anxiety about maddness

[mlondon]

Does anyone else have an anxiety that they will or are going Schizophrenic? I worked in mental health for 2 years and saw extreme cases of schizophrenia, usually at the point of hospitalisation. I have been seeing a CBT therapist for about 6 months who said that he thinks I have health anxiety but thinks i should see a psychiatrist for a second opinion and reassurance for myself. This however has only made me more anxious.

[Pink Panic]

Hi,I do and i asked the psychiatrist if i did this week ..... again!! he said it definitely isn't as it doesn't present with the symptoms i have so that's me reassured at least until the next time! Pinkx

[lesleyB]

Yes I used to worry about this as well scared the hell out of me although I have been told many times I hav'nt got it can't spell it either lol:blush:
Lesleyb

[Hutch]

mlondon if I were a betting man I would be willing to put 1 million on you not being schziphrenic. You know why... because my odds are 99 to 1. There is a 99 percent chance that you are not schizophrenic. This constant reminder definetely helped me reduce the anxiety that came from obsessing whether or not i was schizophrenic. My biggest fear was my age. Being 19, the age where the onset of this mental illness usually begins, I felt that my anxiety was actually the onset of schizophrenia. My fear of schizophrenia got so serious that I would constantly look for indicators that I was schizo such as looking for halluccinations or fearing that my anxiety was acctually delusional paranoia. I saw a very good psychiatrist who told me I had generalized anxiety, not schizophrenia in any way. Even after hearing that I still kept questioning his answer due to rumination. Wondering whether I didnt tell him something I should have and so on. Your pyschiatrist is going to tell you that its just an offshoot of anxiety and ,like we all do, you will continue to ruminate over the idea of it. My anxiety lasted for 7 months,subsided and eventually just went away, including my biggest fear: schizophrenia (who was the one who decided to make it sound spooky:P). To overcome my fear of schizophrenia I did a few things:

1. For 2 weeks I would take 30 minutes out of my day and dedicate that time to worry. I would describe why I fear schizophrenia and basically write 2 pages about it each day. I began to look back at what I wrote and realized how repetitive my worry was and over time I got bored of worry time, training my brain to get bored of the worry of schizophrenia

2. I realized that I needed to train my mind to be comfortable with the fact that schizophrenia is very unlikely, however possible. So twice a day I would say "There is the possibility that I could have or develop schizophrenia" over 400 times. At first my anxiety level would be so severe that I would almost collapse however the more i said it the more boring it got and easier to take.

3. I completely STOPPED googling the word "schizophrenia". I no longer read about it or seeked info about the mental illness. The longer you refrain from reading about schizohrenia, the more facts you forget about i,t which will allow you to dramatically decrease the number of times you associate everyday normal occurances or experiences with schizophrenia symptoms. Also, you have to stop checking anxiety forums to figure out if other people have the same worry as you because once you find info of another person who has the same mental illness it provides you with temporary relief and causes you to rely on acheiving relief from the these forums which subconsciously just makes you believe that this schizophrenia obsession is something that needs to be worried about.

4. Forced my self to do activities that would get me out of ruminating about mental illness.

Dude, the worst part of the worry of schizophrenia is there is no way of finding an answer. You Won't. So please use these 4 steps. At first, it is terrifying to do and seems like a lot of work. But exceptance is the name of the game for this sort of thing. If you have any other questions about the worry of developing schizophrenia you can message me because I'm sure I can relate to everything your going through right now. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Can you see it?

[Liverbird67]

hutch

brilliant advice

[girl26]

I just want to add that I have the same problem. At diferent periods I get obsessed with different deseases. My obssesions are provocated by things that I read in newpapers or I hear from sombody. Recently I read about schizophrenia and I started being affraid from it again. Honestly this night I decided to search on the internet whether anxiety is connected with schizophrenia and to search about the symptoms of schizophrenia. But I was also affraid to do so, coz as soon as I come to know about some symptom I may develop it. So I start searching only this forum.
I have generalized anxiety disorder and had bad panic attacks 2-3 months ago. Although now I have 'good days', my obssesion with deseases never stops. I am taking CBT for 1 month and yesterday my therapist prescribed me Cipralex. I don't know whether I should take them as I didn't take anything while I had my bad panic attacks and now I am better. I read all the side effects about the antidepressants and I am even affraid that I may get schizophrenia taking them. Or maybe is better to take medications to keep myself mentaly healthy. :( I don't know what is right.
I just want to tell you that you are not alone. If anyone has some advice please help.

P.S. Thank you for creating this great site. It helped me a lot.