Fear Of Developing Schizophrenia/Delusions/Psychosis

[Mxtmxxn]

My friend who was diagnosed with schizophrenia at a young age, was a really scary experience for me. Seeing how he looked and how his friends and family treated him before and after, it was really eye-opening to me, basically abandoned him or stopped caring. My OCD had started with a weird theme of "being late", and eventually moved on to sexuality OCD and now as an adult as harm OCD thoughts and eventually developed into other themes that varied. I'm a hypochondriac by nature (health anxiety), so I of course had to google symptoms qs well what I was experiencing (which is repeatedly telling myself I'm having delusions inside my head). Now I'm adamant that I'm developing other mental disorders because my intrusive thoughts are telling me I have delusions of persecution (which I googled) are a part of developing psychosis (The thoughts are that others want to hit or hurt me, even though I know they don't). It started first with "I'm developing psychosis, to I'm bipolar, to schizophrenia, and now to its possibly schizoaffective disorder". I also sometimes grounded or reassured myself with the idea that someone who is having delusions wouldn't know that they're having delusions, which is true in nature, but at times my intrusive thoughts are so intense that I'm adamant that I'm at a point that I'm losing insight of both. I also have had these types of intrusive thoughts and it never affected me before, but some stressors in my life really pushed my OCD to become debilitating since the start of the year, and it's tough now to be able to control myself like before. This is all confusing to me, and I'm really tired. Anyone that has had this before and how did you expose yourself to it so that you aren't affected by it as much?

[IStillHaveHope]

Hi. I understand where you're coming from. I to had OCD thoughts about developing schizophrenia when I was younger. I'm sorry to hear about your friend. That sounds terrible and I hope he gets the help and support he really needs. The thoughts don't really bother me as much anymore since well, I actually have people in my family that have schizophrenia. It isn't like it's shown in the movies (huge shock I know). It's like any other mental health condition. It can be treated and needs to be managed (kind of like OCD). It also tends to come one in late adolescence (like between 17 - 22) and isn't as common in older adults.

From your post it doesn't sound like you have schizophrenia. It sounds more like you have OCD and are ruminating about it. The googling, constant worrying, etc. are all hallmarks of OCD. If you haven't, you should really tell your doctor how you're feeling and try and find a therapist who specializes in OCD. Things really started to change for me when I was just honest with my doctor. He prescribed some medicine and referred me to a therapist. It took time, and wasn't easy, but I am in a lot better place now that I was.

I know how terrible OCD can be; I've been there and it can get better. I don't know if this will help, but I put together a post detailing what I've learned dealing with OCD. Feel free to give it a read if you'd like:

healthunlocked.com/my-ocd/p...

I really hope you find the peace you're looking for my friend. God bless you.

[Eli_E]

Hi! This fear of something being wrong and being afraid of developing schizophrenia or some kind of psychosis is one of my themes. I actually just started doing exposures for it under the guidance of my therapist. Currently I'm just reading 10ish articles a day about schizophrenia (and accepting all the fears of what if it is true) to start leaning into the fear and showing my ocd that he is being dumb. But before I started exposures I had to focus on just identifying all the thoughts / urges to check if I'm developing some disorder as ocd. It is of course uncomfy, but its kind of just like fake it to you make it. For me, I needed to focus on just labeling all these intrusive thoughts and feelings as intrusive/ ocd before I could wade into exposures. I'm sorry you are going through this and I wish you all the best!