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Yes, I've struggled with them. The really bad one for me was "what if I yank the steering wheel and drive into the tire of that tractor trailer," the thought of which made me so anxious it was hard to drive for a while.

IIRC they're strongly linked to ADHD and OCD

Random intrusive thoughts of violence and horrible acts are extremely common and not well discussed outside of clinical settings. The majority of people have had thoughts of any heinous act you can think of, yet the majority of people don't do these things and are repulsed by the thoughts. All that is to say, fucked up thoughts are actually normal, though most people don't even feel comfortable confessing these thoughts openly. But honestly, where do you think horror themed media comes from? In short, you have nothing to feel ashamed about. And if you have that thought in the back of your head that you're a budding serial killer or something, people who are actually dangerous don't worry about such things.

The lack of control and reprieve from these thoughts is the issue that needs to be addressed here. The quick answer of how to address this is talk with a therapist. There's specific techniques to help you work through this, many modes of it can be fairly short.

If you don't know how to get a therapist, DM me and I can help guide you in the right direction.

Aside from that, get out and exercise, eat healthy, and learn some mindfulness meditation.

I've had intrusive thoughts, your experience with the pliers is very familiar, but the rest is not. They've only ever been directed inwards. They ebb and flow along with my mental health more or less, but I don't have some grand revelation about them either.

Yeah all the time, inward and outward. Like you I would never act on them and as long as you know that they’re probably pretty harmless. Unless of course you dwell on them at which point I guess they become something else.

I get them a lot less on meds.

I thought everyone got them

I get them constantly and it’s always the most horrid shit. It’s like my brain is always angling for “hey, let’s speedrun ruining your life and becoming a household name for deplorable actions”.

My only advice is to recontextualize. Taking it as “my brain is telling me that it is aware of things to not do”. Is the only thing that really helps with that panic of “oh shit, my beak came up with that?!?!”.

This is going to seem cliche, but talk therapy really helped me deal with my depression and intrusive thoughts.

I've had intrusive thoughts for most of all my life, but I've gotten pretty good at compartmentalization, dismissing thoughts, refocusing on something else. Idk if the coping methods are the solution that worked for me, or if something else undefined was the solution/cause that allowed those methods to work. And I still have a really hard time with emotionally-loaded and/or interpersonal obsessive/intrusive thoughts that can run circles in my brain.

It's useful to internalize the fact that you aren't defined (solely) by your thoughts, that they aren't you, they're just a single facet of your malleable and fluid and complex consciousness. The "immediate thought" part, which for you and I tends to be intrusive, is talking to multiple other parts of your consciousness: notably your executive function, which can decide not to act on the thoughts, your metacognition and/or internal dialogue, which can choose not to dwell on the thoughts, your self-identity, which can reject the thoughts that don't align with your values, etc. Of the wide array of "voices" that comprise our consciousnesses, one is talking more loudly or taking a larger share of the mic than we'd like.

If mindfulness/cbt-type methods don't seem to work, I know there's medications for this stuff, although I don't have any experience with them. Perhaps a more psychoanalytical exploration of why your mind has developed these patterns, a potential root cause or drive, might also be useful.

Not to this extent, no. I struggled with suicidal ideation for a long time though, planning it, mentally living out my last moments over and over, justifications playing on a loop in my head for hours. Not exactly the same I admit, but intrusive thoughts nevertheless.

Mindfulness and cognitive behavioural therapy are really effective at controlling intrusive thoughts though, they helped me to get a handle on my thoughts even though they didn't do much to help with my underlying depression. It sounds like the intensity and nature of your thoughts are really having a negative impact on you, I'd recommend looking into therapy if it's available and either way, try some mindfulness practices, there are plenty of free resources. Neither therapy or mindfulness practice is a panacea, but you absolutely can develop a healthier relationship to your own thoughts.