Melinda, It certainly does sound like you have intrusive (disturbing) thoughts, which is known as a symptom of OCD. We at The Panic Center encourage you to, if possible, to get some professional help in planning your exposure work. The other thing you should do is try to reduce any "safety behaviour" (i.e. compulsions) that is associated with the obsessive thought. Most people with OCD, they have an obsessive thought, which causes anxiety. They then reduce the anxiety by performing some compulsive behaviour (washing, checking, arranging, praying or mentally "undoing"). The compulsion works until the next time they have the obsessive thought. Then they have to engage in the compulsive behaviour all over again. You are right, people with OCD and people without OCD have the same kinds of thoughts. It's what the thought "means" to you that is important. Psychologists say that you are winning against OCD when you recognize an obsessive thought as "just an obsessive thought." Attempts to hold back the disturbing thought only make it seem more "important." For example: Try to not think of a "white bear." The more you try not to think about it the more you can't stop thinking about it. The similarly here is trying not to think about disturbing thoughts only makes them seem more "important." In general, one component of treatment for OCD involves getting people to gradually reduce their compulsive behaviour and "exposing" themselves to the discomfort (anxiety) created by not performing the compulsion. The second main component for treatment of OCD involves getting people to do exposure work in which they "expose" themselves to their disturbing thoughts. A third component of treatment for OCD involves getting people to use thought records to challenge what the disturbing thoughts "mean," including, for example, their sense of responsibility for bad things happening to other people. If you need ay more information about OCD, please check out the homepage of the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Foundation.

I don't know if I can help you "figure it out," I'd love to. But I can share my own experience. I've had these same feelings for years. I don't have kids, but I'd be slicing a salami for lunch, and "see" myself plunging it into my mother's chest or neck. Or I might be cutting an orange, and then imagine cutting my wife, or hitting her over and over. Sometimes I just want to die to be free of it. It's morphed, too. Not only do I see these terrible images of physical attacks, but I imagine myself telling my wife I don't love her anymore, I want a divorce. And I don't feel that way, but whatever causes the "alternate urges" of knifing or beating someone I love seems to want to destroy my life.

If any of you can remember I have had thoughts of chocking my children them or killing them. So I did a search and found this post on goggle about OCD and bad thoughts about hurting your children. I my self have had similar thoughts and still do sometimes€¦ what I was wondering is if any of you could explain to me what I should do to help my self from thinking these thought and what exactly this post says and help to me understand it a little better>? I will tell you one thing just reading this made me ten times better I just wish I could better understand it:( Let me tell you a story. When my children were infants, I would carry them in my arms as I walked around the deck of our home. Every once in a while, I'd stand at the railing, looking at the beautiful scenery out in the woods, and then I'd have this flash: I'd see myself accidentally dropping my child two stories down from the deck, and there she'd lie on the ground, dead. And then I'd see myself jump over the edge to kill myself out of my shame that I'd just killed my child. But I'd break my neck instead, and end up being humiliated and shamed for what I just did to my son or daughter. And then I'd step away from the edge of the deck. It was the same with my kids as toddlers. I'd be reading in the living room while one of my kids was playing in another room. Then I'd notice that all was quiet. On a number of occasions I would then think, "Oh, my God, he's swallowed a penny and he can't breathe, and he's passed out..." And I'd get up and quickly move to the other room to check on my child. There he'd be, quietly and safely drawing on the wall with crayons. Now, I'm sure I've have had those kinds of fantasies over 40 times. Each one took about two or three seconds, with slight variations. What is the difference between what I experienced and what someone with OCD experiences? There are many similarities. The difference is not about the thoughts that we have but in how we interpret those thoughts and images. I would say, "I know what that's about, and that's no big deal." I'd say, "That's because I'm a new parent. It's my mind's way of reminding me that I need to protect these fragile children. I know I'm not really about to accidentally drop my kid." People with OCD might say, "Oh, my God