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Am I psychotic?

(43 posts) (14 voices)

Started 2 years ago by sunshine
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sunshine
Member

Hi,
I'm new here. So hi!!
I was just wondering if anyone could help me...
I was diagnosed with OCD two years ago, and since I have not had the best advice/ treatment. But I now have started to get some real solid help. But the thing is, I seem to be getting worse not better. And recently by intrusive thoughts have become so frequent and strong that I just really don't have a grasp on reality anymore. I get images in my head and I really feel like I have done it... so much!! These things are things you would remember very well, but I still feel certain at times that I have done them. I used to be able to really reassure myself that I had not, but now I can't at all. I really feel like its real, and what is worse is that when people say I haven't I get paranoid and feel they are conspiring against me.
I am wondering now, as my reality all day every day is so distorted so that I cannot be sure what is real or not, does/has anyone else felt the same?

Sun Feb 28 2010 21:39:42 #
Truddles
Member

Hi sunshine,

Just wanted to say welcome to the forum
Got to dash as still got to empty the drier thanks to bad OCD day

Will get back to you.

Best wishes
Trudy

Sun Feb 28 2010 21:56:26 #
Unregistered

Hi Sunshine

Welcome to the forum. The answer is you're fine. Again, intrusive thoughts will distort your view on reality. Before I realised I suffered from OCD, I used to believe that I couldn't sleep in the same room as my mates i.e. if I was on holiday, because I talk in my sleep and one night got worried because I'm sure I almost blurted out that I was a woman trapped in a mans body. That was one of my intrusive thoughts when I was 19, and so I used to get it into my head that people already knew and were forcing me to shout out, so that I'd get instantly sex-changed and suddenly have a female voice.

I also believed that I wanted to murder my family and had some quite frankly disgusting graphic serial killing images, which I believed so much, that I avoided my parents at all times and got so ashamed and guilty.

My latest intrusive thought, believe it or nor is actually quite a common OCD problem. I have child/adolescent molestation fears. Again, this is ongoing and I only fully realised I was OCD about 7 months ago and went on meds and do some CBT to control the situation, and eventually overcome this. But I also started believing all sorts. The worst one being that perhaps I was abducted as a young boy and had blanked the memory. I believed this for a while actually. I was trying to justify my thoughts before my new therapist made me realise I had OCD.

Are you on any OCD meds at the moment to help with the intrusive thoughts? There are a lot of different meds out there and they work differently for different people. Also, remember that meds and CBT take time to work. And the key is accepting the thoughts. You also have to test theories (obviously within reason, based on the problem). Read this book, 'Overcoming Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - Veale, Turner' This will make things clearer, although some sections may upset and alienate. The key is to keep reading.

All the best

Giles

Sun Feb 28 2010 22:09:30 #
Unregistered

Hi Sunshine, welcome.

I have had many 'intrusive thoughts' that really made me hopeless with the thought of being maybe 'born evil' or that maybe I had some kind of 'demonic possession'. I was in the firm belief that if I got these thoughts that it would be for a bad reason and I was just denying the inevitable true that I was going too be really evil.

CBT and medication have helped me to control and understand 'intrusive thoughts' better, I do sympathise with you, for years I went through torment not knowing what was happening too me. Hang in there, take the advice by Giles, he seems to know what he is talking about.

Take care, Rod.

Mon Mar 1 2010 0:24:48 #
Unregistered

Thanks for the vote of confidence Rod. I really don't know what I'm talking about, but thanks

Mon Mar 1 2010 0:29:02 #
Rena32
Member

Great answer and advice Giles!

Mon Mar 1 2010 5:51:12 #
aishah
Member

Hi Sunshine,
Sorry you are suffering at the moment. I too suffer from intrusive thoughts. A couple of months ago they were so strong I was absolutely petrified, so I do sympathise with you.
I still get them now but they are more in the background due to taking medication and CBT. Also you learn through CBT that they are just thoughts and you wouldn't carry them out, unfortunately it is part of OCD.
You say you are getting help now, I have found that when I have started treatment in the past, it does get worse at the start before it gets better so hang in there and things should settle soon.
If you are not taking medication then I think you should consider it, if you are already taking medication then maybe a change would help. I have recently had two changes of medication and am now getting some benefit.

Good Luck
Bridget

Mon Mar 1 2010 8:18:09 #
DEAD!
Blocked

The conspricay part is like what I have.
My doctors etc - they think I'm psychotic - things get pretty scary when you feel paranoid.

You should see your doctor because if it is - things could go really wrong, that's what they all thought for me.

OCD and psychosis can be common.

Mon Mar 1 2010 10:23:47 #
Cuthbert ffoliott
Moderator

Hiya Sunshine -

welcome here! You can write in everything that comes to mind. We're here to support and help, and offer experiential advice if we can.

OCD can indeed make one feel 'unreal', detached from consensus reality. It has many forms. Something that relates to what you feel is: 'thought-action fusion', which means: someone is convinced that a 'bad thought' in his/her brain caused something terrible to happen. There was a young girl in the U.S. who actually thought she was guilty of 9/11, just because she fantasized about a similar disaster a couple of days beforehand.

The 'unreality' is what makes it so uncomfortable... and a comparable 'unreality' seems to invade your brain; i.e. not being able to tell whether something 'unreal' still was 'real' in reality (sorry for the verbose wanderings... :-)).

Hang on in there. I am convinced that your feelings of discomfort will fade away.

Cheers, Cuthbert.

Mon Mar 1 2010 11:21:09 #
sunshine
Member

Hey,
Thank you so much for all of your replies, it means a lot that anyone would respond
Its great to hear that I am not alone, not that I want anyone to suffer just so I don't feel lonely!!

I can really relate to what some of you are saying, I often think that I did something terrible and just wiped it from my memory, but as my brain gets images, I start thinking perhaps the horrible situation is coming back to me.
I am on meds, I think that I am on my 7th different type now, and I am receiving CBT. I have been for a few months now. It is really helpful to hear that it is known that in some cases it gets worse before it gets better.

Thanks again for everything.
Best wishes
xox

Mon Mar 1 2010 17:41:33 #
Blueskies
Member

Hiya there Sunshine!!

So sorry to hear your having a hard time. Intrusive thoughts like some of the good people here have mentioned can distort ones reality. I use to have intrusive thoughts about stabbing my daughter, and awful and freigtening as that was, We all know we would never act upon those images and negative thoughts that fool us into believing it's all real.

I learned some time ago, whilst writing about my own stuff, that most of my intrusive thoughts were not as intrusive or came out of the blue as I once thought. I remember writing about domestic violence, and not being able to watch anything on the TV, that was violence related to do with knives. Now that experience happened when I was 19, and I am 48 today. So a few years ago, I began to get intrusive thoughts about a knife attack and it always had to do with my daughter. I learned that the past experience was about protection and when my daughter was growing up, of course as a parent it is only natural to protect our loved ones. BUT, my intrusive thoughts were telling me, what I still feared about the knife being used as a weapon to hurt. It was the meaning that had a grip on me, not the knife!!! So because I experience an attack with a knife, I still had the same old belief that a knife is used to hurt others, in this case my daughter. Hope all that makes sense.

I now tell myself, 'what is a kitchen knife really used for? for cutting vegs, chopping meat, etc.................

So to understand my intrusive thoughts and horrible images, I had to look at the orginal meaning of an object and it's real purpose.

Hope I haven't scared anyone here!!!

Pam

Mon Mar 1 2010 19:08:53 #
Truddles
Member

One of my many intrusive thoughts is that I want to end it all and that I want to die; my therapist says that I don't actually want to kill myself that it is the OCD that I want to kill in an effort to stop what I'm going through. There are times though like today when I'm not so sure she's right

Trudy

Mon Mar 1 2010 19:50:05 #
Truddles
Member

Sorry didn't mean to worry anyone, although I feel like it and the thoughts are really strong I promise I wont do anything and will talk on the forum when things get too much.
Trudy

Mon Mar 1 2010 20:06:28 #
Blueskies
Member

Hey Trudy,

Remember how our thoughts can be distorted when we feel low and our reality can become confused, well, when something so troubling, like your intrusive thoughts, it's only natural for your and us to want to get rid of it!!! Our nature is to be loving and kind, and our intrusive thoughts are often not, so logically we would not want to be associated with anything harmful in our way of being. So when you feel you want to end it and feel like dying, you may feel like that is what you want to do, but really, it is the OCD, that you want to end and not your life.

can you remember days when you feel good and confident?
Sometimes the everyday things we do, can be ignored as valuable because we routinely do them without much thinking. But if you had to list all the things you did, you could say you have achieved many goals today whilst coping with stress. So remember Trudy, to be aware of all the good things you do in a day, and feel good that you've managed to do them even when your feeling low.

Pam

Mon Mar 1 2010 21:54:49 #
Truddles
Member

Thanks Pam,

There aren't any good days it's all a show that I put on, inside I'm dying.

There is no way forward now, they can't investigate the epilepsy until the OCD is improved enough for me to cope with an admission and they now wont help with the OCD because it's complicated by the epilepsy What a waste of NHS resources and more importantly a waste of my life.

Trudy

Tue Mar 2 2010 16:59:07 #
Moocher
Member

If OCD didn't sometimes get out of hand and feel atrociously bad, then none of us would have a problem with it.
I feel that a lot too Truddles, like I'm putting on an act. But I guess that's part of life and if you didn't do it, you'd have to become a recluse.

Tue Mar 2 2010 17:39:43 #
Truddles
Member

Well that certainly told me

Wed Mar 3 2010 0:36:54 #
Truddles
Member

Moocher,

I know that we all struggle with our OCD and I'll be the first to say that nobody's OCD is worse than anyone else's. Because no matter what type of OCD or how bad the doctors etc judge it to be, hell is hell

I'm on the verge of completely giving up as I'm just being passed around like a piece of meat with each doctor passing the buck. So none of my many physical conditions including the epilepsy get treated because of the OCD and the OCD isn't going to be treated as they now say the physical problems complicate things. No more CBT equals no sorting out the epilepsy (the main trigger for the OCD, that and the docs). I'm now stuffed.

I wasn't and never have denigrated anyone, I'm just crying out for help Help that I'm not receiving. I just wrote what I was feeling in an attempt to keep going, but obviously I was wrong to do so.

Trudy

Wed Mar 3 2010 10:09:20 #
Truddles
Member

Hi Sunshine,

How are you today?

Sorry that your topic got interrupted, I apologise for the interruption.

Trudy

Wed Mar 3 2010 10:13:31 #
Blueskies
Member

Hiya Sunshine, hope your feeling better, and Trudy, I really hope that you get the help that you need.

Pam

Wed Mar 3 2010 10:25:31 #
Unregistered

Sunshine, You most certainly don’t sound psychotic to me. Our intrusive thoughts can be very real, as you described. One of mine was so real I believed my daughter was not my husband’s and I worried about that for over twenty years. I had suffered a lapse of memory, as we all do when nothing interesting is occurring. The more I dwelled on the thoughts, the more vivid the false memory took hold. I also developed images involving an engineer who called to my house (many years later). They became so real, but it was not psychosis, it was OCD. There’s an amusing beginning and end to this story, but it would take too long to write. I can laugh at what triggered it all now, but back then I could easily have died because of it, the pain was awful.

Trudy, I am very worried about you. You said about there being no good days, that it’s all a show and you’re dying inside. That’s how I feel. I know it’s unfair on others to let them know how bad this hell is day in day out, so most of the time I hide it. It’s only when I break down that others believe I am suffering. I am quite a joker, I clown around, but it’s all a mask. I believe it’s the same with you.

I don’t believe everyone with OCD is going through hell, though of course many are. I do agree that if a person feels their OCD is hell then that's what it is for them, no matter how others might view it. From a personal perspective (I’ve had OCD all my life) I can say that when my OCD was milder (between the ages of 14 and 22) life was not bad, certainly no longer the hell it had been previously, nor the hell it again became.

I know you have so much more than your OCD to contend with, Trudy, and I pray that the consultant who agrees with you does all he can to resolve the current, totally unacceptable issues.

Love, Tricia.

Thu Mar 4 2010 14:19:24 #
brennie
Member

Tricia, its nice to see you back on the forum, has your husband had a change of heart ?

love Brennie x

Thu Mar 4 2010 14:25:22 #
Unregistered

Thank you, Bren. A change of heart over what, the Bethlem?!

He is now convinced our daughter isn't his, by the way! He never knew anything about my intrusive thoughts, still doesn't, but her blood group is rare and he's announced she must be the milkman's. God, can you imagine how I would have reacted to a comment like that a few years back?

How are you, any news from the Priory?

Love, Tricia x

Thu Mar 4 2010 14:32:06 #
Unregistered

P.S. Just realized you meant the 'ban'. No, I could be in big trouble!!!

Thu Mar 4 2010 14:33:10 #
brennie
Member

Tricia, ignore the ban my dear! dont you think we have put up with our controlling husbands for long enough! do what YOU want Tricia and NOT what your told you can or cannot do...its time for us to have the control
I am not going into the Priory or anywhere else for that matter, i believe that no-one can help when you have suffered for as long as we have, i worsened after my stay at the Bethlam so i am not putting myself through all that s**t again, im too old in the tooth to be bothered. Hope your o.k.

Love Brennie x

Thu Mar 4 2010 14:49:24 #
Rena32
Member

Hi Sunshine, I feel the same way lots of times. The OCD mind is just nothing but a liar, it tells us all types of lies, and tries to make us believe them. That is why it is sometimes hard to seperate fact from fiction, our OCD tricks our minds, you just have to remember that the OCD is causing these thoughts and fight it off. I hope that you feel better very soon.

Fri Mar 5 2010 2:34:26 #
mama
Member

I dont believe one can ever get too old to overcome this...but controlling husbands must be left behind if you are to make any strides at all....If he would like to run to catch up, let him try, but if he cannot...well then good riddance anyway because you have a life to live! Lets wear red hats and paint the town girls because there's nothin like livin!:)
Andrea

Fri Mar 5 2010 17:55:42 #
Unregistered

Dear Bren, I understand why you have made the decision you have. Naturally, only you know what you suffered at the Bethlem, but I do vividly recall the things you told me and I know you were so courageous to face it all. I admire you so much, because you were terrified and that takes immense bravery. I was praying you would improve and I am very sad that life is still so tough. Maybe a part of me is relieved that my family is so opposed. I know I would face the Bethlem, but for them, but naturally there would be an element of reluctance. I was told I would be asked to hold dog faeces with my bare hands. The aim is for me to reach the desired fear level; a maximum of 10. If this is not achieved, I was told I might be asked to eat a sandwich with my dirty, bare hands - this, apparently, will have the desired effect. You and I know that no improvement is guaranteed, and you’ve given it your best shot.

Andrea, You have a heart of gold and I can fully understand your belief that we can all beat this. I know that is something most OCD sufferers are convinced of, if they have made progress themselves. It’s understandable. Bless you, you want us all to share your joy and liberation. I am sure I would be the same. In fact, I was, when I experienced such elation when my severe symptoms evaporated after I faced my fears as a child. I thought if I at my young age could beat it, anyone could. People tell me I have never known that feeling of elation. The indescribable emotion when one breaks free from the clutches of this wretched condition. However, my recollection is very vivid. I recall it as if it were yesterday; the relief, the wonder and joy of living a life without fear.

Sadly, the same (and other) treatments are no longer working. I think Bren and I have accepted that our illness is here to stay. The fact it is so ingrained with both of us does make it harder to change. Many will believe us to be negative and possibly even prepared to wallow in our misery. That’s unfair, I should not include Bren in that statement! But, I have had this said to me. I am not wallowing and I know for sure Bren isn’t, because she’s such a fun person to be around.

Bren, whatever you do, I wish you well. You are in my thoughts a great deal and always will be.

Love, Tricia xx

Sat Mar 6 2010 15:49:51 #
mama
Member

Well then...I guess I'll give up. You are right. There is no point in trying. I guess it would be better to end my marriage, leave my kids, and hole up like a hermit sealing out the world because I will just end up like you and Brennie anyway with no hope of ever getting better or even resembling any sort of 'normalcy'. Thanks for enlightening me to the truth of the abismal future. How could I have been so blind?
You know...I never said it would dissapear...I only said it becomes more manageable, and life becomes full of joy again. its possible, but in your case, maybe not...since its not what you want.

Sat Mar 6 2010 17:02:26 #
brennie
Member

Andrea you must never give up trying dear! trying is what keeps us going.
You are right when you say managable...if thats as good as it gets i suppose that can be deemed to be acceptable.
You are wrong to say "not what you want" both Tricia and i have been struggling for a combined 100 years and thats a bloody long time !!!
I have battled with ocd for 50years and undergone numerous treatments so please dont say "not what you want" because i find that very hurtful at the age of 62yrs...and still suffering chronically.

Regards Brennie

Sat Mar 6 2010 17:44:56 #

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