Imp of the Perverse
February 02, 2023
I like to learn about new things, especially when they are about me. Me, me, me — I like to apply thoughts and ideas to me (I am extremely vain like that). And when I find an explanation for my actions and reason for the way my brain works — that is an added bonus. I feel good because I am not alone in what I struggle internally with. Someone already did studies about it and even gave it a name. For a long while, I thought I am the only one with those strange, unwelcomed thoughts creeping into my mind from the uncharted depths of my psyche. By accident, reading something on a completely different subject I found that, first of all — I am not the only one with those thoughts, and second — this condition actually has a name — intrusive thoughts. And it can also be described as “imp of the perverse” which is a much better name with an interesting literary history, although this nicely poetic name is not welcomed in somber professional psychiatric circles as a proper description of that condition.
And if you, my reader, think that I will now reveal what are my intrusive thoughts, then you will be disappointed. I am not going to do it, even behind the anonymity of the internet. And I might think you may be a little perverse in wanting to know those thoughts, but then again you might be indifferent to them because you are now exploring yours, and they are awful, sick, and disgusting — aren't they? But anyway — I feel pressured that those terrible and terribly nagging thoughts that always come in the most inappropriate moments with the vast load of debauchery and perversion and awfully antisocial and psychopathic imagination — are not only my burden but are in actuality quite common. Common, yet never discussed. I would personally never disclose what are mine about. To anybody — not to my therapist, not to any medical professional, not to any man of the cloth (even with the binding reassurance of secrecy), and NEVER, EVER to anyone in my family or among my friends. Especially never to anyone I like and care about. Those things are better left unsaid and explored only with the utmost care and subtlety. And with tact — to yourself. The knowledge that other people experience the same, helps tremendously. I guess I am not such a psycho sicko as I thought I might be.
