Does anyone else that suffers with schizophrenia ocd ever fear that they see things? I was on the computer and thought I saw an image of the devil pop up on the side of my laptop and started freaking out that I saw an image. I know that the image wasn’t real but I’m still freaking out because it’s making me think the schizophrenia is real

@ilovestars hope it helps! It's a real kick in the ass to find yourself questioning basic experience, but when it comes down to it, one of the main things I have to do now is to just shrug and say "huh, maybe so" to any kind of experience like what you describe. It's hard to do, but it helps to break the circle, so to speak

Call it Schizo but anyone can imagine things. Work on mind awareness and humor and whatever you think you’ll see will have a much lighter effect than such a fearful anxious one.

You can always get therapy and tell them everything your experiencing but I promise if it’s schizo or not don’t think your so different or crazy because everyone is capable of such delusions. Trust me :)

Absolutely have had this fear and roughly similar manifestations of it, though I focused on auditory stuff moreso. Like I would listen to the silence intensely closely to make sure I couldn't hear anything that wasn't there. It's a particularly nasty manifestation of ocd in my opinion. Made me concerned that I'd lose my mind and lose my self control and hurt myself or someone. The two best things I can think of are that a) remember that your ability to be concerned about it and differentiate your fears from reality is important. That's called insight, and it's typically very lacking in schizophrenia. And b) don't think that you're ever going to achieve certainty that you don't have schizophrenia or other illnesses. I'm certainly not sure that I'm not schizophrenic. Can't ever really be. The main thing to be aware of is that certainty is elusive and will drive you into internet research, circular reasoning, and is ultimately a trap.

I think that the word Schizo feels scary and that you should see the symptoms and study of Schizo as just like another annoying horrible mental disorder #OCD. The fear is like SHIT am I thinking this IT MEANS IM SCHIZO ...that’s what the problem is right now. Worry less about what you think you are and focus on starting general steps and then you can freely get treated and work with what’s happening in the mind JUST like me and everyone on here. There’s no app called schizophrenia that you suddenly belong too hahah we with OCD vent on crazy scary shit too. Just know you’re not alone whatever you may think it be :)

@ilovestars everyone’s fear of SCHIZOFRANIA is because we smart people know that’s the “worst of the worst” and if you go there “there’s not coming back”...ummm welcome to every other type of mental illness because the fear of being trapped and stuck forever falls within all of them. The development of Schizo is just another level of delusion but just like another level of OCD Story delusions the more you feed it the worse it will become BUT the less you give in the more free you will be. Trust

My therapist told me I wasn’t because people that are don’t realize the delusions are fake but it still scares me because I’ve been having such bad ocd that I’m Schizo so idk if that’s why the image popped up

@Hg27 it’s horrible! Like I know I’m not seeing things but the fact that I saw that for a quick second really freaked me out. Now I keep trying to see if I’ll see something. I can’t believe how ocd manifests like this it’s insane. But I can definitely relate with how you’re feeling! Thank you so much for your insight :)

@JohnSmith98 you’re right! Thank you!

@JohnSmith98 Definitely, it just feels so scary and real because it feeds into whatever your fear it

@Hg27 I need to do that! This was the first time I ever “saw something” so it really scared the crap out of me but I know it’s not real. Thanks!

I have this form of ocd too

It’s the worst