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HELP! Existential/Philosophical/Solipsism OCD
Hello, (Warning if sensitive to Philosophical stuff)
To get straight to the point, I'm 21, I have been diagnosed with Pathological/ Existential/Philosophical/Solipsism OCD. I used to have HOCD, Schizo-OCD, fear of becoming blind, fear of liking my mom (ie sexually) and Pedo-OCD, etc but my current bout is on a whole another level (like 100x more intense, panic attack level). I don't have any physical compulsions, but I do try to fight it through logic in my mind. It's been around a month since I was trying to fall asleep and thought, what if this world was my imagination and everything was a part of my perception. This sent me into anxiety. The next day, while I was taking a shower, I thought of the movie Inception, good movie btw, (Fight Club, Beautiful Mind, Truman Show probably didn't help either) and wondered what if I was in a dream and had a panic attack where I thought my head was going to explode. I wondered if I had to commit suicide to get back to the real world.
These thoughts led to schizo-Ocd or (maybe the Schizo-OCD led to the reality doubts) and doubting my memory (whether certain events actually happened and even though I know I was fine before, my brain finds loopholes to surpass my logic, like you created your memory rather than it is your actual memory even though I know it's my actual memory (ie doubt). There's always loopholes which is OCD I guess.
I had constant anxiety/panic attacks and my memory/concentration is lacking. I question everything (ie Why do I see what I see, why do we stop at a green light?, stupid questions, etc.) My main fear is the false sense of reality (ie Solipsism, living in a dream, and even though I know solipsism is just a thought experiment and people are, in fact, real my mind says you've been teleported into a dream/another reality where everything is the same except it's your perception, ie loopholes). I feel like I opened up a Pandora's Box of thoughts, a 2nd tier of uncontrollable thoughts. I should've just stayed in the 1st tier. My mind is so cluttered with thoughts and hectic. I'm a mess mentally.
My psychiatrist put me on Prozac (fluoxetine) and upgraded my dosage to 40mg and 2x 1mg Clonazapem (klonopin) and I have my ups and downs. However, my downs are really down and low (bad depression where I breakdown and cry, which makes me feel better for some reason) since being upgraded to 40mg on Friday due to school starting soon. I started at 10mg for a week then 20mg for 2 weeks which didn't seem to do much, but you can't tell in that short of a span with these SSRI's and my highs aren't that high. Sometimes I don't have any emotion which also *****. The derealization/depersonalization makes it worse. I have a therapist but she doesn't specialize in OCD but I guess it's better than nothing. I'll be transferred to an OCD specialist mid September.
I care about people and my friends and family so this is why this OCD is latching onto me so hard but I'm in so much pain. My family is in a financial struggle and my mom and dad always fight (hurt me terribly to see my family so disjointed and I'm an only child) which probably added to the stress which led to the attack (maybe subconsciously trying to escape from this reality?). Sometimes I feel if I just black out, the world will end, reality will end.
However, my mom and dad both love me and are doing their best to help me out and not fight and care for me during this time which I appreciate. But I keep doubting whether my parents are real or a part of my imagination (silly but it's painfully annoying). I don't have that "connection" to myself or with people that I used to, especially if I doubt their reality. Also, I'm an introvert, shy, and pessimistic and don't have good stress coping strategies which contribute to my condition.
I'm not interested in anything I was before (ie sports, music, girls, etc.) I just want to reset my brain, like brainwash it to where it was when I was fine. I don't even know what feeling fine is anymore. I'm constantly anxious about something and don't know how to interpret my thoughts (ie whether a feeling is from the family stress or the OCD stress, etc.) I try to match my feelings to before when I was fine but it's so hard. Nothing has really changed in reality except in my mind.
I'm eating healthy and taking in vitamin B, min tran, Protein, along with exercise to help out but sometimes I feel like it'll never end. I ask, "What's the purpose of life, why am I on Earth, why was I born on when I was and not another date, why was I born on Earth, etc. Questioning every single thing imaginable. My psychiatrist says it takes about 3 months for it to go away but it seems like an eternity.
Sometimes I feel like there is hope, hopeless, but then days where my Anxiety/OCD/Depression hits hard, I feel like giving up but suicide is NOT an option, but I just know I can't live like this forever. Sometimes I don't know what I'm thinking, whether I'm believing these thoughts or not, etc. I'm scared if I get better, it'll just come back into another form or this will have a traumatic effect on me.
I'm trying to get back into Christianity to help cope, my family is Christian but my mind says "in your imagination you created Christianity so it tries to negate that belief." My family and friends are the most important thing in the world to me, I just want to be brainwashed back into thinking that the world is real, people are real, life is real. But this past month has been a living hell. I want to believe these thoughts are false but the doubts just bring them back, plus I don't "feel" right. All of you sufferers will know what I'm talking about when feeling "right".
This might sound foolish but I'd rather have cancer than OCD/Depression at this severity. I just want to get back to normal, I'm doing whatever it takes and hope it'll go away with time like the HOCD which was pretty bad but nothing debilitating. It's a month I'd like to forget. I want to chase my dreams and ambition but this stupid illness is preventing me from it and since the mind is more abstract, it's scarier especially when dealing with "false reality" for me. I just wish there was a machine to reset your brain (ie like Reformatting your computer).
Sorry for the long post but need some support and guidance during this time. It just seems like one long nightmare. I'm just assuming that people are real and that there are people who can help me in this world.
In before TL;DR but please read and support
Thanks,
To get straight to the point, I'm 21, I have been diagnosed with Pathological/ Existential/Philosophical/Solipsism OCD. I used to have HOCD, Schizo-OCD, fear of becoming blind, fear of liking my mom (ie sexually) and Pedo-OCD, etc but my current bout is on a whole another level (like 100x more intense, panic attack level). I don't have any physical compulsions, but I do try to fight it through logic in my mind. It's been around a month since I was trying to fall asleep and thought, what if this world was my imagination and everything was a part of my perception. This sent me into anxiety. The next day, while I was taking a shower, I thought of the movie Inception, good movie btw, (Fight Club, Beautiful Mind, Truman Show probably didn't help either) and wondered what if I was in a dream and had a panic attack where I thought my head was going to explode. I wondered if I had to commit suicide to get back to the real world.
These thoughts led to schizo-Ocd or (maybe the Schizo-OCD led to the reality doubts) and doubting my memory (whether certain events actually happened and even though I know I was fine before, my brain finds loopholes to surpass my logic, like you created your memory rather than it is your actual memory even though I know it's my actual memory (ie doubt). There's always loopholes which is OCD I guess.
I had constant anxiety/panic attacks and my memory/concentration is lacking. I question everything (ie Why do I see what I see, why do we stop at a green light?, stupid questions, etc.) My main fear is the false sense of reality (ie Solipsism, living in a dream, and even though I know solipsism is just a thought experiment and people are, in fact, real my mind says you've been teleported into a dream/another reality where everything is the same except it's your perception, ie loopholes). I feel like I opened up a Pandora's Box of thoughts, a 2nd tier of uncontrollable thoughts. I should've just stayed in the 1st tier. My mind is so cluttered with thoughts and hectic. I'm a mess mentally.
My psychiatrist put me on Prozac (fluoxetine) and upgraded my dosage to 40mg and 2x 1mg Clonazapem (klonopin) and I have my ups and downs. However, my downs are really down and low (bad depression where I breakdown and cry, which makes me feel better for some reason) since being upgraded to 40mg on Friday due to school starting soon. I started at 10mg for a week then 20mg for 2 weeks which didn't seem to do much, but you can't tell in that short of a span with these SSRI's and my highs aren't that high. Sometimes I don't have any emotion which also *****. The derealization/depersonalization makes it worse. I have a therapist but she doesn't specialize in OCD but I guess it's better than nothing. I'll be transferred to an OCD specialist mid September.
I care about people and my friends and family so this is why this OCD is latching onto me so hard but I'm in so much pain. My family is in a financial struggle and my mom and dad always fight (hurt me terribly to see my family so disjointed and I'm an only child) which probably added to the stress which led to the attack (maybe subconsciously trying to escape from this reality?). Sometimes I feel if I just black out, the world will end, reality will end.
However, my mom and dad both love me and are doing their best to help me out and not fight and care for me during this time which I appreciate. But I keep doubting whether my parents are real or a part of my imagination (silly but it's painfully annoying). I don't have that "connection" to myself or with people that I used to, especially if I doubt their reality. Also, I'm an introvert, shy, and pessimistic and don't have good stress coping strategies which contribute to my condition.
I'm not interested in anything I was before (ie sports, music, girls, etc.) I just want to reset my brain, like brainwash it to where it was when I was fine. I don't even know what feeling fine is anymore. I'm constantly anxious about something and don't know how to interpret my thoughts (ie whether a feeling is from the family stress or the OCD stress, etc.) I try to match my feelings to before when I was fine but it's so hard. Nothing has really changed in reality except in my mind.
I'm eating healthy and taking in vitamin B, min tran, Protein, along with exercise to help out but sometimes I feel like it'll never end. I ask, "What's the purpose of life, why am I on Earth, why was I born on when I was and not another date, why was I born on Earth, etc. Questioning every single thing imaginable. My psychiatrist says it takes about 3 months for it to go away but it seems like an eternity.
Sometimes I feel like there is hope, hopeless, but then days where my Anxiety/OCD/Depression hits hard, I feel like giving up but suicide is NOT an option, but I just know I can't live like this forever. Sometimes I don't know what I'm thinking, whether I'm believing these thoughts or not, etc. I'm scared if I get better, it'll just come back into another form or this will have a traumatic effect on me.
I'm trying to get back into Christianity to help cope, my family is Christian but my mind says "in your imagination you created Christianity so it tries to negate that belief." My family and friends are the most important thing in the world to me, I just want to be brainwashed back into thinking that the world is real, people are real, life is real. But this past month has been a living hell. I want to believe these thoughts are false but the doubts just bring them back, plus I don't "feel" right. All of you sufferers will know what I'm talking about when feeling "right".
This might sound foolish but I'd rather have cancer than OCD/Depression at this severity. I just want to get back to normal, I'm doing whatever it takes and hope it'll go away with time like the HOCD which was pretty bad but nothing debilitating. It's a month I'd like to forget. I want to chase my dreams and ambition but this stupid illness is preventing me from it and since the mind is more abstract, it's scarier especially when dealing with "false reality" for me. I just wish there was a machine to reset your brain (ie like Reformatting your computer).
Sorry for the long post but need some support and guidance during this time. It just seems like one long nightmare. I'm just assuming that people are real and that there are people who can help me in this world.
In before TL;DR but please read and support
Thanks,
Best Answer
I think I will, thanks so much for the post.
WIll
WIll
Thank you for both of your posts. I especially loved the paragraph
"I tend to think that highly imaginative people are often afflicted with OCD, and that one can look at OCD as a condition of having one's imagination TURNED AGAINST its owner - to create problems for itself, because the imaginative mind when dominated by OCD LOVES solving problems - even at the expense of the owner's emotional well being. So don't try and shut off the things that scare you - they probably frighten you because you have a passion for them, and that's a good thing."
This is an older post and most likely others will not look at it. Why don't you copy and past yours into a new post with the title of something like "My OCD success story." Something like that so that people will know to read what is a success story. You have run the gamut of OCD from irrational thinking to ritualistic behavior and I think that other OCD sufferers can learn a lot from your post.
Samdagonner's last post was November 19th. He hasn't posted anything since and so he may never see what you wrote. It would be a shame if others didn't see it.
Take care.
"I tend to think that highly imaginative people are often afflicted with OCD, and that one can look at OCD as a condition of having one's imagination TURNED AGAINST its owner - to create problems for itself, because the imaginative mind when dominated by OCD LOVES solving problems - even at the expense of the owner's emotional well being. So don't try and shut off the things that scare you - they probably frighten you because you have a passion for them, and that's a good thing."
This is an older post and most likely others will not look at it. Why don't you copy and past yours into a new post with the title of something like "My OCD success story." Something like that so that people will know to read what is a success story. You have run the gamut of OCD from irrational thinking to ritualistic behavior and I think that other OCD sufferers can learn a lot from your post.
Samdagonner's last post was November 19th. He hasn't posted anything since and so he may never see what you wrote. It would be a shame if others didn't see it.
Take care.
Part 2:
I think Link is completely right with his list of advice - especially when he suggests you don't try to stop thinking about philosophy, or the intellectual things that seem to be causing the panic. Because philosophy has such power over your OCD, I assume that you're very interested in philosophy. And, like you, movies that have to do with the nature of a false reality have really scared the crap out of me. I was freaking out about this stuff before Inception came out, but thinking about The Matrix tortured me, and when I was in the movie theater toward the end of Vanilla Sky - I had one of my worst panic attacks ever. That being said, I love movies that play with reality, and the stimulating, positive reaction I have to them is particularly strong because those ideas are powerful to me. I love the power of very scary ideas - ideas that would have sent me into a panic a few years ago - because they hit me on a very deep level and stimulate my creative imagination like almost nothing else has the power to do.
I tend to think that highly imaginative people are often afflicted with OCD, and that one can look at OCD as a condition of having one's imagination TURNED AGAINST its owner - to create problems for itself, because the imaginative mind when dominated by OCD LOVES solving problems - even at the expense of the owner's emotional well being. So don't try and shut off the things that scare you - they probably frighten you because you have a passion for them, and that's a good thing.
I also agree with NOT FIGHTING THE PANIC. In my experience, fighting it makes it worse. When you feel a panic attack coming on, try to tell yourself "okay, I'm going to panic now and I'll let it run its course" because that helps me lower my anxiety.
Also, diet makes a HUGE difference - I drank lots and lots of coca cola as a kid, and I cut caffeine out of my diet (doctor suggested it) around the time I stopped having chronic panic attacks. Even nowadays, when I have a coke or a cigarette (they do the same thing to me) I feel a little shaky and find myself ritualistically blinking at the walls to prevent my fears from approaching.
And my one VERY STRONG PIECE OF ADVICE: I suggest that you, at all costs, stay away from marijuana. I'm personally not morally or politically opposed to it, but in my experience it has the power to bring back my philosophical terrors like no other stimulant. (I've never tried cocaine but I bet that is much worse!) I went for 1 full year without having a panic attack, I smoked weed one night, and I had TERRIBLE panic attacks for the next week. Then, I swore off the stuff and it's been over 2 years and I haven't felt the slightest bit philosophically panicked. Of course everyone's different, but for me it's just not worth the risk.
Other than that, just know that it gets better. There were periods in my life where I was absolutely convinced that I would never get any better, that having panic attacks was something I would have to deal with for my entire life. Things that DEFINITELY helped me: family, therapy, diet, medication, friends, constant stimulation, but if I were to go back in time and give myself advice during one my panic attacks, I would try to convince myself that my mindset has a natural tendency to evolve. So try to let that idea sink in and let it be of comfort, if your OCD will let it.
I have never met another person who has been plagued by exactly this type of anxiety, so I would love to compare notes with you sometime!
How's it going as of recent?
Will Bryan
***@****
I think Link is completely right with his list of advice - especially when he suggests you don't try to stop thinking about philosophy, or the intellectual things that seem to be causing the panic. Because philosophy has such power over your OCD, I assume that you're very interested in philosophy. And, like you, movies that have to do with the nature of a false reality have really scared the crap out of me. I was freaking out about this stuff before Inception came out, but thinking about The Matrix tortured me, and when I was in the movie theater toward the end of Vanilla Sky - I had one of my worst panic attacks ever. That being said, I love movies that play with reality, and the stimulating, positive reaction I have to them is particularly strong because those ideas are powerful to me. I love the power of very scary ideas - ideas that would have sent me into a panic a few years ago - because they hit me on a very deep level and stimulate my creative imagination like almost nothing else has the power to do.
I tend to think that highly imaginative people are often afflicted with OCD, and that one can look at OCD as a condition of having one's imagination TURNED AGAINST its owner - to create problems for itself, because the imaginative mind when dominated by OCD LOVES solving problems - even at the expense of the owner's emotional well being. So don't try and shut off the things that scare you - they probably frighten you because you have a passion for them, and that's a good thing.
I also agree with NOT FIGHTING THE PANIC. In my experience, fighting it makes it worse. When you feel a panic attack coming on, try to tell yourself "okay, I'm going to panic now and I'll let it run its course" because that helps me lower my anxiety.
Also, diet makes a HUGE difference - I drank lots and lots of coca cola as a kid, and I cut caffeine out of my diet (doctor suggested it) around the time I stopped having chronic panic attacks. Even nowadays, when I have a coke or a cigarette (they do the same thing to me) I feel a little shaky and find myself ritualistically blinking at the walls to prevent my fears from approaching.
And my one VERY STRONG PIECE OF ADVICE: I suggest that you, at all costs, stay away from marijuana. I'm personally not morally or politically opposed to it, but in my experience it has the power to bring back my philosophical terrors like no other stimulant. (I've never tried cocaine but I bet that is much worse!) I went for 1 full year without having a panic attack, I smoked weed one night, and I had TERRIBLE panic attacks for the next week. Then, I swore off the stuff and it's been over 2 years and I haven't felt the slightest bit philosophically panicked. Of course everyone's different, but for me it's just not worth the risk.
Other than that, just know that it gets better. There were periods in my life where I was absolutely convinced that I would never get any better, that having panic attacks was something I would have to deal with for my entire life. Things that DEFINITELY helped me: family, therapy, diet, medication, friends, constant stimulation, but if I were to go back in time and give myself advice during one my panic attacks, I would try to convince myself that my mindset has a natural tendency to evolve. So try to let that idea sink in and let it be of comfort, if your OCD will let it.
I have never met another person who has been plagued by exactly this type of anxiety, so I would love to compare notes with you sometime!
How's it going as of recent?
Will Bryan
***@****
-- VERY LONG POST, SORRY!!! --
Part 1 of 2
Hey Sam,
I am so grateful that you chose to share your thoughts online. I stumbled onto this page by searching "solipsistic fears." My mind is blown by your description of anxiety you (I hope, used to) have, because its intensity and philosophical nature sound so incredibly similar to the nightmarishly awful panic attacks I used to have. I've been diagnosed with OCD and depression, and for years I had philosophical panic attacks which were hinged on the terrifying and (seemingly) un-negatable fear that people are not "real." It feels so unbelievably, ultimately awful while you're in the middle of a panic attack. There's no way to accurately describe to another person just how truly horrible it is, I know. I see that some people have already shared some insightful advice - and although I may not have any new advice, I would like to tell you a bit about my breakdowns, and about recovery from them.
First of all, I'm a 23 year old male currently living in Richmond, Virginia with my girlfriend. I'm a filmmaker, I make music videos professionally, and although i still have OCD and I still THINK ABOUT the philosophical issues that used to torture me, I no longer have constant panic attacks and my most recent one was over 2 years ago. These days, I feel completely in control of my panic and philosophical fears.
I don't know how these strange fears began, but they started when I was seven years old. I had uncontrollable panic attacks in school because of something I described to my mom and dad as "the flip book thing" (meaning I was afraid that the entire world was an illusion and God was holding a flip book in front of my eyes to fool me into thinking there were other people in existence - very weird analogy.) I had two major traumatic experiences early in life (I almost died from streptococcus pneumoniae at the age of five, and that same year a family member incredibly close to me passed away suddenly) and I think these events may have contributed to my feelings of uneasiness as a child.
I had such extreme "flip book thing" panic attacks as a kid that my mom took me out of school in the 5th Grade to home-school me. Shortly before this happened, my parents got divorced which may have further contributed to my anxiety.
I was able to lead a pretty functional life as a middle school/early high school age kid; had a small number of close friends and got along well with my family, but the panic attacks were slowly getting worse, and more frequent.
When I was a young teenager, I started having very intense OCD. This translated itself into many fears (fear of becoming blind and fear of somehow liking my family sexually were two of them - and also, fear that I would do something awful to somebody else, like pushing an old lady, a baby, saying something truly hurtful to a sensitive person, etc - things I would never in real life do but was afraid that I "might" do) but the biggest, most powerful fear was my philosophical fear of being cosmically alone.
My OCD manifested itself with rituals of "preventing" my fear of "becoming" true. I would make myself hop on one foot out of the shower, and I pretended in my brain that if I were to touch 1 wrong tile, my worst fears would come true (which I know is totally ridiculous - and I knew that as I did my rituals, but as you know, OCD operates on a very different plane of logic) - I had "good" colors and "bad" colors and was unable to look at the bad ones for I had a fear that they would have the power to bring about my fears. These are just a few of my strange, lifestyle and behavior-compromising beliefs, there are too many to name.
Then, when I was a young teenager, my Dad died. Over the course of the next few years, my anxiety and OCD got a MILLION times worse. There was a period of time when I was, (already shy) terrified of meeting new people because my speech was so full of "good" words and verbal rituals. My OCD and solipsistic fears were also twisted by a non-religious fear of God: I was so very afraid of sin that I became a mess of rituals in every social situation: I would say Please and Thank you over and over and over, because in my OCD-tinted ideas of morality, that was the "right" thing to do. I became convinced that sexual interest in the opposite sex was "wrong" so I tried my best to avoid any kind of visual stimulation of girls, in person or on TV. This fear of pleasure evolved into a fear of fun, and I would try and deny myself ANY kind of positive stimulation (probably the worst thing I could have done) and there was a period of time when I tried to make myself stare at one point in the wall for literally hours.
Also, for some reason, guilt was an incredibly strong emotion during my panic attacks. Growing up and frequently coinciding with panic attacks, I would have incredibly vivid and terrifying feverdream-like night terrors while sick or sometimes just randomly (this is a whole other thing to talk about) and in these dreams I felt a panic more violent than anything I felt while awake. The content of the dreams almost always had to do with guilt, with me being alone, with with me destroying the cosmos or screwing things up for all of existence somehow. I few years ago I found a good blog where people had very similar dreams to the ones I had.
I was put on Prozac, then Risperdal, then Lexapro. I had a fantastic cognitive therapist and did CBT, meditation and breathing exercises. I was able to pull it together for most of the time, and when for my junior and senior years of high school I went back to public school.
Then, in the second semester of my senior year, I had an absolute breakdown. This is one of the main things that I wanted to describe for you. It was, without any doubt, the absolute worst period of my life. My entire day was a panic attack - I would wake up in the morning, immediately be thrown into a panic, exhaust myself, pass out with the help of a klonopin, then wake up and panic all over again. It was impossible for me to muster the energy to distract myself from mindless panic, and I was at this level of intensity for most of the every whole day for 14 days. Suicide has NEVER, even remotely, been an option for me (I'm very glad to see that you're the same way) but I felt like I would have lost my mind if it had gone on for any longer. Maybe not literally, but that's how I felt at the time.
On the 14th day of my breakdown I took a nap in the afternoon, had some incredibly peculiar and comforting dreams, and when I woke up, I did not have a panic attack for the rest of the night.
I had a few panic attacks over the next couple months, but they were rapidly fading away. I attribute this change to medication, meditation, therapy and diet, but also the plain fact that your psyche cannot panic forever. It gets exhausted. I know this part of my recovery may not be of much practical help as far as advice - but what I'm trying to share with you is the lesson I learned: NO MATTER HOW BAD IT GETS, THERE'S ALWAYS AN END TO THE PANIC. Our brains make us panic because of their physiology, and in our cases, terrifying philosophy is the tool they use to justify the panic. But under the hood, it's all physiology. And our brains are physiologically INCAPABLE of panicking forever.
In my case, I think my brain just burned itself out with the same kind of behavior for too long, and suddenly got bored with the OCD and panic and fears, and wanted switch it up and translate the energy I would normally be panicking with to something else. So please, if you take one thing from my ridiculously long post, try to remind yourself, while you're having a panic attack, that although it FEELS like it will last forever, IT WON'T. And you won't be dealing with the panic attacks the way that you are now forever. I am the living proof of this.
Part 1 of 2
Hey Sam,
I am so grateful that you chose to share your thoughts online. I stumbled onto this page by searching "solipsistic fears." My mind is blown by your description of anxiety you (I hope, used to) have, because its intensity and philosophical nature sound so incredibly similar to the nightmarishly awful panic attacks I used to have. I've been diagnosed with OCD and depression, and for years I had philosophical panic attacks which were hinged on the terrifying and (seemingly) un-negatable fear that people are not "real." It feels so unbelievably, ultimately awful while you're in the middle of a panic attack. There's no way to accurately describe to another person just how truly horrible it is, I know. I see that some people have already shared some insightful advice - and although I may not have any new advice, I would like to tell you a bit about my breakdowns, and about recovery from them.
First of all, I'm a 23 year old male currently living in Richmond, Virginia with my girlfriend. I'm a filmmaker, I make music videos professionally, and although i still have OCD and I still THINK ABOUT the philosophical issues that used to torture me, I no longer have constant panic attacks and my most recent one was over 2 years ago. These days, I feel completely in control of my panic and philosophical fears.
I don't know how these strange fears began, but they started when I was seven years old. I had uncontrollable panic attacks in school because of something I described to my mom and dad as "the flip book thing" (meaning I was afraid that the entire world was an illusion and God was holding a flip book in front of my eyes to fool me into thinking there were other people in existence - very weird analogy.) I had two major traumatic experiences early in life (I almost died from streptococcus pneumoniae at the age of five, and that same year a family member incredibly close to me passed away suddenly) and I think these events may have contributed to my feelings of uneasiness as a child.
I had such extreme "flip book thing" panic attacks as a kid that my mom took me out of school in the 5th Grade to home-school me. Shortly before this happened, my parents got divorced which may have further contributed to my anxiety.
I was able to lead a pretty functional life as a middle school/early high school age kid; had a small number of close friends and got along well with my family, but the panic attacks were slowly getting worse, and more frequent.
When I was a young teenager, I started having very intense OCD. This translated itself into many fears (fear of becoming blind and fear of somehow liking my family sexually were two of them - and also, fear that I would do something awful to somebody else, like pushing an old lady, a baby, saying something truly hurtful to a sensitive person, etc - things I would never in real life do but was afraid that I "might" do) but the biggest, most powerful fear was my philosophical fear of being cosmically alone.
My OCD manifested itself with rituals of "preventing" my fear of "becoming" true. I would make myself hop on one foot out of the shower, and I pretended in my brain that if I were to touch 1 wrong tile, my worst fears would come true (which I know is totally ridiculous - and I knew that as I did my rituals, but as you know, OCD operates on a very different plane of logic) - I had "good" colors and "bad" colors and was unable to look at the bad ones for I had a fear that they would have the power to bring about my fears. These are just a few of my strange, lifestyle and behavior-compromising beliefs, there are too many to name.
Then, when I was a young teenager, my Dad died. Over the course of the next few years, my anxiety and OCD got a MILLION times worse. There was a period of time when I was, (already shy) terrified of meeting new people because my speech was so full of "good" words and verbal rituals. My OCD and solipsistic fears were also twisted by a non-religious fear of God: I was so very afraid of sin that I became a mess of rituals in every social situation: I would say Please and Thank you over and over and over, because in my OCD-tinted ideas of morality, that was the "right" thing to do. I became convinced that sexual interest in the opposite sex was "wrong" so I tried my best to avoid any kind of visual stimulation of girls, in person or on TV. This fear of pleasure evolved into a fear of fun, and I would try and deny myself ANY kind of positive stimulation (probably the worst thing I could have done) and there was a period of time when I tried to make myself stare at one point in the wall for literally hours.
Also, for some reason, guilt was an incredibly strong emotion during my panic attacks. Growing up and frequently coinciding with panic attacks, I would have incredibly vivid and terrifying feverdream-like night terrors while sick or sometimes just randomly (this is a whole other thing to talk about) and in these dreams I felt a panic more violent than anything I felt while awake. The content of the dreams almost always had to do with guilt, with me being alone, with with me destroying the cosmos or screwing things up for all of existence somehow. I few years ago I found a good blog where people had very similar dreams to the ones I had.
I was put on Prozac, then Risperdal, then Lexapro. I had a fantastic cognitive therapist and did CBT, meditation and breathing exercises. I was able to pull it together for most of the time, and when for my junior and senior years of high school I went back to public school.
Then, in the second semester of my senior year, I had an absolute breakdown. This is one of the main things that I wanted to describe for you. It was, without any doubt, the absolute worst period of my life. My entire day was a panic attack - I would wake up in the morning, immediately be thrown into a panic, exhaust myself, pass out with the help of a klonopin, then wake up and panic all over again. It was impossible for me to muster the energy to distract myself from mindless panic, and I was at this level of intensity for most of the every whole day for 14 days. Suicide has NEVER, even remotely, been an option for me (I'm very glad to see that you're the same way) but I felt like I would have lost my mind if it had gone on for any longer. Maybe not literally, but that's how I felt at the time.
On the 14th day of my breakdown I took a nap in the afternoon, had some incredibly peculiar and comforting dreams, and when I woke up, I did not have a panic attack for the rest of the night.
I had a few panic attacks over the next couple months, but they were rapidly fading away. I attribute this change to medication, meditation, therapy and diet, but also the plain fact that your psyche cannot panic forever. It gets exhausted. I know this part of my recovery may not be of much practical help as far as advice - but what I'm trying to share with you is the lesson I learned: NO MATTER HOW BAD IT GETS, THERE'S ALWAYS AN END TO THE PANIC. Our brains make us panic because of their physiology, and in our cases, terrifying philosophy is the tool they use to justify the panic. But under the hood, it's all physiology. And our brains are physiologically INCAPABLE of panicking forever.
In my case, I think my brain just burned itself out with the same kind of behavior for too long, and suddenly got bored with the OCD and panic and fears, and wanted switch it up and translate the energy I would normally be panicking with to something else. So please, if you take one thing from my ridiculously long post, try to remind yourself, while you're having a panic attack, that although it FEELS like it will last forever, IT WON'T. And you won't be dealing with the panic attacks the way that you are now forever. I am the living proof of this.
My post was in response to link611, I had put the name in the "To" section but apparently it did not post it. Thanks link611.
Hey, thanks for the reply,
I'm doing a lot better now and do steps 3 and 4 completely. I don't drink any caffeinated drinks (ie soda, coffee, energy drinks, etc). I do drink occasionally to socialize etc, but I don't overdo it although I want to sometimes ;). I exercise as much as I can (work out at least 3-4 times a week and walk a bike trail behind my house). I also eat lots of fruits and drink a homemade veggie juice everyday along with taking vitamins. I don't let the OCD control me even though it gets hard sometimes, but I feel I'm slowly, but surely, getting a hold of it. I've improved leaps and bounds since this episode first started and I believe that most of my anxiety doesn't come from my intrusive thoughts, although some of it can be attributed to them, but from personal issues I am experiencing at the moment.
Thanks again, for the advice and reply, it's greatly appreciated!
- Sam
I'm doing a lot better now and do steps 3 and 4 completely. I don't drink any caffeinated drinks (ie soda, coffee, energy drinks, etc). I do drink occasionally to socialize etc, but I don't overdo it although I want to sometimes ;). I exercise as much as I can (work out at least 3-4 times a week and walk a bike trail behind my house). I also eat lots of fruits and drink a homemade veggie juice everyday along with taking vitamins. I don't let the OCD control me even though it gets hard sometimes, but I feel I'm slowly, but surely, getting a hold of it. I've improved leaps and bounds since this episode first started and I believe that most of my anxiety doesn't come from my intrusive thoughts, although some of it can be attributed to them, but from personal issues I am experiencing at the moment.
Thanks again, for the advice and reply, it's greatly appreciated!
- Sam
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I think the toughest part is that we know these thoughts are irrational, I mean we are smart people, but knowing that isn't always the answer obviously. We constantly test ourselves, and when we finally resolve something it is replaced by yet another test. The key is to not fight it because the more we do the worse it gets.
I also understand your need for this to go away and to be normal again. The bonus is that you know you WILL be normal again, it just is going to take some time. You know this, because you have lived through it before so that in itself should be comforting. Remind yourself of that when you are in that OCD cycle.
You are way ahead of the game here. You may not believe it but you really are. You know the thoughts are irrational, you are seeing a psychiatrist and you are taking medication for it. The increased dosage in Prozac will take some time to take effect as you probably know. You need a really good 4-6 weeks of being at the optimal dose to get the real benefits. Take the klonopin as instructed. It will actually build up to a steady state in your system and be more helpful. I take it myself.
The other thing I would suggest is seeking out a Psychologist to go hand-in-hand with the Psychiatrist. There are psychologists that specialize in cognitive behavioral therapy and I think that goes a long way with the medication. Most Psychiatrists do not teach CBT but you can discuss this with yours and if they don't perhaps they can give you the name of someone that does. Usually at that point the psychiatrist just takes over the medication and the psychologist takes over the actual therapy part.
Here is a book that I also found very helpful during my last major OCD crisis which was in May. It is called Self-Coaching by Joseph Luciani and it has a green cover. I read that thing to death and it really helped me.
Also, I am glad to see that you know that suicide is not the answer. Yes, if we were not here we would not be suffering but compared to having cancer or something like that, we are better off. I know you don't think that now but we truly are. Your derealization/depersonalization will go away, I promise you! And you will be able to do all those things on your to-do list.
If you want to know more about me, then you can read "About me" under my name. It does not list everything I have been through becasue that would take an entire book, but you will get the gist about me and that I understand you and what you are going through.
Feel free to post again here if you need to talk or you can PM me and I will respond. Keep me posted as to how you are doing! You WILL get over this.