please help

[ian6989]

hi people I'm new to this forum.

I've battled anxiety for years and have been on citalopram 40mg for about 4 years. I have recently took a turn for the worse and starting to move onto mirtazapine. which i have been having at night 15mg whilst tapering off the citalopram. i have seen a psychiatrist who says it is very very obsessional thinking. but i am not to sure? what it feels like is i have this feeling that enters my mind that i can't get rid of? it just a feeling every now and again it comes and goes but has no logical explanation. every time i get a thought in my head it feels like the thought isn't mine in a way. i hear a voice in my mind that comments on things and says kill your mum when she is around. i feel like my mind goes totally blank. sounds like someone is speaking to me sometimes in my head ? when I'm sat there I'm like i can't figure out how a normal person thinks. now i have it lodged into my head that i have never been well all my life ? i just feel really weird and scared. I'm scared to see my friends etc... its like this feeling is just sometimes there (which it is now) and sometimes its not then i start to think why has it gone away? it feels like a feeling but when it goes away it is a thought. why i start speaking to people on the phone its like this inner voice tells me to tell people to f**k off. i also have a big fear of psychosis and schizophrenia. i just always feel really really odd?? sometimes my thoughts don't seem like my own. they just like pop in my head?? i am awaiting counselling to start on friday CBT. as i have been assured it is not psychosis but i still think it is. its like i don't no what to think of. i don't no how a normal person thinks ? any help would be greatly appreciated.

[littlemissworry.x]

i know exactly how u feel.. i had a major fear of scitzophrenia for a long while! it was like all my thoughts werent mine! i had cbt because of it. i got in an awful state, i had a bit of ocd too i kept saying awful things in my head about people i loved and i hated myself for it but it was my anxiety causing all this. and of course i googled the symptoms so i was telling myself i had the sypmtoms.. i was scared of my own mind..scared that any moment i would hear horrable voices and start hallucinating! awful time of my life. hope ur ok... if u were really mad u wouldnt have anxiety over it u wouldnt even realise or care. anxiety does alot to the mind x

[ian6989]

thanks for the kind words. its like sometimes I'm going through it at the moment it sort of feels a bit like how i used to feel
like a little better
but now I'm questioning weather or not i felt "ok" then or not. i keep thinking have i been ill all my life and never knew? like i don't no whats normal and what isn't? my mind keeps telling me "your not allowed to go back to being ok" I'm very scared?

[littlemissworry.x]

i know exactly what ur saying, i wasnt myself for weeks. i was thinking awful things about my daughter( who i love deeply) but it was my anxiety messing my mind up! the best thing would be to talk to someone my cbt did help a little but it was mainly me that had to change it, i was assessed for mental illness( as i was soo convinced i had scitzophrenia) i didnt but i didnt beileve her at first. your mind is so powerful.. ive had panic attacks where i cant feel my arms whatsover.. and thats my mind thats done that to me..the way your worrying about it shows that its all anxiety..like i said if you werent normal you wouldnt even know! x

[ian6989]

It's like now I feel like have I always been ill and never knew about it ?
It's like I can't tell what it's like to be normal
I'm freaking out :(
I can't get it out of my head :(
Constantly breaking down and crying

[Xtrastrongbint]

Hi Ian...oh that sounds awful and I think most anxiety sufferers can relate...Because your adrenaline is so high your brain is "searching" for danger which it can't find and your thoughts are testing you. It's a vicious cycle of intrusive thoughts. How long have you been tapering off one med and going onto another? It could be this that's making your intrusive thoughts even worse..(I have intrusive thoughts too and it scares the crap out of me but distraction and meditation can help). Have a search on youtube - there are some excellent resources. I would say going back to your GP is a must :hugs:

[ian6989]

Hi thanks for the help. It feels like when my thoughts go away I want them to come back ?? It's very weird
I'm just so confused and upset. It feels like I'm trying to figure out what normal is. I keep having thoughts of what my life used to be like and weather I was "ill" then or not ? It's very confusing. I've been tapering the citalopram for a week now whilst adding mirtazapine at night time. I look forward to this as I can get away from this hell!!
All this is being done under a psychiatrist who assures me it's intense anxiety
I just feel like I don't no what it's like to be normal anymore :(

[Xtrastrongbint]

Hi Ian - it most definitely is intense anxiety...and side effects of coming off one med and going onto another can make this much worse but I promise it will get better. Try to distract yourself, honestly the mindfulness meditations are great (despite me thinking it was all hippy bullshit lol!) Try to put your mind elsewhere - colouring is another good one....just hang in there...it will get better:hugs:

[ian6989]

Hi thanks for the replies guys. I originally decided to come off the citalopram as I didn't think it was working for me and I am going through the worst 3/4 weeks I have ever been through in my life. Can anyone ever relate to the inner voice that I hear. It's like when I laugh and stuff the inner voice says "your not allowed to laugh". Sometimes it tells me to "kill people" normally people who I love. Other times it just seems to pop out of no where and say weird things. It's all in my head but sounds really really loud? Also other things I have is I think to myself do I want to get better and I actually feel like I don't ? It's scaring the hell out of me :(

---------- Post added at 19:22 ---------- Previous post was at 19:11 ----------

Also I started feeling really "unwell" before I started the medication changes. But no where near as bad as I do now

[Xtrastrongbint]

Yup - that's what an intrusive thought is...It's kind of? an OCD so you may want to check in those forums too...there are people with far more insight into it than me but I promise it really is a side effect of anxiety :hugs:

[ian6989]

thanks for the kind words. i thought was the old forum ??

---------- Post added at 20:56 ---------- Previous post was at 20:50 ----------

i also hear a voice aswell in my head that is really loud sometimes other times quiet and comments on things i do like if I'm on the phone it will say "tell her to f**k off. or when I'm talking to a friend about something it will say "don't tell him" like it comes out of nowhere but isn't me thinking it if that makes sense. sorry for all the messages just really scared :(

[littlemissworry.x]

this sounds very much like ocd! i do it il be talking to someone and il just say in my head..punch her! but of course i wouldnt and its my intrusive thoughts x

[ian6989]

Hi again thanks for reply. But the thing is it doesn't sound like my thought ?
It seems to randomly pop from no where :(

---------- Post added at 10:42 ---------- Previous post was at 09:52 ----------

Also it's like I keep having flashbacks to when I felt "better" and it's like my mind is questioning me weather or not I felt better then or not ?? Please help

[littlemissworry.x]

ive had it where it pops from no where, intrusive thoughts. its very scary! x

[MyNameIsTerry]

From the other thread:


Yes, it's not psychosis - you wouldn't be questioning it as it would be all consuming.

This is intrusive thoughts and as istherehope? mentioned, the more you try to supress it, the more you think about it because you are instructing your mind to stop an activity and it has to work harder. The white bear exercise is one I know about that, trying not to think of a white bear means you will be thinking about not thinking of the white bear and it's a self defeating cycle. Like the elephant mentioned.

Learning to observe thoughts without interacting means learning to let them go but it takes time & practice. Mindfulness teaches this, amongst many other things. You learn to accept your thoughts as thoughts and that doesn't mean accepting the content because the content is irreverent, it has not purpose so it doesn't need to be understood.

There have been studies to prove that all people have intrusive thoughts, they just don't realise it. When you have a mental health issue like anxiety, you can start to notice them. Some take well known forms like harm based ones like yours. I had these but got rid of them through Mindfulness.

You are not losing your mind and you won't act on them as they are "ego-dystonic". I see you've raised a thread on the OCD board so I'll get more into that on there.

They do just pop into your head, that's what intrusive thoughts are supposed to do. There can be a trigger to them as well which may even be quite subtle.

Meds can increase anxiety when you start them and increased anxiety means increased OCD obsessiveness and compulsions. Many of us have said the same and this is why part of the strategy is to reduce overall levels of anxiety as you will find you have more control over resolving these issues.

You don't have to have OCD to have intrusive thoughts but they are seen as an OCD spectrum issue and the term "Pure O" came about to describe what was supposedly intrusive thought based OCD, although compulsions are still there hence it's a misleading term and not actually used in medical literature anyway other than on this basis.

So, back to what I ended on in the other thread.

"Ego dystonic" means the opposite of true beliefs and character. This is why this is happening to you. These thoughts are clashing with your deep beliefs, your "schemas" which are connected to your identity. Much of what happens is the subconscious making checks to these frameworks which include things like memory. It makes the check and can't find that the thought is appropriate and effectively says "here you go conscious mind, here is all the data, I can't find a match so I don't know what to do - please tell me". The "data" can include what the subconscious has learned to associate to the thought e.g. fear reactions. Don't worry though, these very deep beliefs are embedded deep, for instance your sense of right & wrong. These cannot be changed without a hell of a lot of deep work and you can't do that by yourself so you won't be turning into what you are probably fearing right now.

You also mentioned fear of schizophrenia & psychosis. Many of us with any anxiety disorder wonder whether we are losing our minds so this is common. There are also subforms of OCD, like your harm-based theme, that cover these too. So, that could be another indicator of OCD. I say could because OCD traits are found in many people without anxiety and it only gets diagnosed on the basis of it affecting your life.

Honestly, have a read of some of the threads on this board and you will see just how many people are saying the same things as you and you will also see us all saying the same things to them. As mentioned earlier, there are better more dedicated OCD forums like OCD UK or OCD Action, this place doesn't have many of us talking as the majority of OCDers are on the HA board as their's manifests that way.

[ian6989]

It's like sometimes I kind of feel the way I used to before I felt really bad. And my mind is trying to work out weather I was "normal" back then or not
I'm very confused and just need some help
Like I keep
Having flashbacks in my head of certain events and my mind says was u normal back then or not ??

[MyNameIsTerry]

Yes, that's quite common. I've had plenty of this and people on here as well as at the charity walk-in groups I used to attend, all say the same thing.

The anxious mind by nature spends a lot of time analysing, questioning, comparing, etc. In Mindfulness this is talked about as being in DOING mode for too long. DOING mode is the analytical part of the mind trying to look at a problem and then working out all the variables to get from A-B. They teach us to spend more time in the more powerful mode of the mind, BEING mode. BEING mode is able to work with more complex problems like anxiety because it involves acceptance and is willing to just be rather than waste all it's reserves finding an answer to a complex longer term problem.

Try to cut down on the self analysis as it will only make you feel worse. The fact is that you can recover from this and whilst you don't return to how you were before, you can become a different normal, a more enlightened one.

[ian6989]

Thanks for the reply
Have u got a website for mindfulness. Another thing that is bothering me the most is an intrusive feeing. It's a feeling that just seems to be there all the time
And every now and again it will go for a couple of seconds. But there is no way of describing it it's just a feeling and it's killing me :(

[MyNameIsTerry]

Yes, it's not just intrusive thoughts we get, we can also have urges or images too. But it could also be an anxiety symptom in general as opposed to something classed as intrusive e.g. feelings of dread, nervousness, insecurity, etc. Anxiety has many physical symptoms so it would be worth having a read of the symptoms article on the NMP website. Have a look and see if what is being described there fits to what you are feeling.

It is hard to describe many of these feelings we get but it gets easier the more you learn about it all.

For Mindfulness, have a look at the thread in my signature as I've compiled a load of free resources in there which you can download.

[ian6989]

Thanks very much for the reply I will have a look

---------- Post added at 11:00 ---------- Previous post was at 09:51 ----------

Is this repairable as I no I have never felt "right" but never been as bad ?? :(
Will
I be able to get past the not feeling right part. I just want to lead a normal life in only 26 years of age :(

---------- Post added at 11:30 ---------- Previous post was at 11:00 ----------

thanks for taking the time to reply to my comments it is very much appreciated. where do i find the things about where u mentioned about being and doing as i reckon it will help me. thanks you very much