Scared of mental illness rather than physical illness..

[daisyjukes]

I have read lots of posts on this forum and I have noticed that many people who suffer from GAD fear physical illness e.g. having a heart attack, brain tumour.

My biggest fear is mental illness, this is a result of the event that triggered my anxiety/panic attacks.  Eight years ago when I was 19 I took a cocktail of recreational drugs.  I ended up screaming in a toilet, convinced i was dying and that my friends were the devil in disguise trying to convince me to sleep so I would be trapped in hell forever.  It lasted for a few hours until they were able to calm me down enough to sleep. 

I am so scared that I am going to end up trapped in my own mind again and not being able to function in normal life permanently.  Unfortunately, anxiety and panic attacks feed this fear every day as many of anxiety symptoms (as well all know) feel like that you have lost control of your own mind. I panic that I don't have control of my mind and reality is going to change again and I won't be able to stop it.

I am therefore sensitive to everything, light change, noises, different bodily sensations.  I am currently going through the worst spell of anxiety that I have had in the years since it started. I tried to come off the medication to have a baby, I was actually feeling the best I had done in years.  I was going to see a doctor for CBT and we decided I was ready to go medication free.  However, coming off the medication triggered a relapse, even though I withdrew over 3-4months.  I became depressed and trapped in the vicious circle of thoughts "am I going mad?" "does that look normal" "why can't I control these thoughts".

I made the hardest decision to put my plans for a child on hold and go back on the meds.  However, my doctor put me on some meds that would allow me to try for a baby on but I may have to come off in the last few months of pregnancy.  However, this was 2 months ago and I haven't found that they have worked as well as other medication I have been on.  I'm still trapped in the constant daily anxiety and panic.    I recently went on holiday and it was hard as I couldn't relax.

I'm so angry at myself as I have caused this problem myself through doing drugs.

I try every day not to react to these thoughts but its so hard.  The anxiety isn't going away this time, how much longer will it take to feel better this time? (its been about 6 months now)  I know what happened was due to drugs but it made me question the very essence of life, what is real and what isn't?  Anxiety is all about unreal feelings and i know that i can't trust the sensations that I have.   It makes life so hard, I was supposed to be pregnant now and happily expecting my first child.   

My doctor doesn't know why CBT hasn't worked.  I just don't know what to do, will I ever get over this?

[sixpack]

Oh daisy

this is such a sad and heartfelt post...... I don't have any magical answers for you.  I can say that way you are experiencing anxiety---feeling like you are going insane---comes from the same place as those who fear physical illness.  It is just manifesting itself in a way that is scariest for you.  This is an illness of thinking.  And I know it is hard to work through.  I think you are very hard on yourself because you believe you brought it on yourself.  You are feeling a lot of guilt about it.  And maybe, maybe, that is why CBT hasn't worked for you.  You haven't forgiven yourself.....  We all do stupid things things in our youth, hell even when we are old farts, like me  .  What I think you, me, we all have to do is be more forgiving of ourselves.  I think that is part of the key to getting better.

[Bama21]

I have read lots of posts on this forum and I have noticed that many people who suffer from GAD fear physical illness e.g. having a heart attack, brain tumour.

My biggest fear is mental illness, this is a result of the event that triggered my anxiety/panic attacks.  Eight years ago when I was 19 I took a cocktail of recreational drugs.  I ended up screaming in a toilet, convinced i was dying and that my friends were the devil in disguise trying to convince me to sleep so I would be trapped in hell forever.  It lasted for a few hours until they were able to calm me down enough to sleep. 

I am so scared that I am going to end up trapped in my own mind again and not being able to function in normal life permanently.  Unfortunately, anxiety and panic attacks feed this fear every day as many of anxiety symptoms (as well all know) feel like that you have lost control of your own mind. I panic that I don't have control of my mind and reality is going to change again and I won't be able to stop it.

I am therefore sensitive to everything, light change, noises, different bodily sensations.  I am currently going through the worst spell of anxiety that I have had in the years since it started. I tried to come off the medication to have a baby, I was actually feeling the best I had done in years.  I was going to see a doctor for CBT and we decided I was ready to go medication free.  However, coming off the medication triggered a relapse, even though I withdrew over 3-4months.  I became depressed and trapped in the vicious circle of thoughts "am I going mad?" "does that look normal" "why can't I control these thoughts".

I made the hardest decision to put my plans for a child on hold and go back on the meds.  However, my doctor put me on some meds that would allow me to try for a baby on but I may have to come off in the last few months of pregnancy.  However, this was 2 months ago and I haven't found that they have worked as well as other medication I have been on.  I'm still trapped in the constant daily anxiety and panic.    I recently went on holiday and it was hard as I couldn't relax.

I'm so angry at myself as I have caused this problem myself through doing drugs.

I try every day not to react to these thoughts but its so hard.  The anxiety isn't going away this time, how much longer will it take to feel better this time? (its been about 6 months now)  I know what happened was due to drugs but it made me question the very essence of life, what is real and what isn't?  Anxiety is all about unreal feelings and i know that i can't trust the sensations that I have.   It makes life so hard, I was supposed to be pregnant now and happily expecting my first child.   

My doctor doesn't know why CBT hasn't worked.  I just don't know what to do, will I ever get over this?

I am much the same way...although thankfully the 20mg of Celexa that I was prescribed (have been on it for a month) has been working very well.

On occasion, I have bouts with health anxiety, but the worst anxiety that I have experienced has been about my mental state.  I have had a few panic attacks over the last 5 years or so, but the worst one...about 3 months ago...managed to stick in my mind and heighten the sensitivity of my nerves to a bad state.  I had EXACTLY the same feelings that you are having.  I would just be sitting at my desk or at my house and get an overwhelming feeling that my mind would not be able to handle life.  That there was just too much going on and that I would simply snap and either go completely insane or just slip into a deep pit of depression and despair.  I actually ALMOST checked myself into a hospital because I didn't feel like I could live with it.  IMO, it's worse to fear the stability of your mind than your body.  I understand what you are feeling.

I am currently trying the CBT that is offered by Claire Weeks.  It's a method that stresses acceptance of your condition rather than distraction.  This is designed to help you face your anxiety and realize it for what it is...a trick of your mind.

[shrublet]

Hi Daisy,

Bad experiences with drugs can be an awful, awful experience. I actually liken the aftereffects to PTSD- it is just that frightening. I had an awful experience with marijuana as a teenager that I would never, ever want to experience again. Truly psychotic episodes can happen to those with a predisposition to mental illness, unfortunately, even with something as mild as pot. Even just thinking back to that now, I get really upset.

It sounds like you could have some "pure O" stuff going on- a subset of OCD that still falls on the anxiety spectrum. OCDEngineer has a great article about it in his blog here: http://www.anxietyzone.com/index.php?article=17627.0. If you read that over and find that you identify with it a big and would like to read more, I have some more excellent articles that you may find helpful.

Always remember: the thing with those that truly lose their sanity is that they do not question whether or not they are losing their sanity.

[daisyjukes]

I have had a good read of the article and this is exactly what I'm like.  I can't understand why none of my doctors have ever mentioned this before.  If you could let me know the links for other articles that would be great. 

It might explain why CBT has failed, the thought challenging process seemed to cause me more distress as I just felt drained with trying to challenge my thoughts all the time. It seemed like I was arguing all the time with myself and they got worse not better.

I'm seeing my doctor on Saturday and I will bring this up.

Thanks everyone for your replies! It can feel as if sometimes no one understands what I'm going through but everyone on this website makes me feel less alone in the struggle!

[Nick]

i do fear that im going to go insane just as much as i fear that im going to die of a terminal illness. i believe this is a fear for 90% of the people on this site. i believe you will be fine in time you just have to figure out what makes you feel comfortable and keeps your mind at ease.

[shrublet]

I recently wrote this to a friend of mine and it seems relevant, so I hope he won't mind that I share it here:

Going from anxiety/OCD to schizophrenia can seem like a "logical jump" in our own minds because the intrusiveness of the thoughts that characterize those thought patterns. However, schizophrenia and the anxiety disorders are on totally different spectrums from one another: while, admittedly, schizophrenia could certainly lead to anxious thoughts, it doesn't work both ways. Anxiety, OCD, PTSD and the like does not and cannot morph into something like schizophrenia. (Arguably, traumatic events such as drug use, and acute stress can trigger the onset of schizophrenia, but in those cases, it generally would have happened at some point because the components were there from birth.) I believe that it's now widely accepted that schizophrenia is largely genetic in nature, due to both hereditary factors, brain chemistry and the structure of the brain itself.

Anyways, the onset of schizophrenia is, in the vast majority (if not all) of the cases, not recognized by the affected individual themselves. This is purely due to the intrinsic nature of the disorder and what can characterize anxious "intrusive thoughts" from psychosis: the individual is unable to see that the thoughts are irrational. For example, John Nash never questioned his delusions that aliens were talking to him because the voices "came to [him] as the mathematical ideas did." That's where the whole "if you were going crazy, you wouldn't be asking if you're going crazy" thing came from. Schizophrenia is generally noticed by people close to the individual when they see that something very wrong is going on.

So there is a definite difference between true delusions and intrusive thoughts, even though it seems like the two are closely related.