How do you all deal with the fear of paranoia or fear of going crazy? (Notice: I said fear of paranoia)

tw / this theme is literally ruining my life. I can’t get a moments peace, all the symptoms I have feel so real and googling the symptoms caused more to show up and it’s so scary now. I don’t know what to do. I feel like I might actually have it and I’m so scared. nothing is helping. I’m going to be stuck in this theme forever or actually become psychotic or schizophrenic. I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m over analyzing every little symptom as possible schizophrenia, and no matter how many times people tell me “crazy people don’t know they’re crazy”, my ocd still has me convinced I have it or I’m developing it. I’m so, so sick of my anxiety and ocd. I don’t know what to do anymore. I feel trapped. these are just some of my symptoms: - Almost constantly seeing something out of the corner of my eye, shadows/figures/moving, etc. - Difficulty concentrating. - Newer symptom - difficulty talking (more frequent pauses in talking, forgetting what I was saying, struggling to find words, struggling to form sentences for a minute before I figure it out) - Extremely stressed and anxious almost at all times. - Extreme fear of losing my mind - Occasional feeling of impending doom - Forgetfulness (easily forgetting what I was saying/doing or what I was going to say/do) - Constantly pausing or rewinding videos/TV to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating the sound. - Occasional thoughts of “is this real?” “What if I’m actually just dreaming?” “Am I hallucinating all of this?” type of thing. - Difficulty getting to sleep, every night I don’t sleep until like 1-2 a.m. when I inevitably can’t keep my eyes open anymore and pass out, frequently wake up throughout the night Side note on this one: I’m afraid to sleep due to my OCD convincing me that something will happen in my sleep or I’ll sleepwalk or something like that. - Dissociation/zoning out - Almost always tired/yawning/exhausted/heavy eye feeling - Lack of interest in hobbies/shows/etc I’m so, so tired. I feel so hopeless and like my worst fears are actually coming true. Googling schizophrenia and psychosis just caused more symptoms and now I feel miserable. I wish I didn’t have to worry about this. I wish I could live happily and carefree. all of this venting and still nothing seems to help. Nothings helping. I’m just going to be stuck like this forever. I want to cry, I want to break down. I’m sick of living in fear. I’m sick of questioning my sanity. Now I’m spiraling that maybe I am schizophrenic or psychotic and this is just the beginning and it’s just going to get worse from here and I’ll end up losing myself and my mind/sanity. What if I lose the ones I love around me because they can’t stand me anymore. Im worried im not going to be myself anymore and im never going to recover and its just going to get worse.

Does your ocd ever start to tell you that you’re having a psychotic break? I have such a hard time telling what are ocd thoughts and what are real thoughts as it is. But now my newest ocd thought is that I’m losing my mind. Please tell me I’m not alone in this!!

I was doing fine with my schizophrenia ocd (fear of developing schizophrenia/psychosis), mostly because I was obsessing on something else for a bit, but something caused it to come back. I was at work yesterday and checked out a customer, he didn’t know English very well and was very quiet. However, when he was leaving, he said “thank you” loudly while walking out and I told him to have a good night, but since I couldn’t see his face nor his mouth move, I worried that I hallucinated the whole thing and he in reality didn’t say anything while he was leaving. The voice that said it sounded a bit different, however it could’ve just been since I had only heard him talk quietly before. I’m still wondering if I hallucinated this and it freaks me out, causing my ocd to make me believe I’m developing schizophrenia/psychosis or losing my mind again. I also always read that the difference between those with schizophrenia/psychosis is those with OCD have insight and know their thoughts are crazy, but then that leads me down a spiral if what if I DONT think those thoughts are crazy? What if I actually believe them and become delusional/lack insight? So a statement that would be helpful otherwise made it worse for me. One night I had a panic attack super bad because I couldn’t convince myself I didn’t believe I was in a dream and hallucinating. Any advice on beating these constant thoughts and how to cope with it? :/