View Full Version : Am I making myself schizophrenic?
Hello to all ! I’m a 31 years old Ocd sufferer. I've been with Ocd for 12 years and symptoms free for the last 4. My Ocd now revolves around the fear of being/becoming schizophrenic, so once I read about delusions my Ocd began to throw similar thoughts at me!
For example, I fear I’m going to believe that my family have been replaced by robots and that everything that happens around me is a message like in “ideas of reference”.
When I try to disprove them with logic my Ocd throws another, craziest obsession to counter my arguments, also it’s like one part of me knows that rationally the obsessions are absurd and another feels like I’m on the verge of believing them.
Is this a typical mechanism for Ocd or the beginning of schizophrenia? Have you ever had these crazy thoughts?
Thank you.
From what I know, you can't make yourself schizophrenic. It's generally thought of as a biological problem.
Your thoughts are becoming odd because of how you are reacting to them, I've had many experiences of the world around me being filled with so called "signs" not once have they been right. Think about it, your scared because of your thoughts, your mind then becomes incredibly sensitised to looking for things to justify it's behaviour and confirm your fear.
It sounds like an obsession to me, or simply a rampant imagination :)
Thank you LunaLiuna, once my Ocd found that with schizophrenic delusions it could conjure every type of crazy thought...well, it did so. :(
As I said, rationally/logically I know that the thoughts are absurd, but if Ocd is called "The Doubt Disease" there is a reason. I'm scared because if the thoughts are so bizarre I should be able to disprove them in a moment but since I can't, in my mind it must say that it's not Ocd anymore and it's prodromal schizophrenia :(
MyNameIsTerry
29-08-14, 05:45
This is kind of the trap with OCD. For instance, I know my touching rituals are irrational yet I still do them. Mine are combined with Magical Thinking OCD, so if I touch something and have a thought about a family member, it means that if I didn't touch it in the correct way, something bad will happen to them. Completely irrational, but my subconsious is telling me to do it.
How can I influence the physical world through touching an inanimate object and thinking about a family member at the same time? It's completely impossible outside of the films!
My advice would be to stop reacting to them, its proven science that the areas of the brain that store memories look for emotional response. The more emotion, the stronger they are linked together and recalled later.
I did CBT, it wasn't good enough to tackle a lot of my OCD. What I did find greatly helped me was Mindfulness meditation. I discovered that a lot of my OCD went on its own by spending more time relaxing and letting the thoughts float without interacting with them. I think this is sound because it should then mean that over time, you retrain yourself to stop responding to them.
You may not eliminate them, but your reaction can be eliminated. For instance, I had some harm OCD as well but it was directed outside of my family. As Mindfulness helped with my rituals and GAD, these harm thoughts just floated through and I either didn't react to them or on some occasions laughed at how ridiculous they were.
You're right Terry, it's all in the reaction. I've always thought about philosophical/existential questions (are we real? Is this like the Truman Show? Are we a simulation?) but without worrying about them, just for the curiosity of thinking about life in general. If a thought like these would ever become obsessive, I would simply think "Who cares?" and go on with my life.
Now however my Ocd latched on the fear that these thoughts represent prodromal schizophrenia and that they're impossible to 100% ascertain using logic. And that's what makes me so anxious.
MyNameIsTerry
30-08-14, 02:09
I think the fact you always had these thoughts as you liked to ponder on the bigger picture and be a deep thinker has just become the focus of the anxiety.
I wonder if whether by reducing an underlying level of anxiety, these might fade away or you will have the reaction you previously did in that you gave it the "Who cares?"?
You said before that you try to overcome it with logic but your OCD then finds another rumination. Do you think something like a Thought Diary (one that includes challenging thoughts) where you write down the rumination and challenge it with opposing logical statements would work? I think sometimes its hard when its on in your head because it just keeps spinning around without closure, and writing it down might allow some closure or you might find it helpful to read it back and see if it sinks in more?
Prospector
30-08-14, 22:38
You sound like you are reading yourself in to believing you have or have the pre-requisite to schizo-typical symptoms. Ironically you are almost deluding yourself. Having a delusion isn't an intrusive thought where meaning is given to the thought. What you are doing is you are asking what if questions and they are simply forms of speculation that cannot ever arise to a symptom such as a delusion. A delusion would be where rather than asking "what if my family are actually robots" and worrying about it being true and convincing yourself that it is ; you'd be stating that "My family are robots" and you would genuinely believe that psychologically and as such you would react to the situation as if it were pretty much absolute.
Sounds like typical intrusive thoughts taking over your life. It's rather unlikely for you to develop schizophrenia at your age anyway.
As for philosophy, it's a similar problem but this is a trickier one because we have to respect the idea of belief. With philosophy you have to watch out for existential, illusory and metaphysical thoughts because they are most likely to undermine your view on reality causing you distress and thus hyper analysis
Thank you Prospector. In truth, at the start of my schizophrenia fear I had the thoughts in the "what if" form, now since my Ocd tries to replicate them in a typical delusional fashion I always think them in a statement form, like "My parents are robots" and so on.
What scares me is that my Ocd always tries to make the thought more believable by adding details or other absurd thought like "They're behaving differently so they must be robots!".
I know rationally they aren't but can my repetitive thinking about these things make me go insane in the long run? Sometimes I feel like I'm scared of the thought so does it mean I believe it can be true?
MyNameIsTerry
31-08-14, 03:37
No, I don't think so, it just becomes more ingrained and does affect your Schema so you start to see this as the norm, even though it makes you anxious.
Being scared of these thoughts or of going crazy is all normal, many of us get that about going crazy. Thats the anxiety fuelling it all. If you can reduce this underlying anxiety, the thoughts may affect you less or you may have more control and be able to dispell them better.
Thank you Terry, makes sense. When I'm less anxious the thoughts bother me much less or not at all, in fact.
Prospector
31-08-14, 19:09
He's right, you can't go insane just by having an intrusive thought about delusions. You realize subconsciously that this is a delusion and thus panic about the thought rather than the situation affected by the delusion.
Poverome if you are still active on this forum answer please how are you holding, im 32 and have same simptomps and worries as you had and i cant stop thinking about it if im shizophrenic because of thouse crazy thoughts ?
Poverome if you are still active on this forum answer please how are you holding, im 32 and have same simptomps and worries as you had and i cant stop thinking about it if im shizophrenic because of thouse crazy thoughts ?
Hey, you never got back to me, scareeed. Did you ever consider your anxiety is from alcohol withdrawal? Or maybe alcohol withdrawal is making it worse.
And to the OP, no, you can't get schizophrenia from intrusive thoughts.
Check out this page (https://www.ocduk.org/types-ocd), you two, especially the last OCD worry under checking...
Hey, i dont think my anxiety is from alckohol withdrawal because im not withdrawing from alcohol. Thank you for link cheking ocd definitely describes me (cheking for shizophrenic symtoms) but i cant let it go why am i obsesed with shizophrenia :( Its tru i was always sensitive and cant imagine having shizophrenia and hurt someone i love :(
When I said alcohol withdrawal, I didn't mean that you had stopped drinking. I mean: Is your body craving alcohol during the times that you aren't drinking? Because if your body does want alcohol all the time, it will cause you to have anxiety. It is just something that you and your doctor should rule out as you continue to fight anxiety. Otherwise you need to stop drinking in order to give your medication a chance to work.
I feel awfull today , i am almost convinced im having shizophrenia , so much paranoid thoughts about goverment and on and on , even i know thouse are crazy stupid irrational thought i can find logical answer to it.Than i read some question on another forum about shizophrenia and it basically ruined the sentence whitch calmed me down before" when you think your goin crazy you are probably not" and " shizophrenic people dont realize that they are shizophrenic" :( on that forum a man asked if he is maybe shizophenic and wrote almost every shizophrenic symtopms he is having from paranoia and voices,people poisining him....I dont hear voices but i have a feeling i will start to hear it, but i have a huge extreme paranoia and fear :(
Scareeed, I'm not really sure what to tell you that hasn't already been said in this thread and the last one you started. You don't have schizophrenia. You do have other issues that are impeding your medication working. You would probably benefit greatly from therapy and reading some good self help books.
Thank you for your answer, but i dont understand if we deep inside know that thouse thoughts are irrational stupid and its not somthing we believe in,why are they so disturbing for us :( i relly hope its just anxiety or ocd and no psyhosis or paranoid disorder or sonthin like that.
You are going to have to start challenging your thinking. You are going to have to fight back. You know it's just OCD. You said so yourself:
we deep inside know that thouse thoughts are irrational stupid and its not somthing we believe in
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