can build. In therapy, and in the course I created, we work on gently helping your brain learn that it doesn’t need to respond to every alert it sends. That not all thoughts need to be analysed or solved. That you can have a disturbing thought, and do nothing with it — and the world doesn’t fall apart.

I built the course because I know how hard this can be. I’ve been a psychologist for over 20 years, and I’ve seen how common this is — especially in people who care deeply and hold themselves to high moral standards. The course walks you through what intrusive thoughts are, why they happen, and most importantly, how to reduce their power over your life.

You’re not broken. You’re not dangerous. You’re not alone.

If this post speaks to you and you’d like to learn more, you can explore the full online program I created here. It’s private, structured, and you can go at your own pace. You don’t have to explain your thoughts to anyone if you’re not ready — you can just begin.

And if now’s not the time, that’s okay too. Even reading a post like this, and recognising yourself in it, is a powerful step toward change. Understanding is the beginning of healing.