My family projected my mom's mental illness onto me for my whole life and made me feel like my fate was out of my control. Despite that, I'm pursuing a career in psychology and recently started working at an in-patient unit in a psychiatric hospital- one where I'm consistently on the unit and interacting with patients. I'm not in a position with much influence, so my anxiety isn't interfering with anyone's treatment. Still, I keep getting these thoughts like what if I'm actually a patient there and what I think is my reality is really just a huge hallucination. Like the staff is in on it and lets me use the staff areas and help with daily activities and whatnot. I'm able to rationalize myself out of those thoughts after a while, but holy crap, is it such a terrifying mind-fuck every time. It makes me feel like the guy from Shutter Island.