This is my story.

Hi guys, 

So for last few years I’ve been panicking about having schizophrenia/psychosis.

I remember I experienced anxiety and it’s caused me unbelievable anxiety attacks. My stomach would tighten and feel ill and my head felt so heavy and heart racing with fear. I started wondering what this could be so I visited my doc and they said anxiety full stop. Days got better as I got reassurance. Little did I know this fed my anxiety. So ever since then I remember coming across schizophrenia and it absolutely floored me with panic. I looked it up so much and looked at people’s stories which made me feel so anxious and scared. It became an obsession I think, this led me to phoning the doctor many times for reassurance. I had months of feeling great and these fears did not enter my mind at all. Now again for the last 2 months this fear has been absolutely horrific the what if thoughts have been shocking and this led me to questioning my mental health. Worrying constantly about schizophrenia no matter what my thoughts are I’ll relate them to schizophrenia and question every single little thing I do. Below is a list of my what if thoughts and just so you know these thoughts came after me looking up symptoms of schiz and looking up peoples stories. 

Started off with fearing everything.

What if people wanted to hurt me
What if my parents don’t love me
What if my girlfriend doesn’t love me
What if I get the sack from work 
What if police are after me
What if the government was after me
What if my food was poisoned
What if I went for an operation and they put a tracking device in you
What if poison was in the air 
What if I’m seeing things
What if I’m hearing things
Question everything that happens and ruminate over why thing happen in life 
What if I say certain things about people who aren’t there and they end up finding out
I’m paranoid about having paranoia 
Get emotional when I think of having it
What if when I do CBT it makes it worse and the therapists don’t care
What if nothings real and what if it’s fake which send me into reassuring myself of things I done earlier that day to show that I’m in reality.

Some of these thoughts are new and some are just there when I start obsessing and looking things up for reassurance. I am absolutely so obsessed about schizophrenia and when I look things up about it I feel like I start thinking “do I experience what these people are feeling” when I do this my anxiety absolutely sky rockets and my head starts obsessing and starts making up thoughts about everything.

My thoughts get so strong it makes me feel sick and then when I sit with the thoughts my anxiety can die down but I end up looking it up or coming onto Reddit. My doc and therapist said it’s health anxiety and I’m nowhere near schizophrenia as I’m 25 and it’s just anxiety and it’s a learned behaviour and a huge FEAR of mine. 

I’m emotional just now trying hard not to look things up and everytime I think of the future with my girlfriend and family it upsets me incase I get locked up in a institution. 

Any thoughts guys? Can OCD and anxiety really be this heavy and bad?

Thanks