Hey there, very new here. Is there anyone else around who suffers from Schizophrenia OCD? I'm in the midst of a coming-up-on-two-months-long episode with this now, and it's really making my life hard. I am absolutely convinced that I have the disorder, so convinced that I believe my OCD diagnosis to be merely part of the prodrome. I have seen an ER physician, a psychiatrist, a therapist, and a mental health worker specializing in early intervention in Psychosis, and they've all said that what I'm going through is nothing but OCD. I really want to believe them, but I'm constantly thinking that they've missed something or that I neglected to tell them one crucial symptom or that I still have the disorder, but it's too early for an outsider to pick up on it. I am very, very exhausted, as I'm sure you can imagine. Do any of you with this obsession have some strategies for coping? Or is there anyone here who has beaten it and can give me some insight into how I can too? Thanks a lot.

I’m new to treatment and only realized I have OCD a few months ago. I went through a tough and abusive marriage and ended up getting divorced. I had my first panic attack several years ago and ended up needing to go on Lexapro. This helped me significantly and allowed me to leave my partner. Several years later and I decided to stop Lexapro because I thought I was good to go. I’m in a very healthy relationship, have a great job, friends/family, go to the gym and have a wonderful life. It’s been about a year off the meds and I’ve had some panic, but I’ve been able to manage it. For some reason, the last three weeks has been really difficult for me. I have different spirals and different thought processes: what if I’m schizophrenic? What if I have a deeper mental disorder? What if I hurt someone? What if I need to leave my partner? What if I end up becoming so depressed that I end up hurting myself? My brain just goes from one what if to the next and once I conquer one, the next one pops up with even more intensity. I started taking NAC and inositol and I’m taking saffron during the day because I really don’t wanna go on back on medication but sometimes my thoughts scare me and I’m convinced that I’m not gonna get better and I know that’s just the OCD loop, but I’m wondering if this resonates with anyone else!

I have been having these fears about developing schizophrenia, it reached a point where i am starting to almost hear things or the smallest sounds and my mind tells me you're schizophrenic, and i feel this weird sensations in my ear as if someone is whispering yet i can barely hear them, the thing is i am not diagnosed yet because i never work with an OCD therapist but i study psychology so i just used what i learnt to give a meaning to my suffering, many themes of this fear have been happening before and this schizophrenia fear is the last one. I want to know what advice you can give me or ways to make my brain calm down a little bit, i also don't have and can't afford a therapist that's why i am here in the first place I also want to know more informations or experiences with this theme if anyone habe experienced it and what helped you with it I remember feeling better for a while but than i collapsed back, but i am hoping to get better soon too or anytime in the future, I don't want reassurance so make sure you be as real as you can, and thanks 🙏🏻

Some background: I’m a woman in my 30s who’s been struggling to find the right diagnosis for years. Since 2022, I’ve had multiple psych hospital stays, and with each stay came a different diagnosis and different sets of medications: Bipolar II, CPTSD, MDD with psychotic features, “high functioning BPD,” and most recently, Schizoaffective Disorder (depressive type). Before all of that happened, I had been seeing a therapist for CPTSD and AuDHD traits for 2 years, but after they left the practice, I struggled to find someone I trusted again. Most of my breakdowns happened during my last relationship. Looking back, I was in survival mode with them, leaving who *I* am behind. I got to the point where I started doubting my own reality from the abuse. This eventually added up and landed me in my first episode of psychosis. That combined with my attempts is what got me my schizoaffective diagnosis. After finally leaving that relationship 1.5 years ago, I’ve slowly rebuilt my life: new town, new job, new friends. Many of my old symptoms (major ones) haven’t returned, which makes me believe I may have been misdiagnosed due to reliving past childhood trauma and stress responses from the abuse. Through all of this, I’ve felt like nothing ever truly fit. I journal, I reflect, I replay the recordings and I’ve even watched old vlogs –the puzzle pieces still don’t come together. It’s left me feeling like I’ll never really know what’s going on, and I’ve started to fear that my diagnoses will just keep stacking up without ever leading to effective treatment. Recently, I opened up to a friend about this. She mentioned that her neighbor went through something similar not exactly like me but she thought it would give me a starting point—multiple diagnoses that never felt right—until a new doctor finally identified it as OCD. That one diagnosis changed everything for her. It made me realize I really don’t know much about OCD beyond the stereotypes. I didn’t know OCD could involve intrusive thoughts, rumination, or mental compulsions. My friend encouraged me to look into it, especially as I start searching for a new therapist. Facebook and Google lead me here… So now I’m wondering: could OCD be a better explanation for what I’ve been experiencing all these years? Questions for the community: 1. What steps did you take to find out if OCD was what you were dealing with? 2. If you had a long history of misdiagnoses, how did you finally find a clinician who got it right? 3. How did you advocate for yourself when people dismissed your concerns? 4. Is there anything you wish you had done earlier in your OCD journey? Thank you so much if you made it this far. I’m really grateful for this space and just want to start finding answers and the right kind of help.