Intrusive Thoughts, Superstitions

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Disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, or legal advice. If you are experiencing intrusive thoughts, anxiety, paranoia, OCD symptoms, or distress that impacts your daily life, please seek support from a qualified healthcare professional. If you feel at risk of harming yourself or others, seek urgent help immediately by contacting emergency services or a crisis support service in your country.

The Fear of “Bad Things Happening”: Understanding the Mind’s Most Unwanted Stories

Intrusive thoughts can feel frightening, exhausting, and, at times, completely convincing. They often arrive without warning, attach themselves to what you care about most, and flood the mind with “What if…?” scenarios that feel impossible to switch off.

For many people, intrusive thoughts don’t exist in isolation. They can become tangled with paranoia, fear of ulterior motives, and even superstitions, where a person starts to believe that avoiding certain numbers, places, or actions will somehow prevent disaster.

One well-known example is the fear of the number 13, which for some can become a powerful trigger, fuelled by cultural beliefs, traditions, and anxiety-based thinking. Ironically, some people (including the author of this article) were born on the 13th, proving that it is, in reality, simply a number… yet it can still hold emotional weight depending on how the mind interprets it.

This article explains what intrusive thoughts are, why they happen, what triggers them, how superstitions can connect to anxiety disorders, and how we can learn to overcome the fear-driven patterns that keep intrusive thoughts alive.

What Are Intrusive Thoughts?

Intrusive thoughts are unwanted, involuntary thoughts, images, urges, or doubts that suddenly appear in your mind. They may be:

• Disturbing
• Violent (even if you’d never act on them)
• Sexual (even if completely unwanted)
• Religious or blasphemous
• Paranoid or suspicious
• Catastrophic (“something bad is going to happen”)
• Health-related (“what if I’m seriously ill?”)

The keyword is intrusive: these thoughts push their way in and feel sticky, hard to ignore.

Intrusive thoughts are NOT your beliefs

A critical point: intrusive thoughts are not a reflection of who you are.

Most people who suffer deeply from intrusive thoughts are actually highly conscientious, because the thought is upsetting precisely because it clashes with their values.

Why Do Intrusive Thoughts Feel So Real?

Intrusive thoughts become powerful when the brain mislabels them as danger signals.

Your mind may respond as if the thought is:

• A warning
• A prediction
• A message
• A sign
• Evidence that you’re unsafe
• Evidence that someone else is unsafe

This creates a panic-loop:

1. Intrusive thought appears
2. You feel fear/shame/disgust
3. You try to suppress it or neutralise it
4. Your brain learns: “that thought is dangerous.”
5. It returns more frequently

This is why the hardest part is often not the thought itself, but the meaning we attach to it.

Common Triggers That Cause Intrusive Thoughts to Manifest

Intrusive thoughts often flare during periods of stress, uncertainty, and emotional overload. Common triggers include:

1) Ulterior motives and distrust

If you’ve been betrayed, manipulated, or traumatised, the brain can become hyper-alert to risk.

You may think:

• “They’re lying to me.”
• “They’re trying to trap me.”
• “They want something from me.”
• “This feels calculated.”

Even if there’s no solid evidence, the mind may seek certainty by creating “storylines”.

2) Paranoia-style thinking

Paranoia exists on a spectrum. In intrusive thinking, it can show up as:

• Fear someone is watching you
• Fear systems are working against you
• Feeling “set up.”
• Believing hidden intent exists behind ordinary events

This is especially common if you feel under pressure or unsupported.

3) Trauma and hypervigilance

If you’ve survived frightening experiences, your nervous system may remain in protective mode.

Your brain becomes an overactive security guard: it doesn’t want to miss danger again.

4) Superstitions and symbolic fear (numbers, signs, patterns)

This is where intrusive thoughts can merge into magical thinking:

• “If I do X, something bad will happen.”
• “If I don’t do Y, my loved one might suffer.”
• “That number is a warning.”
• “That’s a sign I’m in danger.”

This doesn’t mean someone is irrational; it means anxiety has hijacked logic.

What Are Superstitions?

A superstition is a belief that certain actions, objects, numbers, or events are linked to luck or misfortune, despite no proven causal connection.

✅ 30 Common Superstitions (Pick Any 20+)

1. Friday the 13th is unlucky
2. The number 13 is unlucky
3. Walking under a ladder brings bad luck
4. Breaking a mirror causes 7 years of bad luck
5. A black cat crossing your path is bad luck
6. Spilling salt brings bad luck
7. Throwing salt over your left shoulder cancels bad luck
8. Knocking on wood prevents bad luck (“touch wood”)
9. Opening an umbrella indoors causes misfortune
10. Stepping on cracks in the pavement brings bad luck
11. Seeing one magpie is unlucky (and two is lucky)
12. Saying “Macbeth” in a theatre brings bad luck (many call it “The Scottish Play”)
13. Whistling indoors brings bad luck
14. Whistling at night attracts bad spirits / bad luck
15. A bird flying into the house is a bad omen
16. A spider in the house brings good luck
17. Finding a penny brings luck (or “see a penny pick it up”)
18. Carrying a rabbit’s foot brings good luck
19. Four-leaf clovers are lucky
20. Horseshoes bring good luck (especially hung in certain directions)
21. “Bad luck comes in threes.”
22. Making a wish on a falling star
23. Making a wish when blowing out birthday candles
24. It’s bad luck to light three cigarettes with one match
25. If your palm itches, money is coming (or leaving)
26. Itchy ears mean someone is talking about you
27. Sneezing means someone is thinking/talking about you
28. A ringing in the ear means someone is speaking about you
29. A broken clock predicts death / bad news
30. If you spill wine, it means good luck is coming (varies by culture)
31. New shoes on a table bring bad luck
32. Leaving shoes upside-down brings bad luck
33. Giving someone a knife as a gift “cuts the friendship” unless they give a coin back
34. Seeing a hearse predicts bad luck
35. Owls are an omen (good or bad, depending on culture)
36. If you drop cutlery, it means visitors are coming
37. If a picture falls off the wall, something bad is coming
38. If you dream about teeth falling out, it means death/loss (common folk belief)
39. If the first person you see on New Year’s Day is dark-haired, you’ll have luck (first-footing tradition)
40. Wearing pearls brings tears (wedding superstition)

Superstitions often begin as cultural habits, but in anxiety disorders, they can become rules the brain insists you must obey.

The Link Between Intrusive Thoughts and Superstitions

Intrusive thoughts often generate fear, and the mind tries to reduce the fear by creating avoidance behaviours.

For example:

• avoiding a specific number
• refusing to book an appointment on a certain date
• not stepping on cracks
• repeating phrases or rituals
• checking behaviour repeatedly

These behaviours create a false feeling of safety.

The problem: the brain learns the wrong lesson

If the feared event doesn’t happen, the brain credits the superstition:

• See? You avoided it. You prevented the danger.

This strengthens the cycle.

This is why superstitions can become deeply linked to intrusive thoughts—particularly for people with OCD or anxiety conditions.

Why Is the Number 13 Considered Unlucky?

Fear of the number 13 is so common that it has a name: triskaidekaphobia.

Myth vs Fact: Why People Believe the Number 13 Is Bad Luck

Superstitions often feel real because they’ve been repeated for centuries, through religion, folklore, stories, and cultural habits. But when we break the myths down, we can see how the fear around 13 was largely learned, not proven.

1) MYTH: “13 is cursed / evil.”

✅ FACT: There is no scientific or factual evidence that 13 causes misfortune; it’s a cultural belief pattern.

2) MYTH: “13 is unlucky because of the Bible.”

✅ FACT: The “13 guests” belief is connected to the Last Supper (Jesus + 12 disciples), where Judas is sometimes referred to as the 13th guest, but this is symbolic storytelling, not proof of bad luck.

3) MYTH: “Jesus was crucified on Friday the 13th.”

✅ FACT: Jesus was crucified on a Friday in Christian tradition, but there is no biblical proof that it occurred on “Friday the 13th.” The Friday + 13 link grew later through folklore.

4) MYTH: “13 is unlucky because it brings death.”

✅ FACT: In Tarot, the 13th Major Arcana card is Death, but even in Tarot, the card typically symbolises transformation and change, not literal death.

5) MYTH: “13 has always been unlucky.”

✅ FACT: Not globally. In Italy, 13 is traditionally considered lucky, while 17 is often seen as unlucky instead. This proves superstition is cultural, not a universal truth.

6) MYTH: “13 became feared because of the Knights Templar arrests.”

✅ FACT: Many people repeat this story (arrests on Friday, 13 October 1307), but historians suggest the fear of Friday the 13th was popularised later, and this may be a retrofitted explanation.

7) MYTH: “13 is unlucky for a mysterious reason.”

✅ FACT: One theory is numerical symbolism: 12 is seen as “complete” (12 months, 12 zodiac signs, 12 apostles), so 13 feels like an irregular ‘extra’ number, which humans psychologically dislike.

8) MYTH: “13 people eating together brings death.”

✅ FACT: This belief is centuries old and linked to the Last Supper narrative, but again, it’s folklore, not evidence.

9) MYTH: “13 is bad luck because it attracts chaos.”

✅ FACT: In Norse mythology, 12 gods are said to have been at a banquet before Loki arrived as the 13th guest, and tragedy followed. This story is another folklore source that fed the fear of 13.

10) MYTH: “Avoiding 13 is sensible.”

✅ FACT: Avoidance actually strengthens fear. When hotels/airlines skip 13 (no 13th floor or row), it reinforces the message that 13 must be dangerous, which can worsen anxiety and intrusive-thought loops.

11) MYTH: “If something bad happens on the 13th, it proves the superstition.”

✅ FACT: This is called confirmation bias, the brain notices and remembers events that “match” the belief and ignores everything that contradicts it. (Most people have perfectly normal days on the 13th.)

12) MYTH: “13 is a sign from the universe that something bad is coming.”

✅ FACT: Anxiety can turn neutral symbols into “warnings.” This is especially common in OCD/intrusive thoughts, where the brain looks for patterns and meaning to feel safe.

The World Avoids 13… But That Doesn’t Make It Dangerous

It’s true that many places remove 13 entirely:

• Some hotels skip the 13th floor
• Some buildings label it 14 instead
• Some airlines avoid row 13
• Some airports avoid Gate 13

But this is not proof of danger; it is proof of how powerful collective belief is.

If society treats 13 as “bad,” anxious brains will absorb the message and reinforce fear.

Intrusive Thoughts and the Fear That “Something Bad Will Happen”

This is one of the most painful parts for sufferers.

A person may experience:

• fear of harm
• fear of jinxing something
• fear of being responsible
• fear of “tempting fate”
• fear that ignoring a sign will lead to tragedy

So they avoid triggers or perform rituals “just in case.”

But intrusive thoughts thrive on “just in case.”

I Was Born on the 13th: Reclaiming Meaning

There is something beautifully rebellious and deeply empowering about saying:

• I was born on the 13th… and I refuse to let it control me.

Because that’s the real truth:

13 is not a curse. It’s a number.

And for some people, it can even become symbolic of resilience:

• Overcoming fear
• Refusing false narratives
• Reclaiming identity
• Challenging superstition
• Taking power away from anxiety

How to Overcome Intrusive Thoughts

1) Stop arguing with the thought

Intrusive thoughts are like quicksand: the more you fight, the deeper you sink.

Instead:

• That’s an intrusive thought.
• My brain is sending fear again.
• This is anxiety, not truth.

2) Don’t try to prove the fear wrong

The mind will demand certainty:

• Are you sure nothing bad will happen?
• Are you sure it’s safe?

But certainty is the drug intrusive thoughts crave.

A more powerful approach is:

• I can’t have 100% certainty, and I’m going to live anyway.

3) Reduce avoidance behaviour

• Avoidance keeps fear alive.
• If 13 triggers someone, avoidance teaches:
• 13 is dangerous.

Exposure teaches:

• 13 is tolerable.

This can be as gentle as:

• Writing “13” on paper
• Using it as a password number
• Booking something on the 13th
• Sitting in row 13 (if available)

4) Learn the difference between a thought and a fact

• A thought is a mental event.
• A fact is an evidence-based reality.
• Intrusive thoughts often blur the boundary.
• Training yourself to label thoughts correctly is life-changing.

5) Seek support if you’re struggling

CBT and ERP therapy (Exposure and Response Prevention) are commonly used to treat OCD/intrusive-thought patterns.

You do not have to cope alone.

Why We Should Embrace Thinking Differently and Reject Superstitions

Superstitions were often created to help humans cope with uncertainty in a world that once felt uncontrollable.

But today, they can become another prison, especially for vulnerable minds.

Imagine if society embraced:

• Logic over fear
• Individuality over tradition
• Freedom over avoidance
• Resilience over superstition

The number 13 would return to what it has always been:

A neutral symbol.

Not a Prophecy. Not a Warning. Not a Threat.

Final Thoughts

Intrusive thoughts don’t mean something is wrong with your character. They mean your brain is trying to protect you, but doing it in a distorted way.

Don’t get me wrong, I battle with intrusive thoughts, especially when people try to plant seeds in my head, causing me to become paranoid that someone is trying to entrap or out to get me. Ironically, I was born on the 13th, but I try not think too hard about the superstition. My problem is people being condescending and trying to manipulate me, and that’s when my thoughts start to go into overdrive. I am learning to let go, so as soon as a bad thought pops into my head, I try to dismiss it and distract myself in order for it not to play over and over again like a broken record. Most of the time, it works, but I guess there will always be something that may trigger me.

Superstitions can attach themselves to those thoughts and create powerful “rules” that keep fear alive. The number 13 is one of the most common examples, but when you zoom out, it’s a cultural story, not a reality.

If you were born on the 13th, that isn’t an omen.

It’s proof that 13 can symbolise:

• Life, not misfortune.
• Strength, not danger.
• And above all…freedom from fear.