Scary images/scared of developing schizophrenia

[Mav]

So I've been feeling on very high alert, jumping at phone calls or doorbells etc. I googled this, and ofcourse this sort of thing was associated with paranoia/delusions and schizophrenia. And I'm not silly, I know schizophrenic people dont realise they are developing schizophrenia but I just feel so on edge.

I am scared I am developing it :(

I keep getting scary intrusive thoughts/images, and i was pulling up my mattress yesterday and at the corner of my eye i saw something and it looked like a head with black hair being pulled up but I saw it was my scarf and I laughed it off because it was a silly thing to think and I realised it was down to my heightened state of anxiety, but now I'm scared it means something worse. What if I am developing schizophrenia? Also today at the corner of my eye I randomly saw a flash of light, and momentarily I was scared it was a ghost and ofc it was nothing.
I read a story about a man who got so delusional and paranoid that he attempted to kill his wife one night and that just scared me SO MUCH.

I'm going doctors tomorrow, I am going to tell the doctor about how much anxiety I have and ask for medication. I am terrified the medication he will prescribe me will make me really paranoid because I've read that can be a symptom, which really scares me, especially after all the stories I ended up reading on paranoia :(

Any words of advice will be helpful right now, I feel like I'm about to have a panic attack:(

[MyNameIsTerry]

Mav,

Paranoia and anxiety can often come together. My experience was that this is when anxiety levels are particularily high. Certainly in OCD some themes include elements of it anyway e.g. poisoning.

Of all the Schizophrenia threads on here I haven't seen anyone ever find they have it. And it's mostly hallucinations that make them think of it. But just thinking of hallucinations there are various reasons why anyone can experience them, those occuring when waking/falling asleep being perfectly normal brain functioning too.

With hallucinations I very much doubt it would be a matter of "what if it was one" as they would be quite clear. And like you say those who experience bouts of psychosis/delusion tend not to be aware it's not reality although those diagnosed with such conditions can learn to spot their warning signs to seek help.

But lets think about what anxiety is at it's most basic level; fight or flight. It ramps up neurotransmitters to make you alert and too much for too long means jumpiness. If it didn't ramp the body up and heighten senses then we would be lasing on a rock as the angry bear was charging at us. This is bound to mean we are more likely to question our surroundings and the images/sounds we see/hear.

Meds are very much a suck it and see thing. There is no way to rule out a med making you the way you fear but we can know how uncommon it is from the side effect profiles. The more likely experience will be increased levels of anxiety and intensification of current symptoms or new ones appearing until your body adjusts. You won't know until you try them but remember you can always come straight off that at the beginning and your GP should be monitoring you anyway so expect a follow up after a week or so and maybe another a couple of weeks later so they can check. Plus you are young so they are always more cautious in monitoring.