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Hey, you! Welcome to the little corner of Cosmo that we call Free Therapy. We're glad you're here. This is where we take reader questions—about family feuds, work woes, friendship fiascos, mental ...

I started having intrusive thoughts as a teenager. It always worsens around Christmas because it's a religious holiday, and I feel inadequate. Therapy helped me control some of my thoughts, and I'm ...

Have you ever had an unwanted thought or image stuck in your head? Usually, you can ignore it and move on. But sometimes, it just keeps popping right back up. You don’t want to have these sticky, ...

Intrusive thoughts are any unwanted or stuck thoughts that come on suddenly and cause anxiety. They are different from most worrisome thoughts in that they do not reflect any real concerns, such as ...

“Intrusive thoughts” has become a TikTok catchphrase for people describing random—sometimes fun or quirky—impulses, but the actual mental health term has a meaning a lot more nuanced, and misusing it ...

Do you struggle with intrusive thoughts seemingly appearing out of nowhere and disrupting your peace of mind? These thoughts can be unsettling, ranging from disturbing images to irrational ideas, ...

None of us can escape intrusive thoughts, the random and usually off-putting musings that include visions of shoving your hand through the center of a beautifully decorated cake or a bridge collapsing ...

Scroll through your TikTok “For You Page” and you may stumble across a video of someone talking about “intrusive thoughts.” The hashtag boasts more than 200 million views, and videos in that category ...

Lindsay Curtis is a health & medical writer in South Florida. She worked as a communications professional for health nonprofits and the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of ...

The mind can wander to strange places. Sometimes those places and the images that come with them are unwanted, dangerous and negative. We all have intrusive thoughts, but some of us deal with them ...

On average, people have about 6,200 thoughts each day. Inevitably, some will be unwanted, alarming, or just plain strange. You know the kind: You’re driving down the freeway and suddenly visualize ...