Just discovered this app, and feel like it’s the place to maybe find someone who relates/some support. So, cue rant! I’ve always been a more anxious type person, hypochondriac, fearing loss of control, but it was never to a overtaking extent. 3 years ago, I underwent a burnout during school and starting experiencing physical symptoms of anxiety and panic - which scared the sh*t out of me. That was enough to start a cycle of fear and obsession about being anxious itself. It started experiencing alllll the symptoms, DP, difficulty sleeping, hyperawareness and constant checking. I would constantly check in on my breathing and mind to see if I was feeling anxious, hoping that it would go away. Obviiiiiously, as you all know, the checking never helps 😂. So I entered a vicious cycle. I ended up seeing a therapist and starting escitalopram which pretty much *cured* me within weeks/couple months. Since then, I’ve been pretty stable and ok! I actually stopped my medication approx 6 months ago, without any issues. Until last month. I’ve been through the most dreadful year, purchasing a house, renovating, being a front line health worker, you name it, this year was terrible! In December, I started feeling close to that feeling I felt before burnout; but I was still ok. Then, I watched a psychological thriller where the person has split personality/schizophrenia/psychosis, that same night I had a panic attack. Then that week, while watching tv, the show had a person going through a massive psychotic episode. *Cue the rumination cycle* I just started panicking that I would lose my mind. I started feeling disconnected, fearing loss of touch with reality, insight. I googled and googled away for symptoms of psychosis, schizophrenia, delusions, you name it - I looked it up. I then started the whole cycle of ruminating, catastrophizing. I constantly was scanning my environment for proof/disproof that I was in fact going to develop psychosis, looking for possible hallucinations. It brought me to such a state of hyper vigilance and hyperawareness and self checking that EVERYTHING triggers fear/anxiety in me. It’s almost as if nothing feels real, and I’m pretty petrified. I’m analyzing my thoughts, constantly questioning if they’re normal or not, and obviously that causes more and more anxiety. I just constantly look in my surroundings analyzing everything, seeing if they “feel/look normal” and obviously, when you analyze anything that much, everything seems weird and off. I would be triggered by the slightest glare or frown from a stranger, fearing that I was becoming paranoid or delusional. I imagine the scariest scenarios and things, and I honestly don’t even know why at this point. All to say, I guess I’m scared of being scared - which is triggering so much hyperawareness which is making my whole world and thought process distorted. I restarted the medication almost 4 weeks ago and it’s helping with the anxiety but the thoughts are so all-consuming. I have an appointment with my therapist next week, and I just can’t wait to start to get the ball rolling ! Have any of you experienced anything like this? Mental health OCD? What helped you? Let me know 🤍 * I want to clarify that I’m not in any way trying to stigmatize the community really suffering from psychosis,schizophrenia or any other mental health disorder, all my love and strength to you all. This is simply about rumination about a certain theme*

Hello, I’m new to this app. I’ve always had an anxious brain, and I’ve had coping mechanisms for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, from as early as I could spell, until I was probably early teens, I would constantly write words in my head along to the beat of music. It’s such a vivid memory because I never stopped doing it. The word had to perfectly match up to the lyric and I loved that it kept my brain busy. I grew out of that, but felt like good context. My anxiety increased drastically around ages 17-19, and I began therapy. I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety and panic disorder, due to having a panic attack nearly every day at that time. I overcame that as well, and now the panic attacks are every now and then, but the anxiety is constant, and some recent symptoms have led me to believe I might have some form of OCD. Maybe not. I’m trying to understand myself and get better so I joined this app to make sense of things. Lately I’ve been having really intense intrusive thoughts. I’m really embarassed and they make me feel like a bad person. Thoughts pop in my head seemingly out of nowhere. It will be an image of me harming myself or someone else in a really bad way. (Trigger warning) for example the other day I couldn’t shake the image of me putting a knife through my own forehead, although it’s not something I want to do. Or I’ll imagine someone killing me. I imagine my loved ones dying often. The thoughts feel so out of my control it’s insane. I hate them. Another persistent issue that isn’t as new is replaying social scenarios. I’m a hairstylist so this one is difficult since I meet a bunch of new people every day. I obsess over how I act and if people like me. I will impulsively say things all the time and they will haunt me for weeks. I question even my closest friends and family who show their love. I find myself so angry and numb and like I have so much built up emotion and a busy mind always. While doing my job I spiral really badly if any little thing goes wrong and it’s embarassing. I know there’s more but I can’t think of it now. I just want to feel better and like I’m not constantly battling my mind.

Hi guys! I had really bad harm ocd about 2 years ago and I went through therapy and eventually got really good at handling it when it would pop up. The other day, I was scrolling on TikTok and came across a girl talking about a guy who was presenting a lot of schizophrenic symptoms but no one paid attention and got him help, he was having a lot of delusions, hallucinating, thinking everyone was out to get him, thought he was Jesus and his dad was the president and ended up doing horrific things. The day after that, I was dealing with some work drama and had the thought of “what if all my coworkers are against me and trying to get me fired”. That really stressed me out, cause I don’t normally think about them like that and I went down a rabbit hole of thinking that was the beginning of me developing schizophrenia, ended up googling stuff all night, taking tests, crying and seeking reassurance. I had a thought the other day “your dad is the president”, this one didn’t stress me out as bad as I knew it was just the video I had seen and it was an intrusive thought about it, and I also didn’t believe it. Today I was with some friends and I got a prize at a place we went and it said “lonely” on it. I do have my moments of feeling lonely and this week has been specifically trying so I had a thought like “oh someone’s out to get me cause I got this”. I know this isn’t logical and it wouldn’t make sense to just randomly get it if someone was truly after me and it was just a stupid prize at a random place, anyone could’ve gotten it. Im just struggling a lot with schizophrenic OCD and thinking I’m in the pre stages of it. In my good moments, I don’t think I am at all and it was all just sparked from the video I watched but in my bad moments, these thoughts feel real!! They really stress me out and make me feel like I’m going to lose my mind causing me to lose my job/ end up in a psych hospital/ never live a normal life/ end up alone, never see me my loved ones/ hurt my loved ones. I just want to feel normal and not like I’m about to lose my mind and everything I care about. Please help!!! Anyone else going through something similar and can help me get through this!

I recently got diagnosed with OCD back in May of this year. What started it was a month prior, I took an SSRI which triggered an extremely intense couple of days due to panic attacks I’ve never had before. I’ve never had panic attacks but pretty intense anxiety. That’s when I started experiencing DPDR and hyper awareness. I’m good some days, but other days it’s so so hard. Especially because I have no one around me that understands. The DPDR and awareness of every feeling, thought, and just overall awareness of my existence gets really overwhelming. I feel like I’m losing my mind. It’s really hard to sit with my thoughts especially when they’re on a constant loop of every little thing I’m thinking and doing and on top of that feeling like I’m in a dream. I desperately just want to go back to how I was 4 months ago, but I know that’s just not possible right now. If anyone has experienced this and is doing much better now or even currently experiencing this please let me know! I need someone to relate to lol