Please help - can I just stop understanding people

[lg123]

I'm really panicking now (while staying weirdly calm). I feel like I'm on the point of losing my ability to understand people. Losing the ability to understand people has been my intrusive thought ever since I had a problem with my ears. I had a good day yesterday but today has been tough.

I can still understand people but it feels like I'll lose it at any minute. I want to tell myself it's anxiety but almost all conversations today have had this weird feeling. It's like the next words that someone utters I won't understand. I'm trying to accept and stay calm, but is there another way for me to get out of this thinking pattern and at least get some peace? It didn't help that I had a panic attack that I fought earlier when in a work meeting.

I had been trying to resist taking the valium and citalopram my doctor prescribed but I guess I really need to now.

[Arran7225]

Don't resist take them! The more uptight and stressed you make yourself the worse you will feel. Pills are not the answer but they are certainly a push in the right direction.

You need some clarity to think straight.

[Fishmanpa]

I'm not sure what you mean. Can you be more specific? Understand what exactly? Behavior? Words? Interactions?

Positive thoughts

[lior]

What problem did you have with your ears?

I think you could work out some phrases to say if you do come to a situation where you don't understand people.

If you can't hear them: "Sorry, I didn't catch that. Could you repeat that please?"
If you don't understand a word: "Sorry, what do you mean by incapacitated?" (I find that phrasing useful - it's not that you don't recognise the word, but you want to make sure that you understand what they intended to mean. Some people use words in a different way from how you do.)
If you don't understand what they mean: "Sorry, you've lost me. Not quite feeling myself today - could you take me through that again please?"

If you have phrases like this learnt off by heart, you will feel much calmer - because if it does come to the unlikely possibility that you don't understand what they mean, you're prepared for that scenario. You will be able to deal with that scenario easily and elegantly.

[lg123]

Sorry, I don't explain myself very well because I was in a really anxious state. Also I guess it's a strange thought that may be difficult to understand.

It's not the fear that I won't hear something or understand a word, but rather that my brain will just stop understanding the words that people say. I know this is a subconscious process but it feels really to me. I've now started to question how exactly I understand what people say- almost trying to control this subconscious process. I even get scared that I won't understand what someone on the street or in the supermarket days to me. When I'm watching TV I worry I won't understand the words and when I speak to people I feel like any moment I'm not going to understand their words. I've tried reassuring myself with stuff like "you can't not understand people." Or "you can just ask people to repeat themselves" but the reassurance wears off and only works when I'm not in the situation. I feel so disconnectedfrom the world as I just don't want to see anyone because of this anxiety. I live in Spain and so have to speak Spanish as well and I've started worrying my brain won't understand that either. Yesterday I felt like I was straining to understand, like my brain was a but behind, and I got scared that I have a brain tumour. It's like I need to control the process and understand how to understand so I won't stop understanding people.

I know this probably sounds ridiculous to you but it's a very real, distressing thought to me.

My ears were blocked with wax and when the nurse tried to clean them she made it worse so I felt like I was in a bubble for about five days, unable to hear people properly . I can hear better now but this thought has risen up from that. I am going to ask the doctor if my ears are being affected by a sinus problem as they feel funny, but I can't tell if this feeling is just anxiety.

[lior]

That makes sense. Speaking Spanish too is a factor - you're constantly confronted with having to think in order to understand people. I bet this is actually really common. Think about all these people in London from all over the world that have to learn English in order to just get the most simple of jobs. I bet there's loads of people that start to think about the process of understanding people a lot.

The trick with these reassurances you give yourself is training, training, training. You must keep practicing until it becomes natural to reassure yourself in the moment, and until you don't need that reassurance any more. Keep trying. Keep going. It will happen. You are training yourself to form a new habit - and YOU CAN do it.

I know this because I've had similar types of anxiety - especially when I went back to work after being off from depression. I thought I was going to run away all of the time. But eventually, after training myself, I managed to reassure myself in the moment, and mostly I don't get that feeling any more that I will run away.

[lg123]

What you said was very reassuring in itself :) I wish there was some kind of support group on the internet for this kind of problem so someone could help me out as it feels very scary and lonely.

It's like there is a lion in the room with my all the time waiting to pounce - the lion may not be there but my mind thinks it is. There is also an element of feeling helpless and needing some kind of control, some way to make sure I understand.

I know it's avoidance, but I feel best when I go to the beach on my own and relax with a book. I was doing ok and then it got worse, and so even seeing friends these days is stressful (and let's not talk about work - each time someone talks to me I think I'm not going to understand). Luckily the staff that work in the supermarkets here are so rude that I don't have to interact with them.