Intrusive Thoughts vs. Overthinking: What’s Actually Happening in Your Mind
Here’s the Gist
Intrusive thoughts are unwanted thoughts, images, or memories that pop into your mind suddenly and feel hard to control.
Overthinking is more like rumination. It is repetitive mental looping about problems, decisions, or worries.
Trauma-related intrusive thoughts often feel intense, sensory, and emotionally charged, not just “thinking too much.”
Trying to push intrusive thoughts away usually makes them stronger over time.
Trauma therapy helps reduce how often intrusive thoughts show up and how much power they have over your mood, sleep, and behavior.
“Why Is My Brain Doing This?”
A lot of men tell me some version of this: “My brain won’t shut up.”
They describe thoughts that show up at the worst possible times. While trying to fall asleep. During a quiet moment at work. When they are finally relaxing with their family. Sometimes the thoughts are just worries about the future. Other times they are flashes of the past. Images. Sounds. Worst case scenarios that feel way too real.
Most men do not have language for what is happening. They just know something feels off. They might say they are overthinking. They might assume they are just anxious. Some worry they are losing control or that something is seriously wrong with them.
The truth is, there is an important difference between overthinking and intrusive thoughts. And if you have a trauma history, that difference matters. Understanding what is actually happening in your mind can reduce fear and help you get the right kind of support instead of just trying to “tough it out” or distract yourself.
Let’s break this down in plain terms.
What Is an Intrusive Thought?
An intrusive thought is exactly what it sounds like. It is a thought, image, memory, or mental scene that shows up without your permission. You did not sit down and decide to think about it. It just barges in.
Intrusive thoughts can look like:
A sudden image from a past event that feels vivid and emotionally loaded
A mental flash of something bad happening to you or someone you care about
A disturbing thought that feels out of character or hard to make sense of
A memory that feels like it is happening again rather than something that already happened
The key feature is that it feels unwanted and difficult to control. You are not trying to solve something. You are not choosing to dwell on it. It feels like your brain hit play on something you would rather not see.
For men with trauma, intrusive thoughts often connect to past experiences where you felt overwhelmed, unsafe, or powerless. Your brain stored those experiences in a way that is more sensory and emotional than logical. So when something in the present reminds your brain of the past, even in a small way, the old memory can pop up fast and hard.
How Overthinking Is Different
Overthinking, or rumination, is different. Overthinking is when your mind keeps circling around the same problem, worry, or decision. It often sounds like:
“Why did I say that?”
“What if I mess this up?”
“I should have done that differently.”
“What if this goes wrong?”
Overthinking feels like mental looping. You are trying to figure something out, prevent something bad, or make sense of a situation. The thoughts are repetitive, but they feel more like extended problem solving, even if they are not actually helpful. With overthinking, you usually know what the topic is. Work. Money. A relationship. A mistake you made. It is still stressful, but it is more narrative and verbal. Intrusive thoughts, on the other hand, often feel more like mental images, body reactions, or emotional jolts. They can feel sudden, intense, and disconnected from what you were just doing. There can be overlap. You can ruminate about a past event and also have intrusive images from it. But it helps to understand that not all mental noise is the same. Sometimes you are stuck in a loop. Other times your brain is replaying something that still feels unfinished.
The Trauma Connection
Trauma changes how the brain stores and retrieves memories. When something overwhelming happens, especially if you felt trapped, powerless, or in danger, the memory is often stored with a lot of sensory detail and emotional charge. Later on, when something reminds your brain of that past event, the memory can come back in pieces. Not as a calm story, but as flashes, images, body sensations, or intense emotions. This is one reason trauma-related intrusive thoughts can feel so real and so hard to shake. Many men mislabel these experiences. They tell themselves they are just anxious, just stressed, or just thinking too much. But trauma-related intrusive thoughts are not just overthinking. They are your brain reacting as if the past is still relevant in the present. This is not a sign that you are weak or broken. It is a sign that your brain learned to be on high alert in order to survive something difficult. The problem is that once the danger is over, the brain does not always get the memo right away.
Why Trying to Push the Thoughts Away Makes Them Worse
The natural reaction to an intrusive thought is to try to shut it down. You distract yourself. You scroll. You work more. You tell yourself to stop thinking about it. In the short term, distraction can help. But if pushing the thoughts away is your only strategy, the thoughts often come back stronger. This happens because your brain interprets the thought as something dangerous that must be avoided. The more your brain treats it like a threat, the more it flags it as important. It is similar to trying not to think about something specific. The effort to suppress it keeps it active in the background. So even though you do not want the thought, your brain keeps checking for it. This does not mean you should sit and force yourself to relive everything. It means that long term change usually comes from helping the brain process what happened differently, rather than just outrunning it forever.
How Intrusive Thoughts Affect Daily Life
Intrusive thoughts do not just stay in your head. They can shape how you live your life.
You might notice:
Trouble falling or staying asleep because your mind will not settle
Irritability or a short fuse because you are mentally tired from fighting your own thoughts
Difficulty concentrating because your attention keeps getting pulled away
Avoiding certain places, people, or situations that seem to trigger memories
Feeling emotionally numb or disconnected as a way to cope
From the outside, you might still look functional. You go to work. You show up for your family. But inside, it can feel like you are constantly managing mental noise that no one else sees.
What Actually Helps With Intrusive Thoughts
There is no magic switch that turns intrusive thoughts off. But there are ways to reduce how often they show up and how much control they have over you.
One piece is learning to notice a thought without automatically chasing it or fighting it. Instead of arguing with the thought, you practice recognizing, “That is a memory,” or “That is my brain reacting,” and then gently bringing your attention back to what you are doing right now.
Another piece is building your capacity to feel emotions in small, manageable ways. Many men have spent years trying not to feel certain things. Therapy helps you build the skill to tolerate feelings without getting overwhelmed, which makes intrusive thoughts less threatening over time.
And a big piece is trauma therapy itself.
How Trauma Therapy Reduces Intrusions Over Time
Evidence-based trauma therapy helps your brain reprocess past experiences so they feel more like memories and less like current threats. Over time, this reduces the intensity and frequency of intrusive thoughts. You learn that a thought or memory is not the same as something happening right now. Your brain starts to update its alarm system. The past becomes something you can remember without feeling pulled back into it. This work is structured and paced. It is not about flooding you with everything at once. It is about helping you build real confidence that you can handle what comes up and that you are not in danger just because a memory or image shows up.
If you have been calling it overthinking, but some of your thoughts feel sudden, intense, and hard to control, it might be worth looking a little closer. Especially if these thoughts connect to past experiences or are affecting your sleep, mood, or relationships. You do not have to keep managing this on your own. Trauma therapy is designed to help your brain and body settle, so intrusive thoughts lose their grip. If you want to understand what is going on in your mind and learn how to feel more in control of your reactions, schedule a free consultation call to see if we would be a good fit to work together.
About the Author
Brittany Shannon, Ph.D., is a trauma therapist for men with more than 10 years of experience. She trained in the VA system, working with veterans at both outpatient and residential levels of care, and brings that expertise into her private practice today. Based in Kentucky, Dr. Shannon offers virtual therapy across all 43 PSYPACT states, specializing in trauma recovery, PTSD treatment, and men’s mental health. Her work focuses on helping men heal from painful experiences, break free from survival mode, and move forward with clarity and confidence.
You don’t have to keep pushing through this on your own.
