- Username
- cloudy place
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Hey friend! Common symptom in OCD, particularly if your theme revolves around health OCD. I have the same theme currently, and I’ve dealt with your particular issue in the past—although now it’s morphed into something else. The best part is I was having hyponopomic hallucinations upon waking up during that time as well. Like with all other obsessions, the answer is ERP therapy. For me, that meant exposures where I’d stare at images that cause visual hallucinations, or I’d set up screens to flash things in my periphery at random. Eventually, I stopped caring and focusing on it at all.
My main concern is how do I know that if is 100% my OCD. I sometimes sense movement in the corner of my eye and that my be because after some recent experience with seeing spiders moving in my peripheral vision I associate that experience with everything now. A stain on the carpet sticks out to me and I’m scared that it will move before I realize that it’s just a stain with my own eyes and that is whats driving me crazy. I don’t know if this is a form of hallucinations but my peripheral vision seems to heighten my whole environment to a degree that wasn’t there before and I don’t know how to manage it.
@midnightlight You can’t know it’s 100% just OCD. Not anymore than you can be 100% certain something bad won’t happen. The risk of being in a car accident is exponentially higher than the risk of developing psychosis, yet we still ride in cars every day. The same is true here. It’s just your OCD has latched on to this particular thought/awareness and you’re hyper-focused on it.
@NOCD Advocate - Carl Cornett Is seeing spots crawl in my peripheral vision part of being hyper aware?
I am terribly sorry you feel this way, I also have this issue with my OCD. To be honest, I am glad I found someone else with it as that provides assurance nothing is wrong. I talked to my therapist about it, the visual field is quite tricky. Our visual mistakes things for other things all the time, especially out of the periphery. You must first ACCEPT that you’re anxious about this. Rather than being afraid of the things you may see, know that everytime it occurs it’s an OCD thing/typical occurance with your visual field.
I totally agree with both replies above. You said "how do I diagnose this". To me, that question appears misguided. Perhaps you can change it to "how can I respond to this effectively?"
Ocd keeps telling me that I’m seeing things because I’m schizophrenic. Or I get anxious that I’m gonna see things that aren’t there. I have problems with my eyes and my doctor told me herself that I may see things double or in a different position. But ocd keeps telling me I’m gonna see things or see people. So I’m constantly checking things in my peripheral vision to make sure I’m not seeing thing?I just wish school would start I’m sick of this shit
I think I’m at a point where I can no longer be helped. My thoughts seem too convincing, I can’t talk to anyone in my life about them. I feel like I’m going to be stuck with this mindset for the rest of life and I’m just going to continue to get crazier. I’m too afraid to interact with people irl because I’m afraid they’ll notice something is up, or that I’ll get thoughts. Almost my whole life is being consumed by these thoughts, I noticed a lot of things that used to keep track of in my day to day life I’ve completely forgot about. I’m worried if I see a therapist I’ll get misdiagnosed and only get worse. Everytime I try to remind myself of old morals my mind tells me that I was only being brainwashed and that I’m trying to brainwash myself again. It feels like I don’t even want to go back to my old life, it feels like I only want to follow these thoughts and see where they lead me and it sucks that I predicted all of this would happen. That my mind would come up with more unwanted stuff and I’d forget about everything I’ve ever cared about and become lost in confusion. I think I’d rather see someone in person than online, but I’m not sure about the therapists in my area or if they’ve ever even seen anything like what I’m going through. I don’t even know if it’s ocd anymore, but I really wish I could get out of this. It feels like I’m getting worse everyday even though I know it’s just all in my head and I need to let it go and focus on real life but I can’t stop worrying about what’s in my mind and what happening to me and what’s going to happen.
okay pretty sure i’m developing this now as it’s been a background obsession for a while. my brain keeps thinking of demons and a white witch coming to get me and i was lying alone in the dark and i keep seeing this white shadowy thing or if i see a glare in some glass or something my brain just says “the white witch is coming for you” and then i get paranoid about it because i feel like it’s something that somebody hallucinating/ delusional would think. and i keep thinking about really scary paranormal stuff which is so scary and then i’m wondering why am i so paranoid and scared about this because i don’t think it’s real but then i get scared saying that thinking it will get mad at me if i say it’s not real, and then i think it’s probably schizophrenia for me to believe this but then i get worried that it’s not and apparently if u pay attention to this scary stuff it comes for you and now i’m scared af. i hate that i used the word “it” aswell cos it makes it seem more real. because i don’t want to say it’s not in case there is something, but i don’t want to even believe this because i think it’s abit delusional and it’s like a PARADOX! and then whenever i start thinking about exsistential things it horrible because it always just goes back to me possibly have schizophrenia or developing it due to thinking weird stuff about the universe and my identity. and it’s bad because someone in my family has it and due to the diathesis stress model it’s more likely to occur when u have a genetic risk and prolonged environmental stress which i obviously have had now for the past 2 years due to harm and sexual related themes literally scaring the shit out of me :((( and i’m not at the age where it develops yet which is the early 20s so basically there’s still a chance and i’m scared now and don’t rlly know what to do cos i have a feeling the gene is triggered and now i’m just waiting for the symptoms to go fully blown and they’re already beginning. and i keep having this horrible feeling my hands are on backwards and it’s so scary and i feel like i’m having sensory hallucinations… and i get alice and wonderland syndrome where everything starts to feel rlly rlly fast (but i’ve had this since i was young, it’s just been abit more often recently) and i’m getting it more often and i’m just terrified that i’m starting to get hallucinations. I’m basically just venting so other people can feel less alone with this, not seeking any reassurance
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