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<\/p>\nHave you ever sat in a boring meeting and wondered: “What if I just started shouting?” Or you’re driving along and you think: “What if I crash?”<\/p>\n
These unsettling scenarios are known as “intrusive thoughts” which the majority of us will experience from time to time and feel able to shrug off.<\/p>\n
But for some they can become overwhelming obsessions which lead to compulsive behaviours.<\/p>\n
When Dr Nina Higson-Sweeney was a child, she was convinced that unless she only had “good” thoughts the whole way home from school, her family would be harmed.<\/p>\n
“If I had an intrusive thought, I’d restart the walk from the bus stop,” she says. “I was genuinely terrified that if I didn’t redo it and something happened, it would be my fault”.<\/p>\n
Nina was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) aged 10 and now works as a psychology researcher at the University of Oxford where she specialises in child and adolescent mental health.<\/p>\n
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Nina still lives with OCD but has learned how to manage it better [Dr Nina Higson-Sweeney]<\/p>\n
“Obsessions are intrusive and unwanted thoughts, feelings and sensations while compulsions are repeated, ritualised acts that are done to neutralise or alleviate the anxiety caused by the obsessions,” Nina tells the BBC’s Complex podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n Around 1- 4% of the population is thought to live with OCD but the number of 16-24 year olds in England reporting symptoms of it has more than tripled in a decade.<\/a><\/p>\n The condition is now the second-most widespread mental health disorder for young adults, a major NHS England survey suggests.<\/p>\n Intrusive thoughts can be extremely distressing and often focus on topics that feel completely at odds with a person’s values or identity.<\/p>\n “You might have thoughts about harm coming to loved ones,” says Nina.<\/p>\n “It could be questioning one’s sexual attraction, thinking are you homosexual? Are you heterosexual? It can even be as extreme as worrying are you a paedophile?<\/p>\n “A really common one is intrusive thoughts about contamination and worries about getting ill or spreading sickness,” she says.<\/p>\n OCD most commonly begins in puberty or early adolescence, but some people are diagnosed later in life as they can “go years masking or covering up the distress,” she says.<\/p>\n Research suggests there may be a genetic component to developing OCD as well as links to early life stress such as bullying, bereavement or family breakdown, she says.<\/p>\n Chartered psychologist Kimberley Wilson says almost everyone experiences intrusive thoughts at some point.<\/p>\n