Mental Health Hypochondria

[BrokenAge]

I'm wondering if there's anyone else who worries about developing a mental health disorder. I tend to worry about become Bi Polar, Schizophrenic etc etc. It's almost like a new disease every few days. Mental disorder seem scarier to me then physical ones. As a child I was always afraid of cancer, AIDS, tumors from health class. Now my main worry is if I have OCD? I don't have any compulsions but I obviously have intrusive thought because of all these what ifs. Anyone else like this?

[MyNameIsTerry]

I have OCD as well as my primary condition of GAD.

Please don't worry about OCD, it's no different to ant other anxiety disorder, just different components. HA is actually not a diagnostic term anyway and in your US manual, your version of it is known as Illness Anxiety Disorder which is considered an OCD Spectrum Disorder. However, HA can be GAD or OCD too.

Worries about developing bipolar can be just part of anxiety. Worries about schizophrenia are a known subform of OCD, but I'm not saying you have OCD on the strength of that.

Compulsions can be mental. These can include reassurance seeking, confessions, checking, etc.

Intrusive thoughts are certainly OCD spectrum but you also have to remember that studies have proven all people have intrusive thoughts and so this means you can experience them with any mental health disorder without it meaning you have OCD.

In my opinion, HA as it is seen on here is often very similar anyway and on that basis I don't think it is going to be that different for people. But I have seen several people who admit to being used to their HA who start to experience the more Pure O side of OCD (intrusive thoughts) and it has scared them. This is common to anyone even with OCD as the Pure O themes tend to be things like what you mentioned, violence, religion, sexual including paedophilia, etc.

[BrokenAge]

I've done some research on Pure O before. My worries are vary from time to time. One week it's becoming a schizo, other week it's bi polar and etc. I mainly started to worry about it because a friend of mine was recently diagnosed with bi polar. She becomes very paranoid and I've seen one of her episodes and it scared me to death. I started looking up what is paranoia and what it feels like. I'd have an intrusive thought and begin wondering "what if I start to worry about that?" OCD scares me because I just don't want to have any other mental disorders to deal with. I don't know much about OCD but I was told it's not curable/ life long. I'm only 17 and my therapist told me I have GAD with slight ocd tendencies, but honestly a lot of those tendencies disappeared.

[MyNameIsTerry]

OCD isn't lifelong, it's no more than GAD in that respect. You will find people saying exactly the same about GAD but there are people who have recovered 100% from either. You will find people who say once you've suffered depression, it will come back. Try telling my dad that, he had 2 years of it over 40 years ago and nothing since...and that's a pretty good time test!

People with any anxiety disorder can have intrusive thoughts and it doesn't mean they have OCD. I've found that GAD by it's nature can mimic elements of most of the other anxiety disorders to some level e.g. I've had a couple of months of agoraphobia on two occasions when starting meds but I don't see myself as ever having true agoraphobia as it would have taken much more work to recover from that than what I did to get through my spell with this. Perhaps on that basis you can do the same and put it down to your GAD?

Paranoia can be experienced with anxiety disorders. I had it when I was going through my harder stages. It's not too far away from anxiety anyway, mainly that it is looking at an external person causing it and there are some subforms of OCD that include that element too e.g. contamination can include poisoning which has to come from others.

On that basis, experiencing paranoia, or the worry of it, could just be an element of your OCD "tendency" but that doesn't mean you will progress onto an OCD diagnosis. You don't need to fear OCD anyway, it's no harder than any other anxiety disorder but you need to remember that OCD "tendencies" could be present in many people with anxiety disorders as we are prone to varying levels of irrational obsessive self protection behaviours e.g. safety behaviours, and many of those could be seen as an OCD compulsion but there is why OCD is diagnosed because it is enough to be affecting your life, otherwise most of the people on here would probably be diagnosed with it too.

[GingerFish]

I have OCD and every day I worry that it could be schizophrenia instead because of the strange, magical and damn right weird thoughts it makes me think and worry about and then my compulsions. I've been told over and over for years by many docs, psychologists etc that all I have is severe OCD but it still doesn't make the fear of having schizophrenia go away but that is a fear that is common with OCD apparently.

[littlemissworry.x]

i had a major fear or scitzophrenia it really took over my life.. was convinced i was hearing voices but it was just intrusive thoughts.. i had to have cbt as it was so bad! took over my life for months