Re: Fear of schizophrenia
I know this post is a little old but It's somewhat calming to know that other people are going thru the same hell as me. I currently am very worried/obsessed with the fact that I believe I'm developing schizophrenia. My obsession too started after I had a panic attack. I had never had one before and I felt like I was loosing my mind so I started googling and bam! Loads of information about schizophrenia came up. I haven't stopped googling about it and that was 2 months ago. I feel like I have all the symptoms in minor levels including seeing/hearing things and i live in fear every day that things are just gonna gradually get worse. Can a person be so worried about symptoms that they make themselves feel them? Is that possible? this feeling is like living in hell, seriously.
Re: Fear of schizophrenia
I'll give you a real life example besides my previous post....
I toured in a band for many years and our bass player, while I knew he had some "issues", I didn't know the real extent. He was a great guy, albeit very quirky but then that's pretty common in the music business and creative types.
Anyway... he took meds and unbeknownst to us he had stopped taking them. We first noticed something was going on as he would have these little weird outbursts on stage. They were sort of like tourettes outbursts. I remember he barked like a dog at a girl. We all thought he was being funny but that turned out not to be the case. About a week later during a show, he went off on our lead singer about him turning off his bass amp. The amp was on and we all could hear it but in his mind he saw the lead singer turn around and shut it off. He literally couldn't hear it and actually saw our singer do it... (he obviously didn't!).
A couple days later at our next stop on the tour while we were sound checking, he totally lost it and we ended up calling emergency. He was admitted to the psychiatric hospital and spent a good month getting straight again. He was completely and utterly unaware of what was happening.
So yeah... the fact that you're even fearing this shows you don't have it nor is it happening. Those in true psychosis don't realize it's happening.
Positive thoughts
Re: Fear of schizophrenia
Ah, I relate very well to this. I can't give you a diagnoses but this sounds like OCD and also to put your mind to rest. CEV, or closed eye hallucinations are VERY common. Majority of people experince then daily. Hell if I closed my eye right now I'd probably have one. It has to do with the light going in your eyes. Also like I said I too have the same fear but mine was triggered by witnessing a friend have a psychotic episode. If it gives you any help you are nothing like her. She was dead set that someone was going to kill her and she kept hearing footsteps when I heard nothing and I pleaded with her but she kept saying "No, Nick someone's going to kill me" after this it sent me into a panic attack I googled everything and saw this schizophrenic think her mother was going to kill her so I'd have an intrusive thought "what if my mom's going to kill me?" I could quickly say "no that's illogical" but the fact I had that thought HAD to mean something right? Well no, thoughts are JUST thoughts. I hope this gives some comfort and you can message me anytime you like or stop on the OCD board. A few members have the same worries there as well.