please help

[rgraham]

HI All,

 

I suppose I am looking for some reassurance to see if anyone else has ever suffered from this. My OCD has switched themes often. starting with Harm, then Health, HIV etc. Now my fear has morphed into a fear of schizophrenia. While I know the symptoms of the disease, I have googled them all at length. although I do not hear or see things, I have thoughts similar to what a schizophrenic person would have. For example I read of a man who believed his family was replaced by robots, while I know this thought is not true, I keep obsessing on it and then cannot convince myself that 

a.) I am certain I don't believe it

b.) I am certain it couldn't be true.

 

has this ever happened to anyone? please just be honest- I am very scared

[PolarBear]

Hey there.

I have talked to quite a few people with OCD who have a fear of schizophrenia. Nothing unusual about that.

What you need to know is that your researching of symptoms was a compulsion. You fed your OCD and no doubt made your situation worse.

Now you are trying to be certain you don't have schizophrenia. That too is a compulsion. And frankly, no matter what you do, you'll never find the certainty you crave.

What to do? Leave it alone. Stop Googling. Refuse to get into mind debates over the topic.

[rgraham]

thank you. im just sp terrified..deep down i know these thoughts are not real but its like i am trying to convince myself i believe them. do the other people you mention who have this fear describe it similarly 

Edited November 14, 2019 by rgraham

[dksea]

5 hours ago, rgraham said:

thank you. im just sp terrified..deep down i know these thoughts are not real but its like i am trying to convince myself i believe them. do the other people you mention who have this fear describe it similarly 

Yes, absolutely they do. I can speak from experience because I have had similar fears myself.

The first thing you need to understand is that OCD makes use feel that we need absolute certainty about various things (which differ from person to person or time to time).
The second thing you need to understand is that absolutely certainty is an impossibility.  At no point in the entire history of the universe has anyone been able to be absolutely certain about anything.  Its an impossibility.  The laws of physics and logic preclude it.

But wait, you exclaim, I've been certain about things before!
While its true you have FELT certain about things before, the reality is you have never been able to be 100% certain.  The reason you felt certain is an important and convenient aspect of the brain, it can make you feel certain even without absolutely proof.  This is a good thing, because, as pointed out above, absolute proof is impossible.  We get by in life being certain ENOUGH.  Thats the way the brain is supposed to work, you reach a point where you are certain ENOUGH about something and you feel ok, you feel free to move on.  What the level of "enough" is isn't even fixed.  Depending on how important a situation is, the level of "enough" you need can change.  Lets say you can't remember exactly what time you were planning to meet some friends after work for drinks.  You think back and feel like it was 7 pm.  You aren't certain, but you are certain enough.  The stakes are low, if you are wrong, no big deal, so your brain gives you the "ENOUGH" signal and you move on.  Ok, now lets say you can't remember exactly what time an important business meeting is scheduled for tomorrow morning.  You think its probably 10 am, but you aren't sure.  Now you might need more evidence, for example looking at your calendar or asking a colleague.  The stakes were higher, so you needed more certainty.  All that is completely normal.

Where OCD comes in is that it hijacks that process.  It ratchets up the threshold of "ENOUGH" to the max, creating an IMPOSSIBLE scenario.  As a result you continue to feel anxiety and doubt about a situation even though a non-OCD person would be fine.  The problem isn't the situation, the problem is your evaluation of the situation.  But it gets even trickier, because even if you KNOW intellectually that this is true, you still FEEL anxiety about things, and our brains and bodies are wired and trained to respond to anxiety and doubt in certain ways.  When you feel them you automatically assume there must be a problem and you try and solve it. But what if there IS no problem, or what if you have ALREADY solved it.  You are still getting signals in your emotional arena that the problem isn't solved.  It would be like a situation where the signal from your stomach to your brain was blocked, so no matter how much you ate you still felt hungry.  You KNOW you don't need to eat more food, you've already had a meal, but you FEEL hungry.  Continuing to eat isn't going to make you stop feeling hungry, and if you keep eating you'll just make yourself sick.  Likewise with OCD, worrying and ruminating and checking won't make you stop worrying, The problem isn't that you haven't been thorough enough (though you often feel that way) its that there is literally no level of thoroughness that can meet the requirements of OCD.

So getting to your situation.  Right now you have a fear of schizophrenia, which is scary, admittedly. You FEEL like you have to convince yourself its not true.  The problem is no matter how much researching you do, no matter how much checking you do, you are unlikely to flip the switch in your brain to make you FEEL that you have reached the ENOUGH point, to feel like you are certain its not schizophrenia.  The good news is you CAN actually get to that point, it just involves an indirect approach.  Rather than try to directly solve the issue, you basically need to wait for your brain to get bored and move on.  Because the brain won't stick with something forever.  You can "solve" the worry by choosing to ACT like its unimportant.  You'll still feel anxiety at first, you just need to try and ride that anxiety out and let your brain move on.

Its understandable to be scared, and its highly unpleasant, but fear alone won't hurt you.  You can outlast fear.  

[rgraham]

Thank you so much For such a great thorough answer. My OCD is so interesting that it'll revert back to no you're not scared of schizophrenia you're scared that the thought could be true. Which in turn then would mean if I believed the thoughts of the true I would be schizophrenic. I think it's just another way OCD tries to trick me.