Anyone else afraid they’re schizophrenic?? I am legit scared that everyone I see if you to put like a tracker in my car or stalk me even though I know not everyone will do that and it’s scarying me?

Yeah- I have had severe OCD about developing schizophrenia for almost three years now. It will get easier, I promise. Try to avoid reading/learning about schizophrenia if you can. I thought that would help me, but it actually ended up making it worse. The best thing you can do is to try not to react to the thoughts, and label them as OCD and move on. If this is significantly interfering with your day to day functioning, I would recommend treatment of some kind if you aren’t already receiving it. My psychologist and psychiatrist both know I do not have schizophrenia, and that it is just my OCD (improved with treatment). If you need scientific evidence as to why you are not developing any form of psychosis or serious mental illness, you should know that the first event that takes place in someone’s brain that is predisposed to schizophrenia is the destruction of certain parts of the brain that control insight, or the ability to recognize what you are experiencing is not in touch with reality. This is why people with schizophrenia completely believe that their hallucinations and delusions are 100% true and you cannot convince them otherwise. Based on the way you wrote your post, your presence of insight means that you cannot possibly be developing schizophrenia because you would be completely unaware, as others here have already mentioned. It would be people around you who would see a change, and you would just continue on with thinking that the paranoid delusions are perfectly normal and rational if you had schizophrenia. Despite the years of suffering I went through as a result of OCD, it has significantly improved for me with the addition of a high dose of an SSRI. I rarely, if ever, experience the obsessions involving paranoia anymore, compared to before when I would have at least 700 compulsions per day (most of them involving fears about developing schizophrenia). I promise it will be okay, and if you can learn techniques to control your OCD now you won’t make the same mistakes I did and you will not have to live like this anymore. :)

Yeah I definitely used to go around in circles like you are doing now with my OCD about developing schizophrenia. Again, I would recommend staying away from articles and websites about schizophrenia because that could trigger more obsessive thoughts. You are certainly not developing schizophrenia. I used to have the paranoid thoughts so much that I was so afraid that I had begun to completely believe them, but that was just my OCD about being paranoid. OCD is a nasty disorder and will convince you of your worst fears through over-analyzation of your every thought. Really try to distract yourself with other things and ignore the paranoid thoughts- it will be so beneficial for you in the long run. I wish I would have known this fact when I first began obsessing about schizophrenia.

It’s the worst, I keep going back and forth with myself if I believe the thoughts or not and I’m so annoyed because I want these thoughts to stop! I know these thoughts aren’t normal and that’s why they scare me.

i wasnt realizing that my main compulsion was "checking" beacuse i was doing it mentally. So basically, i would "check " to see if i "felt" like i believed the thought....once i stopped doing that i quickly got better. Not sure if that makes sense, but it is the best way i can explain

Well people that have schizophrenia often can’t distinguish between what’s real and what isn’t real and clearly you can because you’re aware of what’s crazy and what is “normal”. Just remember that crazy people don’t know they’re crazy and if you THINK you’re crazy then you’re definitely not lol I promise

Do you guys ever get worried that like you’re thoughts aren’t irrational and you really believe it? Like sometimes I’ll say what if I’m saying it’s irrational just because I know that’s normal? Then get worried

I get so nervous that “what if I’m going crazy” or what if I’m scared someone will do something bad to me. And then I try to convince myself that I’m actually scared but then I just know I’m not. OCD is mean lol. Looking forward to ERP so I can get through this

i suffered from this horribly but am now completely better. do the work, it gets better

Yep :) Although my OCD about developing schizophrenia still gets bad sometimes it has largely improved and I am functioning better.

My therapist said that I’m being hyper vigilant to everything because of my anxiety as well. It just feels so real! Any tips on how you got over it?

Thank you so much for your help! It’s like sometimes I tell myself but what if this thought isn’t irrational and it just fuels the fire for me.

Zoloft (sertraline) worked wonders for me personally :)

Nice to know that someone else was in a similar situation!

That’s good to hear!

This is an old post but everything in here explains what I'm dealing with atm, every emotion I feel every thought I have I'm constantly panicking it is an indication that I'm developing schizophrenia, I get frustrated at everything so easily recently because I am stressed about developing it, but when i get frustrated i think thats "evidence" that I'm acting weird and I'm developing it. I'm constantly researching about schizophrenia and it just causes more panic and anxiety, every article you read will say something different and it's exhausting. I'm going to avoid researching and I'm going to brush off the worries as ocd. This article has made me feel alot better already <3

YES I legit fear this so much! But I eventually got over it by talking to my psychiatrist about it

She said it was due to my overall anxiety that have especially in regards to ocd

How are you now? I’m going through this along with existential ocd which make me feel like I’m really losing it.

Did he/she tell you it was because of your ocd? That’s good to hear!

Which SSRI helped you the best?

This thread has been so helpful for me

Thank you so much for this thread!!!!