[Guest]

Hi there, I'm an anxious guy with a little dp also, but my worst problem is that I have a strong fear of insanity...yes I know that this is very common but I freak out that maybe mine is different: I always go making searches on the net for symptoms of scary mental illnesses in order to reassure myself that I don't have these illnesses, but sadly when I read about them I sorta try to imagine them and then is like I have these symptoms.
Even if I can't imagine hallucinations (I guess they're impossible to create if one doesn't really have them) I'm more than able to make myself feel paranoid or delusional by thinking about things I've read on the net (aliens, CIA, thought reading and so on).
Another example is that when I've read about schizophrenic people "laughing instead of crying", I've started to think the classic "what if I laugh instead of crying?" and then, after a pair of months, everytime I read, hear or see sad news or situations, I've an urge to laugh and I panic, it has become automatic...I hope this is not psychosis and that I've only oversuggestioned myself.
Also I challenge myself to create the most horrible, absurd thoughts and next try to see if I believe in them...fear of delusions, of course, but then I freak out that maybe I really believe them and I must say to myself that it isn't true.
Ok, sorry for the long post but I really need some advice or reassurance...I know that I've a good insight and psychotic people don't have it, but I've the fear that one day I'll snap out of myself and become insane, sigh
Thank you for your help!

Tau

 

[genie]

I can say with a fair amount of confidence that no, you are not insane or psychotic or schizophrenic and that I have felt exactly the same way as you do and one point.

I read somewhere that schizophrenic people think other people can hear there thought, so then I starting thinking "what if people can hear my thoughts". I didnt GENUINELY believe they could but I thought the fact I had even thought it meant maybe I was mad.

I think that the problem you have is more like OCD where you have obsessional thoughts about something. And they are irrational thoughts but to you they can seem devastating. Its so common for people with anxiety and DP to start trying to convince themselves they are going insane (just look at some of the other posts on this board!).

When I was in quite a bad state and fearing going mad a psychiatrist told me that virtually every person who fears going mad won't go mad and the people that are mad either a) dont realise they are and feel normal or b) dont actually care about the fact they are mad.

Oh and one other thing, when my anxiety got very severe I had to go and stay in residential place for a few days and there were people with all sorts of mental illnesses. There was one person who I asked what was wrong with them and they replied "the doctors say I'm schizophrenic but I'm not, I'm psychic." Now if YOU started hearing voices you would KNOW something was wrong. You wouldnt think "hey, I'm psychic and the doctors are wrong". And that is where the difference lies!

Hope that helps a bit

Genie

 

[Guest]

Thank you for your reply Genie!
This thing is so distressing and I always fear that maybe this moment I'm conscious and aware and a moment later I'll lose contact with reality...it gives me the shivers.
Also did you have the thought that you tried to convince yourself to believe the stupid thoughts even if they're not? Sort of mental challenge with yourself.If it wasn't so distressing, I would laugh at the absurdness of all this. Sometimes I think that all this crap hides something that I don't want to change of myself...like a cover for real problems I don't want to see.Who knows?

 

[genie]

You convince yourself alsorts of horrible things. Its almost like your mind says "lets see how much I can scare myself" or its almost like you WANT to convince yourself the worse (even though you really dont).

I remember at one stage I would question everything I did/said/thought incase I somehow slipped up and did something 'mad.' I think that is probably how my DP experience started!

I think the problem is that with anxiety or/and DP you feel SO weird that you assume you must be mad in some way on the basis that you feel so far from normal and you know something isnt right at all. Eventually I stopped fearing going mad after hearing it repeatedly from doctors, psychiatrists and my family. I eventually took their word for it. Just remember that anxiety makes you feel incredibly weird (probably the weirdest you are going to feel in your life) but the people who are insane dont feel the weirdness. Also be aware the if you think something like "people can hear my thoughts", its only a silly thought in a frightened mind so dont place too much importance on it!

 

[Guest]

It's like buying a new electronic device of some kind and being DETERMINED to use EVERY single feature it has.

That was me. I needed to try to MAKE my brain do anything it COULD do...as if, in the name of Mastery, I had to see if I could make myself psychotic (not because I wanted to suffer, but so I'd KNOW how it felt, lol...to prepare myself, to reassure myself I could get "into" it and "out" of it and survive)

It's the single most destructive thing we folks do to ourselves. It is what keeps us sick.

Humans have SO little control in this world, and yet, we dp/obsessive types have to fool ourselves into BELIEVING we have control. SO in the name of mastery, we take ourselves to the ledge again and again. We have one horrible sensation, and then we keep repeating it over and over and over and over, examining it from every angle.

So terrified of the idea that we are NOT in the driver's seat of our entire existence, we fool ourselves into delusions of grandeur - we act as if we can FIGURE out the dp state, or master it, or make it do this or that once we figure it out.

Lies.

The way to reduce dp is to step aside and allow your mind to re-adjust itself. There is nothing you can do to "explore" how psychosis would feel. Nothing. All you will do is drive your dp to new levels of horror.

Peace,
Janine

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your reply, Janine, I'm sure you're right about people trying to control everything in their lives!My aunt, which is a counselor, said a similar thing when I explained her my fears...she said that my extremely happy childood, where my parents brought me everything I desired and made me do everything I wanted to do (I was exaggerately vicious), has created this problem which arised now that I must enter the "adult world" (I'm 21) and do all things by myself, so these fears are my reaction to this change of lifestyle I've to do, like a child that wants to continue to control everything in his life and have everyone at his service. She called this behave "omnipotent thought" ...maybe for many of us dp, anxiety or obsessiveness are caused by our refuse to accept a new reality, by hiding on a false and empty one.

 

[kenc127]

good stuff Janine. I guess what it boils down to is: Why do we think we need to punish ourselves? We've done nothing worthy of it, so why do it?

 

[person3]

The worst part in punishing ourselves, is that no one else will care if we do. They don't see the grandeur of our life, the drama we play out in our head. They have their own dramas anyway. The only ones that suffer are ourselves. And often we do it so other people will see our pain. And they won't. If we tell them we're in pain that's one thing, but not if we punish ourselves.