Do you ever get an urge to do something terrible that you dont actually want to do?? Afraid about becoming Schizophrenic?

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Ever since i was a small child i remember getting these horrible thoughts to do terrible things that i really did NOT want to do—almost like when you get the urge to jump off a building or bridge when youre standing there looking over the edge. It would make me very uncomfortable while i mentally fought myself about not doing whatever it was i was thinking about until i inevitably got distracted or just forgot. For example my earliest memory of this was when i was in the back seat of my moms car driving down the highway and i was fighting the urge to throw my beloved security blanket out the window. As ive grown up these thoughts have continued: i was at a group meeting for one of my university classes and i was resisting the urge to take my clothes off and start beating everyone up (lol..) or sometimes when im on my computer and my dog—my best friend—is curled up next to me i have the urge to hit him. I would .NEVER. hurt him and would NEVER act out any of these thoughts but its still alarming and uncomfortable to get them and have to mentally struggle with not enacting the actions my brain is proposing...

I'm sure im not the only person to experience the phenomenon of feeling the totally unwanted urge to jump of a bridge when youre looking out over the edge, so im wondering if anybody has experienced anything similar to what i am describing..
My uncle is a schizophrenic so that gene must run somewhere close to my family, also i am at the age where this thing usually comes around (23ish) and lately i have been really stressed which i know can definitely act as a catalyst.
i feel pretty mentally healthy and well put together for the most part besides some stress, so im not terribly concerned about being schizophrenic, but i guess i am concerned enough to post something about it...

Anything that anybody can contribute or share as incite to this peculiarity would be greatly appreciated.
thanks!

Hi, theboythatflew. These sorts of unwanted thoughts are not uncommon and don't necessarily indicate schizophrenia. It seems that somewhere in the brain all sorts of random thoughts get created and then there is a filter that suppresses most of them before we are aware of them--but sometimes they do reach consciousness before they are suppressed. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrusive_thoughts which describes exactly these types of thoughts.

Since there is schizophrenia in the family of course you want to keep an eye on the possibility. If you hear voices (possibly the thoughts getting mistaken by the brain for real hearing) you certainly should get to a doctor; though in schizophrenia it's likely that other people will notice problems before you do. But intrusive thoughts are also common in the autistic spectrum, ADHD, OCD, post-traumatic stress disorder and a lot of other conditions. In fact it looks like the thoughts themselves are just part of common human experience, and the problem is when you can't treat them as nothing and dismiss them.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_inhibition#Low_latent_inhibition which is another possible cause.