You’ve been fighting your intrusive thoughts and yet they keep coming back, often stronger than before. But there are some reasons why these thoughts seem to get worse of even stronger. Once we understand that, everything can beging changing.
I’m going to show you why your intrusive thoughts behave exactly like trolls and why every response you’ve been giving them has been making them worse. This isn’t about trying harder. It’s about understanding what these thoughts actually want from you, and what happens when you stop giving it to them.
We’ll talk about why intrusive thoughts are trolls and what that reveals about how to handle them, the sneaky ways we feed them without realizing it, the cycle that keeps you stuck and how to break it, what non-reaction actually looks like in real life, and why freedom isn’t the absence of the thought — it’s the absence of fear when it arrives.
If you struggle with intrusive thoughts, OCD, scrupulosity, or just can’t seem to quiet the mental noise — this one is for you. You are not your intrusive thoughts. And you don’t have to keep fighting them the way you have been.
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If you’ve been fighting your intrusive thoughts and wondering why they keep coming back stronger, I want to offer you a reframe today that might change everything: your intrusive thoughts are trolls.
Stick with me here, because this isn’t just a clever metaphor. It’s actually one of the most practically helpful ways I’ve found to understand what intrusive thoughts are doing — and why so many of our well-meaning responses to them make things worse.
What Is a Troll, Anyway?
If you’ve spent any time on the internet, you know exactly what a troll is. It’s someone who shows up in the comments section not to have a real conversation, but simply to provoke you. They say something outrageous, offensive, or disturbing — something designed to get under your skin. And here’s the key thing: they don’t actually care what you say back. They just want you to react. The moment you engage, they’ve won. And they will keep going as long as you keep responding.
That’s an intrusive thought in a nutshell.
Why Intrusive Thoughts Are Trolls
Let’s look at the parallels, because they are striking:
They show up uninvited. Nobody asks for an intrusive thought. It just arrives — often at the most inconvenient or vulnerable moments.
The content is designed to provoke. Intrusive thoughts tend to be offensive, disturbing, or outrageous. They’re not random noise — they seem specifically designed to get under your skin.
They turn your values upside down. This is one of the most painful parts. Intrusive thoughts often attack the things you care about most. A devoted parent gets violent thoughts about their child. A sincere believer gets blasphemous thoughts about God. The thought targets what matters most to you — and that’s not a coincidence.
They often accuse and intimidate. Like a bully, intrusive thoughts don’t just visit — they make declarations. You’re a bad person. You’re dangerous. You don’t really believe what you think you believe.
They only want a reaction. This is the most important thing to understand. The intrusive thought is not trying to help you work something out. It is not revelation. It is not God speaking. It is not a window into your true self. It is trolling you. And engagement is its only food source.
The more you respond, the stronger the thought becomes. The more it escalates. And the more deeply conditioned your brain becomes to treat that thought as an emergency.
The Troll Takes Any Reaction
Here’s where it gets uncomfortable — because most of us have been feeding the troll without realizing it.
What does feeding the troll look like? Things like getting into a debate with the thought, arguing with it, trying to convince yourself you’re not what it says, searching the internet to see if your thoughts make you a problem, confessing the thought repeatedly hoping to achieve relief, praying specifically for the thought to go away, or avoiding anything that might trigger the thought again.
This can invade our spiritual responses. Sometimes Christians assume that because they’re praying, confessing, repenting or engaging in spiritual warfare, they’re doing something fundamentally different. But if the motivation is to neutralize the disturbance — to get relief from the thought — you are still feeding the troll.
The Cycle That Keeps You Stuck
Here’s how the intrusive thought cycle typically works. A thought arrives, creating a sense of disturbance. You react by doing something to neutralize or “appease” the thought. You get temporary relief. Then the thought returns later, stronger.
And here’s something that often surprises people: the troll learns. It learns which thoughts get the biggest reaction out of you. If you successfully argue down a blasphemous thought, it may shift to a violent one. If you manage to resolve the violent thought, it moves to a sexual one. The content is not the point. Your reaction is the point.
Why Well-Meaning Strategies Backfire
Some of the most common responses to intrusive thoughts actually make them worse. Thought suppression — “don’t think about that” — applies LAW to a thought and increases the fear and perceived danger around it. Telling yourself not to think about something is one of the fastest ways to make sure you keep thinking about it. Reassurance-seeking provides temporary relief, but it trains the brain to need more and more reassurance over time. Over-confession sets us up for a loop — because the resolution we’re looking for never quite arrives.
Spiritual warfare framing can give an intrusive thought the status of a demonic attack, that can actually inflate its significance in your mind, which inflames the OCD response.
What Non-Reaction Actually Looks Like
Non-reaction is not suppression. That’s the counterintuitive part. You’re not pushing the thought away or pretending it didn’t arrive. You’re simply choosing not to feed it.
It might sound something like this: “There’s that troll again.” Or, “My mind is checking for threats. I don’t feel safe right now. And that’s okay. I’m learning to be loved right where I am.” Or simply, “I notice this thought. I’m not going to give it my energy. I’m going to return my attention to what is real and true.”
You feel the disturbance, but you don’t feed it. You name it for what it is — a troll, not revelation. Not a hidden message. Not a window into your soul.
And here’s something worth sitting with: God is not an intrusive thought. When we find ourselves relating to God as though He might ambush us with a disturbing thought — as though He’s waiting around the corner to interrupt our peace — that tells us something important about how we’re relating to Him. Letting the intrusive thought pass without reaction is actually an act of maturing our image of God. It helps us stop relating to Him through a lens of fear and accusation.
What the Troll Doesn’t Tell You
There are two things working underneath the surface of every intrusive thought: shame and fear. Fear of the thought itself — What does it mean that I thought this? Shame for having the thought at all — Something must be wrong with me. These two forces are what cause us to over-react. And the troll counts on them.
But here’s the truth: the content of the thought is not your identity. Intrusive thoughts are not a window into who you really are — they are a troll targeting what you value most. A loving parent gets violent thoughts about their child precisely because they love their child. A devoted believer gets blasphemous thoughts precisely because their faith matters to them deeply. You do not strengthen your identity by arguing with the troll. You strengthen it by not taking the bait.
What Happens When You Stop Feeding It
Over time, when you stop reacting, something remarkable begins to happen. The thought loses its charge — this is called habituation, and it is your brain doing exactly what it was designed to do. The volume lowers. The urgency fades. You stop organizing your life around avoiding the trigger.
Let me be clear about what freedom actually looks like here: freedom is not the absence of the thought. It’s about no longer be afraid of the thought that gives you leverage and a road to victory.
You regain your ability to choose where your attention goes. You get stronger in your faith. And as you experience some wins — moments where the troll showed up and you simply didn’t engage — you build a new kind of confidence. I can do this. I’ve done it before.
If you’ve been fighting your intrusive thoughts and wondering why they keep coming back stronger — now you know. You’ve been feeding the troll. And that’s okay. Everyone who struggles with intrusive thoughts has done this. I have. Over and over again. Nobody taught us.
But starting today, you can begin to practice something different. Not fighting. Not suppressing. Just… not feeding it.
You’re not alone in this, and there is a way through.
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