It’s Not Who They Are: Making Sense of Taboo Thoughts in Adolescents

A parent sits across from me, their face pale.

“She said she was scared she’d hurt someone. What does that mean? Who is she becoming?”

It is a question I’ve heard in many forms. Parents, understandably terrified, wrestle with intrusive thoughts that sound dangerous, perverse, even monstrous. The content—violence, sex, blasphemy, cruelty—cuts so sharply against their child’s character that they struggle to square the two.

Let me be clear from the beginning:

These thoughts are not who your child is.

They are not signs of future violence, sexual deviance, or sociopathy.

They are the psyche’s attempt to make sense of new forces rising within the self—forces every adolescent meets.

Adolescence: The Collision of Impulse and Conscience

Taboo thoughts in adolescence often arise at the exact moment the psyche is trying to reckon with something it has never encountered in this form before:

• Sexual impulses

• Aggressive urges

• A sudden capacity for cruelty, autonomy, even fantasy

• An awareness of harm and vulnerability in others

All of this is developmentally appropriate—but also profoundly destabilising.

It’s as if the adolescent mind, unsure what to do with these forces, casts them into exaggerated and frightening forms. They may think:

“What if I lost control?”

“What if I hurt someone?”

“What if I’m secretly capable of something awful?”

These thoughts often take root in the most moral, empathic young people. Why? Because the intrusive thought is a form of internal protest:

“I don’t want to be this person.”

But because the feelings cannot be integrated symbolically, they arrive like an accusation.

The Macbeth Effect

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth scrubs at invisible blood on her hands.

“Out, damned spot!” she cries.

The guilt is not rational. The stain is not literal. But the psyche registers the transgression.

Adolescents with taboo intrusive thoughts experience a version of this:

They haven’t committed a crime. They’ve merely thought a thought.

And yet the shame is visceral, the urge to cleanse relentless.

What Can Parents Do?

1. Hold your fear without letting it leak.

Your child is already terrified. Your calm is their anchor.

2. Don’t analyse the content too literally.

Intrusive thoughts aren’t messages. They’re symptoms of anxiety, not declarations of identity.

3. Use symbolic \ metaphorical language.

Try saying: “It sounds like your mind is trying to warn you about something scary—but it’s overreacting. Let’s figure out what it’s really afraid of.”

4. Trust in development.

These thoughts often emerge at the cusp of growth. With help, your child can come to understand—not fear—their inner world.

To the Adolescent Reading This

You are not broken.

You are not your thoughts.

Your mind is trying to make sense of feelings and fears too big to name just yet.

And in time—you will.