Need help/advice about strange thoughts...

[Joanna1414]

Hi,

I am coming from a point of mental exhaustion right now, so please bear with me.

I started getting panic attacks after a move cross country last year. VERY high stress environment and full of change and uncertainty.

At first I had no idea what was going on, I have always been a worrier/anxious person but never had a panic attack-however, in high school I had a lot of health anxiety about MS/Cancer which I got over in college. Since then, for 6 years I have been fine, then boom, panic attacks after the move.

Now here I am...

So here is my string of events, as best as I can remember:

1.) Get panic attack at interview after big move. Feel extreme need to run. Don't understand...anxiety follows.

2.) Get panic attacks in car every time I go on interview.

3.) Feelings of depersonalization

4.) Wonder "Am I going crazy?"

5.) Move to new place, get new job

6.) Watch movie about schizophrenia, become terrified I will get it.

7.) Soon after movie, read book about someone hallucinating, get so scared and imagine seeing the scary beast from a movie I saw the night before-stupid I know.

8.) Get scared that because I could picture the scary image in my mind I must be crazy. Again, stupid I know.

9.) Move back east, get job I love bartending, forget about it all move on with my life. For 9 months. No panic attacks or anxiety-at all

10.) Get "real job" that uses my college degree, move again. Fine at first, then start getting panic/anxiety because of high stress, and the job is boring and I sit at a desk all day.

12.) MINOR Panic attack at work meeting.

13.) Google anxiety, etc. Freak myself out reading about symptoms of things.

14.) Google Schizophrenia-at first makes me feel better, as I have no symptoms of it. Then after reading the symptoms I start thinking about them.

15.) Every time I think about something a schizophrenic would think it freaks me out, but I know I only think about it because I fear it and that is not my own thought.

16.) Fear thinking evil thoughts, fear thinking scary thoughts-fear going crazy losing control.

17.) Boyfriend goes away for week, left at home alone, feeling lonely and worrying, "what if" about everything.

18.) Sitting at home at night in bed, intrusive thought-"what if i were posessed" FREAKS me out and I have panic attack, wake up freaking out that i am crazy and will go nuts, imagine scary images, thoughts.

19.) Mom comes for visit, tries to help, go to General Doctor, who assures me I am not crazy, that I have GAD, dismisses saying it is OCD, because I have no compulsions. Prescribes Celexa, which I do not take.

20.) Google more stuff, freak myself out even more, scared of every mental disorder, hypochondria about mental health.

21.) Get songs stuck in head, feel constant mind chatter, as if I am planning everything I say in my head before hand. Always monitor my thoughts.

21.) Get vitamins and herbs, do yoga, feel slightly better, depersonalization still scares me.

22.) Cannot get over scary "spike" thought. Don't even believe it, but the thought scares me, I fear it being like mulitple personality disorder, and get scared, imagine little scary devil images taking my soul. I know that is stupid but it scares me.

OKAY, here is my problem, I can't "get over" the fact that I worked myself up so much, and because my thought of being possesed is IRRATIONAL, I cannot get over it. I know you can't become posessed, I know it was just a scary thought, which has no basis in reality, but every time I feel good, I think well I must be crazy for ever getting to the point where something that stupid could scare me. I know it scares me because it signifies a crazy thought-in fact, I am not EVEN religious and don't believe in that stuff at all, I just get fearful because it equals a crazy thought....

I also had no thoughts like this until READING about them!!


How can I let it go!!! It is the last thing in my way.



HOW can I get over this thought??????

[Joanna1414]

Can somebody please comment?!


This took forever to write.....any feedback from someone who had scary irrational thoughts from panic would be great.

[Meewah]

Joanna

Racing thoughts and everything that comes with them are normal when you are living in an aroused state. If it was me I would google meditation and relaxation and practice only those thoughts. Soon you will find that you calm down and the other thoughts are easier to clear from your mind. Practice mindfulness a skill which allows you to view your thoughts but not interact with them. A bit like you are in a room and you are watching things come in one door and out of the back door without stopping long enough for you to interact with it.

You will be fine in no time. When you learn how to relax quickly you can call on it when you need it.

Take Care

Mee

[Chips]

I alsodid too much reading on the Web and found medical articles related to dying from fear and panic- this in turn led to the worst panic attack I've ever had because I believed I could actually kill myself by having a panic attack. Trouble is, whatever you need to scare yourself, you'll find it on the Web. When you add the anxiety state of mind you have a recipie for panic - when the anxiety is not there, it's a lot less important.

[nomorepanic]

Have a read of the symptoms website page on the left - there is something about thoughts on there

[Joanna1414]

Thanks everyone,

I am just frustrated, at the time I was in a panic, it felt so real and now it just makes me angry, I wish I could have never looked up anything, I know If I never did I would be fine now.

I just get upset about how much of a hypochondriac I am about this, it's like anytime I hear a story about someone going crazy I dwell on it and imagine it for myself...it was the same with stomach cancer six years ago, and now I say, whatever to that...


I also have a really good imagination, so I can picture this all too well..

Nicola, I have looked at the symptoms page, thank you, I know this is just a thought, I just wish it never happened.

[cath1]

Hi Joanna,

Your post broke my heart and compelled me to register for the first time (always just an occassional lurker when I need a bit of courage prior to flying!) and respond to you. I can assure you that you are not going mad.

When I first had a panic attack some 20 years ago I was not lucky enough to have the attack explained to me properly by a DR and so I became convinced that I must have schizophrenia. The mere mention of the word was enough to start a panic attack and I was eternaly vigilant for voices that I was sure were about to start in my head. I became so exhausted and depleted that my anxiety symptoms degenerated into agoraphobia, GAD and touches of OCD ( in that I was never compelled to do something but I was often thinking frightening things to the point of driving me crazy.) I tried everything from conventional treatments and drugs to outright quackery.

What saved me was a series of books by a little old lady pyschiatrist called Dr Claire Weekes. I read one after another and for the first time I actually began to understand that what I was experiencing was merely exhaustion and fear; no matter how bizarre the symptoms, and that once the fear of these symptoms go, the body relaxes, starts to heal and the panic and anxiety eventually subsides. Reading the books are easy and like your grandmother talking the situation through in easy to understand language.

For me the thoughts were the most frightening and for that Dr Weekes advice was to not fight them. Realise they are the ruminations of a tired mind and nothing more. Don't under any circumstances fight the thoughts but rather face them instaed of trying to avoid them, accept them and carry on with whatever you are doing calmly while the thoughts are floating about. I can tell you from experiece, it works. I now live a normal life as a lawyer without any medication but am still a nervous flyer and take her books on the plane with me.

Good luck to you and try and get those books. Maybe amazon will have them or alternatively a larger book shop. She has since died but she had quite a few books. Some of the titles I have is "self help for your nerves", "more self help for your nerves" and "self help for agrophobia."

[Marilyn27]

LOL i couldnt help but to chuckle a couple of times when i was reading your post, because it sounded ALOT like me. I used to get thoughts like that too. The internet can be your friend, but it can also be your enemy.

I would google stuff and symptoms and think i had what i read. I too was very concerned after reading about schitzophrenia, i also freaked out that i was bi-polar, had ms, had cancer (which ive been told i dont) even to this day even thought my anxiety isnt as bad as it used to be, i still sometimes think i have a brain tumor. they wont give me a mri or anything though.

i wouild also sometimes start to think i couldnt swallow, which would make me not able to, and sometimes i would think i couldnt move my arms and wouldnt be able to.

my latest bought is the other day 2 of my toes were numb and tingly all day so i and anxity all day concerend that i had asending paralisis. the only reason i even kneew what it was was because i had see a story about it on tv months before. .. .. .. if i we were logical thinking people, i would have just attributed it to the fact i was at a wedding the night before wearing heels, then not wearing them and someome probably stepped on them. but for people like us, we have major concerns its something out.

i freak out all the time about hallucinating or that im going to. my major one is im one day going to be somewhere or at home alone and i will have a seizure... not that i have any reason i would, ive never had one or came close to having one in my life.

i know this was a really long post. but i just wanted to let you know, there are people out here EXACTLY like you and know waht you are going though. its the hardest thing that ive had to do, but ive given into my anxiety. it comes on, and i try my best just to ride the wave. its when you try to fight it that makes you even more ramped up and overwhelmed.

[Madeleine]

Hi Marilyn,

In reading your post you have really started to ease my mind. I have been suffering with Anxiety, Panic and Depression for about 2 months now, and my latest fad of making myself panic is turning everything I look at into a face. I'm trying to convince myself that I am hallucinating to really scare myself. I know I am obsessing and over analysing everything but it's sooooo scarey and I can't seem to stop it.

Any advice on this?

Madeleine.x:)

[PanicOver!!]

Hi
The only thing that seems to stop me obsessing is distraction, reading helps but you have to really "read" the words, also listen to clasical music ( i dont really like it but because it is a jumble of sounds i try and see if i can pick out individual instruments) the last one is find some optical illusions on the web and keep looking at those again it seems to work for me
Dont give up looking and im sure you will find something that works for you

We should all have google shut down LOL

[bellabessnjet]

Hi Jonanna,
You sound just like me! I have an ant phobia and yet feel compelled to look them up on the internet, I can tell you everything you want to know about them, funnily enough it doesn't help, though whilst looking on the net I'm not searching for them in the house! Unfortunately when I go to bed all I've read goes round and round in my head and I'm often downstairs looking for them at 3am making sure thers not 100s of them. I also know that at the time it's sort of comforting to seek out all the info, I try now to look only for 5mins if at all, sort of weaning myself of them! I've found reading helps or not turning on the damn computer (can't help it some days) I feel its almost like an addiction now maybe even borderline OCD, just try and do 1 thing a day to forget about it (easier said then done I know) and gradually build up, listen to 1 record, then 2, go for a 2 mins walk.
Just know its not just you and reading your message has helped me good luck,
Angela.

[Madeleine]

Thanks for the advice Marc. Hope to speak soon.x

[Marilyn27]

Hey madeleine

usually when i start to think im seeing things i close my eyes and breath really deep. i guess its kinda the same effect that a child has when they think there is a monster in their room and somehow hiding under the blanket will make it go away lol

if its night time and im looking into the dark and morphing things with my imagination, i turn my light one and try to fall asleep that way (im 27 by the way) lol

or i just try to laugh at myself. sometimes makeing light of how silly im being can help too.

hope these help, i know its not easy, but you will find a way that works for you.

i also sometimes think im hearing things, like someone saying my name.

just remember that any kinda of symptom or weird thing that is going on with you...you will always be able to find someone on this site that has been / going throught the same thing, that always gives me some peice of mind also.

:) Marilyn

[ashlynyoyohelp]

okay, i have ALL of tose strange thought and what i learned is to calm down, and know that you have none of those symptoms. understand that thoughts are not real, they are just abstract figures of the mind and they can not ruin you.

people who have schizophrenia dont know they have it and think they are perfectly normal. You are aware of it and scared you may have it. therefore you do not! Understand that mental sickness such as schizoprenia and BPD has to be learned and somewhat hereditary. THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE IT THINK THEY ARE NORMAL! YOU THINK YOU HAVE BUT YOU DO NOT BECAUSE YOU ARE AWARE OF IT!

[Madeleine]

Thanks Marilyn and Ashlyn. Sounds so silly when I describe what's happening but I sometimes just can't stop it! I don't know why part of my mind is desperately trying to convince me that i'm going mad, (or what I perceive to be 'mad'). Don't think my meds help, think i'm on too much Citalopram, 40mg's.

Madeleine.x

[luke1982]

Strange to think people fear the disorder I have it doesnt bother me too much tbh

[kathee]

ah Luke but do they really fear the disorder or do they only fear their perception of how the disorder will be? our minds are great at making a caracature of conditions when in fact the reality of those conditions is nothing like the perceived symptoms at all .....

[lotus]

I google stuff ALL the time - scary stories, symptoms of physical and mental illnesses, etc.
I have also feared demonic possession (among a million other things lol). It seems funny now, but I managed to scare myself when I was obsessing over it.
When you're anxious anything can freak you out, no matter how stupid and absurd it actually is. That's how anxiety works.

BTW this is so true ...
"do they really fear the disorder or do they only fear their perception of how the disorder will be? our minds are great at making a caracature of conditions when in fact the reality of those conditions is nothing like the perceived symptoms at all ....."