Fear of Schizophrenia/hearing voices

[Matthewray]

Hello Everyone, this is my first time on the forum. I am glad to be in such a supportive place.With that said, let me get to it!

*warning* it's a bit lengthy but as a lot of you know, it's not easy to sum up our anxiety story in a few sentences.

Six months ago I began to have extreme anxiety episodes. It all started after smoking W**d after I had taken time off smoking to lower my tolerance level and I was in the middle of moving from my hometown to a new city and was very stressed out by the move. Eager to break my smoking fast, I began to light up and inhale. Long story short, I smoked too much and experienced an anxiety attack. The next day I went about my day as usual, except when I would smoke i'd start experiencing episodes anxiety/dread. This continued for a few days, I didn't stop smoking, until I had another really bad episode. The next morning I wake up but things don't feel right. I feel emotionally numb and my sense of time seems nonexistent (the concept of 5 minutes made no sense to me) almost like I was still high. Well I started to panic, thinking I must have messed up some chemicals in my brain and developed psychosis. I tried to pay no mind to it but the thought of it kept bothering me. Later that day, I was sitting at a restaurant with my family when I got the bright Idea to look up the symptoms for a psychotic episode. the first symptoms were

1.) difficulty concentrating
2.)depressed mood
3.) sleep changes—sleeping too much or not enough
4.)anxiety
5.) Derealization

"I have all of these!" (not knowing that these were overlapping symptoms of GAD) I remember as I started reading them I could almost feel myself going crazy, the walls closing in, my heart started sinking and I felt like i was trapped inside my head. I thought "this is it, i've lost my mind, i'm going crazy". I ran outside to catch my breath. Thus began what felt like a living hell of fear of anxiety. For the next few weeks, I felt this dread hanging over me, I felt so numb, happiness seemed like it never existed in my life. I was scared. I began to have anxiety over the thought of not being able to handle the anxiety and commit suicide, I was absolutely not suicidal, the very thought made fall further in despair, I was just afraid of coming to that point of not being able to handle it. The despair was so bad. I never felt anything like it, I couldn't go anywhere without it following me. I ended up moving in with my dad till it was time for me to move. This helped and I slowly started feeling better, though my anxiety of being able to survive in the new city was causing my anxiety to simmer. Finally the time came for me to move. My anxiety was better but still felt emotionally numb and had a fear of having major depression. This eventually went away only to be replaced by a new fear/obsession. I was on the internet, my fear of psychosis never truly left but I decided to face my fears and have a staring contest, so to speak, with my fears. I began to look up stories of people's experience with voice hearing and I really thought I was handling it just fine until I went to bed that night. I sleep with a box fan and started noticing sounds from my box fan, it sounding almost like low hum talking but no words were every made out. I immediately started remembering the stories I had read and thought I was having a psychotic episode and was gonna start hearing voices. Keep in mind I have had tinnitus since I was a kid and Musical ear syndrome (as a kid when it got real quiet it would almost sound like the radio or tv was on in the living room while lying in my bed.). This sent me back in the anxiety loop and started thinking every unverified noise was a possible auditory hallucination. Every time I hear something that could be made out into a voice, I always have to know where it came from or I will start panicking. Sometimes i'll think i'm having visual hallucinations from my peripheral but it turns out to be my hair or some animal or person passing by. I always have to check the source of it or i'll panic. My biggest problem right now is at night time, sleeping with my fan. I keep thinking I might be hearing voices through the fan. I am 100 percent aware there is nothing like that going on but it's like my brain keeps wanting to interpret/recognise the noise as voices and this distresses me. Especially my bathroom fan, if i'm tired enough i'll swear i'm hearing music or a conversation (though no audible words being spoken, i'm stressing the fact that these are noises that sound like voices, not that these are voices) and I start panicking thinking i'm having a psychotic episode. Any advice in dealing with this is appreciated. I guess really I need proof that I am just having anxiety and nothing more. I can't afford any psychiatric help so this is the best I can do for now. I'd appreciate any reassurance and or advice. Thanks you so much for reading! :)

Please note, my mom seems to have paranoid schizophrenia, though its undiagnosed, it's obvious she has this, please take my word for it. so the predisposition could very well be in me and that fact adds on to my fears.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Hi and welcome to NMP :welcome:

The fact that you are aware of it and that it is not really anything other than your anxiety about the possibility of voices means its not psychosis. You would be fully engaged with it if you were and wouldn't see it as anything other than being real.

You mentioned GAD in your post, do you by any chance also have OCD?

[Matthewray]

Thank you for the welcome and reply! From my understanding I have pure o "OCD". You see I hear people say that its not Psychosis cause I am aware of it but then I read about people who just hear voices and they have no mental illnesses. It still freaks me out. I think about not being able to sleep, relax or concentrate if I had such a thing and that really upsets me. The thought of the scary sounding voices (some describe them like demons or aliens) freaks me out to think about.

[MyNameIsTerry]

As I understand it they are clearly audible voices as opposed to intrusive thoughts that people may think are voices from within until they learn about them. Who were the people with no mental illness that say they can hear real voices?

I thought you might have because this fear of serious mental illness is actually one of the Pure O's. I would say we all fear we are going insane when we have anxiety but OCD does have that one as specifically about psychosis/schizophrenia as well as the other illness related ones such as fear of HIV/AIDS, somatoform versions, etc.

The fact you were able to actually read stories which would have been seriously anxiety provoking is a good sign because usually that would be a massive trigger. So, either you have gained some ground in recovery already or your OCD hasn't reached that level. Eitherway, its a good sign that you are better placed than you could have been in moving forward.

How it has seemed to affect you though is by you being in an anxious state and looking psychosis. Given your mums situation this has only added to the possibility and you've ended up creating this in your subconscious (the issue that is, not psychosis or schizophrenia). Like you said, all of those symptoms can be found in GAD or literally any anxiety disorder. To understand the possibility I would have looked at the others that separate psychosis from things like anxiety disorders and if I had them, I would view it as more likely possible.

Its quite common in anxiety disorders for us to display a skewed view of symptoms or situations. These are explained in Cognitive Distortions. If you looked up those symptoms and then assumed the worst when there could be other explanations that are more likely or other evidence to the contrary e.g. more important differentiating symptoms, then there several of these distortions that would cover that scenario.

The issue with your mum does complicate things and it would be irresponsible to not say you should talk to a medical professional about that so that you understand the potential and how you could spot it. However, everything you are saying can also easily be explained by anxiety too.

[xvolatileheart]

I have experienced exactly what you're going through. Everything you write - from "the walls closing in" feeling to having to check the source of sounds/sights - sounds just like me. I was absolutely convinced I was seconds away from going psychotic, and I felt like I was clutching onto my sanity for dear life.

I also did what you did, thinking I was getting better, and read a few stories about people who had psychosis or dissociative disorder. The next day, I was lying in my bed procrastinating getting in the shower, when I thought "what if the reason I won't get up is because I've lost control of myself?" I went into full meltdown mode, it felt like I wasn't myself when I looked in the mirror, reality felt like it was disappearing from around me and I was TERRIFIED.

I promise you you're not going crazy. This is severe anxiety. The amount of fear you have about what COULD happen or be happening is a clear sign that it's anxiety and not an actual psychotic disorder. My advice to you is to stay away from weed and try to find other relaxation tools. Exercise, meditation, mindfulness, whatever works for you. If you can get the anxiety down, the thoughts won't feel so distressing and they will go away.

I hope this helps. :)

[MyNameIsTerry]

I've had that issue with thoughts about moving and not feeling like you can.

The only way I've managed to rationalise it is regard it in the same manner as the breathing issues seen in Sensorimotor OCD. Trying to literally tell your limbs to move.

I found I often felt sluggish and not in control. It's a strange feeling, like being demotivated to bother moving or even breathing.

[lisa0406]

Hey M.,
really sorry to hear what you're going through.
You may also find it helpful to look under the Derealisation/Depersonalisation section of this forum, there are a lot of people who experience similar things.
All the best

[Matthewray]

Thanks, xvolatileheart. I greatly appreciate the reply. Its always reassuring to know i'm not alone in my symptoms. I will have a few good weeks but all it takes is one trigger to get me back in the loop for a while. I owe my progress to Paul David's book "at last a life".

[Lilly13]

Hi Matt,

I wrote you a long reply but I guess it didn't send? :huh:

Here it goes again, I went through just what you went through three years ago. Except it didn't begin with weed, because I have anxiety and panic - and that in itself is enough to cause depersonalization and derealization! These may be experienced by people with schizophrenia but this is not a symptom. I am a psychology major and I work with people who suffer from schizophrenia for a living . Some of the most wonderful people that I have ever met! Depersonalization is a dissociative disorder, it is what our mind does when it is overwhelmed. It is our mind's way of giving itself a break.

If you had schizophrenia people around you would notice. I have seen people have psychotic episodes... they are obvious. The people having them don't know that they are being delusional, they think that their thoughts and experiences are normal and REAL. People around them are the ones that notice. That helped me get over my fear, I kept thinking, if I was schizophrenic my parents would notice something was wrong, they would notice that you were having delusional weird thoughts, that you were talking to people who weren't there. Trust me.

Bring your anxiety down and stop focusing so much on the derealization and depersonalization, and know that they are your bodies' way of calming you down!

Please message me if you need,

Best,

Lilly
:hugs:

[Matthewray]

Lilly, I appreciate your reply and your kindness very much! It was very reassuring.

[Emilym80]

Hi there,

As others have said, a person in the midst of a psychotic break does not typically realise what is happening. While a small percentage might, the majority lack what is described as 'insight' into their experiences; to the people around them, their behaviour will seem very abnormal, but to the person they are completely fine and other people are acting strangely/out to get them, etc.

Have you seen the films Black Swan or A Beautiful Mind? If not, I'd dissuade you from watching them, as they'll not be good for your anxiety if this is a concern of yours. However, if you have, you will have noticed how their respective protagonists are totally unaware that they are hallucinating or losing touch with reality. As such, you wouldn't be fearing that you were losing your mind if you actually were!

Another important point is that everything you've mentioned is quite common with anxiety. Finding ways to reduce your anxiety should help with your unpleasant feelings. I find fish oil really helpful for depersonalisation/derealisation, if you'd be interested in pursuing that, too.

All the best :) I hope you feel better soon.

[Sarahjosephine]

Oh my darling I can 100% relate to this, I know this is an old post but it's really something I needed to read. How are you going with this now? It all started with running water one night for me and thinking it sounded like a distant muffled conversation and freaking myself out obsessing over it every day since, I see if I can hear things or my name which is common with most people and I'm hyper sensitive and everything I read about it just adds to my fears. What you're experiencing and what I've been told is OCD, anxiety disorder, hyper sensitivity and most of all fear.

Just because your mum seems to have it doesn't at mean you have. My late partner took his life and before hand he was paranoid and seemed to be experiencing some sort of psychosis and every since then I've suffered and keep thinking it's happening to me which is ptsd and severe grief but I suffered from anxiety before he died mostly around health all my teens into my 20's.

With counselling, exercise, proper nutrition and cutting down on alcohol and stimulants you should notice a change, it's not a quick fix though which is what we all want. I know whatever I read into seems to trigger me so it's best to just tell yourself you'll be okay and accept it without reading so much into it and believe me I know how hard that is.

I've found articles regarding this obsession online, if you'd like I can link them to you. Together we can beat this, life shouldn't be live in fear. Face,everything,and rise:- fear.

Love and light Sarah