how has this been for anyone else? I've completely handled this with self-reassurance and figuring it out but I have full understanding of why it's there. It's just that I still completely fear it with the movie I get when it pops up and how real that feels. I'm also curious how it started for anyone. Is it just linked to feeling like your going crazy? I'd love to hear your guys experiences! Thank you 🫶🏻
I go through this as well and it's so scary, but self reassurance and figuring it out won't help. It will only make the theme come back even stronger bc that's how ocd is. OCD latches onto things that will bring fear or worry, and if we ruminate by trying to "figure it out" or self reassure, it will only come back stronger. Something that has helped me is sitting with the discomfort and anxiety that this theme brings. Also accepting uncertainty. I still struggle but for the most part I'm able to get past it pretty quickly. I hope this helps you and just know that you'll get through this. If you have anymore questions feel free to ask!:)
@berryhoon yes, and it does come back stronger. I just want to tell someone abt these exact thoughts because I feel like I'm going crazy. I think the strong urge comes from when I'm around my family it's like an automatic thing for me to act "normal" (basically pretending like nothing wrong) and I just avoid these thoughts but I just feel hopeless to even try out sitting with the discomfort. It's so vivid. Do you say anything while sitting with the discomfort?
@nizhoni Not really, I just always remember that eventually the thoughts and feeling will pass. If I've been able to get past other themes then i can get past this one as well. And I always remember that thoughts come and go, thoughts are like clouds in the sky, they have no meaning they just pass by. It's pretty common for these kinds of thoughts and themes to make us feel like we're going crazy. So I totally feel you on that, but you have to just be passive about these thoughts. When you don't give a thought a reaction, it will eventually pass and get easier to not pay attention to. It's hard but I know you can become passive with the thoughts. It takes time and practice, overcoming this is a process and some days will be harder than others.
@nizhoni And sitting with the discomfort is hard as well. But I promise that when you just let the thoughts pass without any reaction, and when you sit with uncertainty and discomfort, eventually it will get easier to not pay attention to the thoughts or feelings. Also, if you're doing erp with a therapist, that can help as well:)
@berryhoon Thank you so much! I feel like I may have perfectionism because I want things to be perfect. The set of thoughts for when abt to doing something. I'm afraid of doing it wrong & something becoming a compulsion (saying feelings will pass or that their just thoughts). I've listened to a podcast about perfectionism & they mentioned this. also how do you know if it's become a compulsion. For the panic rn, I feel like that's all to my avoidance urge or compulsion? I've always just did that and never sat with the feelings for many years. I have been getting out & doing things I feared but now I realize I'm not approaching it w addressing the discomfort. I was just checking for the thoughts and waiting to leave. theirs so much work to do and I have such a difficult time being unconditionally self-accepting. My family & I are struggling to pay for the basic necessities, so I won't be able to afford a therapist. I do have chances with reaching out to my insurance and seeing if they can do a reimbursement. That's my only chance, and I've been putting it off :\
Heyyy ! When I was going through pocd I literally thought that I was going through psychosis or something because it made me feel like I liked my thoughts ( which i absolutely didn’t) and I got sentences in my head like it’s not ocd I am just going crazy was really horrible 😢😢
@emnav I'm so sorry to hear how distressing that was for you 🙁 if you don't mind me asking, how did you get through that?
@nizhoni I still didn’t haha trying to, reducing compulsions and ERP and trying to be busy most of the time !
@emnav oh haha, nice!! if you don't mind me asking, could we message more abt this on instagram?
@nizhoni Yes sure you can give me your Instagram I will message you !
@emnav it's @ni2honi
I am going trough that kind of thoughts in this moment of my life I literally did a test online on psychosis yesterday, because I thought I was crazy. That's really terrible but not truth
I am so sorry that you struggle so much with this, i know. And i can relate. For me the first time i experienced this theme when i was in quarantaine with my two sons for 2.5 weeks (i am a single, co-parenting dad). I was extremely high in my anxiety and the first evening that they were with me i got intrusive images of them, lying in bed dead, all covered in blood with the intrusive feeling that i did that. That was the first time that i got the fear of getting into a psychosis. I still have it sometimes, and it gets loud when i am high in stress and anxiety, and i feel that i am loosing control (yesterday actually, when i slammed on the table out of dispair). I go through these kinds of things by reminding myself that i have, and would never hurt them (self reassurance). But it is relentlessly tough
@Mau NL thank you for reading and sharing your experience 🫶🏻 it brings hope for this scary disorder! I'm sorry to hear that. have you been able to get help with a NOCD therapist? It also correlates with the feeling of loosing control for me too bcs then that makes it feel that much realer.
Yeah I had a very hard time when I had a psychosis theme. It was because my girlfriend suffered a severe psychotic break and was hospitalized which made me fear the same thing could happen to me. The obsessions surrounding psychosis gave me severe panic attacks and minor hallucinations purely due to the paranoia that I had psychosis. It also made me afraid to be alone and resulted in a complete loss of trusting my own brain and judgement.
@Huntersvillelion I'm so sorry to hear how hard that was for you. do you mind sharing what kind of hallucinations? I've been feeling I've reached that point. It's caused me to not get any sleep now. As I've been ruminating on why I even have this belief. Is this a theme your still working with?
@ashamed. It's not a theme I still deal with very often anymore, when it was at its most serious I'd stopped sleeping as well. The hallucinations primarily consisted of hearing overlapping voices in my head and visual snow and shadows. That theme faded out a couple of months ago and I've had little to no psychosis rumination nor hallucinations since. When did your psychosis rumination symptoms start?
@Huntersvillelion Also I wanted to ask we're you able to keep yourself from being alone? I've also dealt with voices in my head too (were they of your own voice?) and shadows currently. It just faded as in you lead on with life and eventually wasn't a primary theme?
@ashamed. I was completely unable to keep myself from being alone, everytime I was alone I would have severe panic attacks and end up calling someone over to my house no matter what time of the day or night it was. I ended up staying at my mother's house for a few days to avoid being alone as often as possible. The voices I was hearing were the voices of my girlfriend and her psychotic delusions. It did eventually just fade into the background
Ok.. so another one of my fears is the fear of being schizophrenic or psychotic. I’m 9 weeks post partum and I read about psychosis and it freaked me out!! I’m 29 years old and I know schizophrenia happens in your teens or early 20s. My therapist told me that as long as I don’t have a voice telling me to act on my intrusive images or thoughts that it’s not psychotic. Once she said that later that day the words “do it” kept repeating in my mind. I have 0 desire to harm anyone and I’ve never been a violent person. If anyone has experienced something similar please share! I feel like my mind loves to switch things up and play tricks on me.
Any one who has/had the fear of becoming schizophrenic? I rarely find people with this theme :(
So who here has intrusive thoughts about going insane or ending up in a mental hospital or just general fear of having anxiety and then get anxiety? Or fear of going out to events or places with family or friends and having intense anxiety? I don't see many people saying they have this. Intrigued to know.
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