Hyperawareness of self/consciousness

[L33_0h]

Hi Everyone,

This is kind of hard to explain, but I hope someone can help. I've been experiencing this feeling where I suddenly become acutely aware of my own thoughts and my consciousness. Like I'm seeing myself for the first time, or observing my consciousness/self from the third person, but inside my own mind. In other words, I'm hyper-aware of myself/my existence. The episodes are very distressing and cause a great deal of anxiety. I now spend all day worrying about the next time it will happen, which I think is making it worse. I've had small instances of this feeling earlier in life and talked to others who've had it too, but no one else I know seems to be stuck in this cycle like I am. It mainly happens when I'm alone in the quiet. I've become afraid to meditate for fear of an episode. So my question is, has anyone experienced this before? Worried I'm losing my mind/identity whenever it happens. I should mention that I'm 26 and have had a lifelong history of anxiety and panic. If you've experienced this, were you able to overcome it?

I have heard this may be associated with ODC?

P.S. I do not think that this is the same as depersonalization. It seems like the opposite, like I'm too aware of myself.

Thank you so much for any advice you can give.

[Hidden]

Good news is. You are aware of yourself and thoughts. That means your sane.

[athanasiusjd]

I know exactly what you’re experiencing. You are certainly not alone!

Something similar happened to me about 15 years ago while alone in my college dorm room. I had been absently reading something for a class while at the same time engaging in a hair-pulling ritual (I’ve had a mild case of trichotillomania since adolescence). I began to ruminate over myself reading. I suddenly became aware I was doing this, so it felt like a heightened self-consciousness/awareness, which freaked me out, like being shoved into a mental hall of mirrors from which there was no escape. I began to have a panic attack, thinking I was going insane. For the next few minutes, I experienced a terror I’d never known: I thought I was having an irreversible psychotic episode that would surely end with me becoming a schizophrenic who would have to be thrown into a padded room for the rest of my life, or committing suicide by jumping out of the dorm room window. In short, I catastrophized by several orders of magnitude.

Thanks be to God I came out of it, but I was horribly traumatized. Frankly, I have not forgotten that trauma to this day.

In the weeks following this episode, I began experiencing symptoms of pure OCD. Terrifying thoughts would pinball through my head, often resulting in more panic attacks.

Eventually, I began to return to some semblance of normalcy, but there was always a low, steady rumble of fear in the back of my mind. Thankfully my mind began to refocus its energy on everyday life, but there was and is always that tendency to “check”: am I ok? Is everything as it was? Why am I aware of myself thinking? Am I going to lose control?

Having read more about hyperawareness OCD, I’ve learned to challenge the notion that my conscious mind is any different than it was before that first panic attack 15 years ago, and what led up to it. Most likely, you’ve always been self-conscious and had heightened self-awareness. So the lie is that you’re somehow different than before.

I should mention that for me, one good outcome of this time in my life is that I returned to the religion of my youth, knowing that the selfish, depraved life I was living beforehand certainly didn’t contribute to boundless, life-giving peace, joy and self-sacrificial love! So in that sense, I’m glad this terrible suffering happened.

Otherwise, I don’t know where I’d be now.