# The mysterious fear of becoming psychotic



## _Gottlieb_ (Nov 6, 2011)

Hey there,

I'm new to this forum. I'm 22 yrs old and from Germany (so sorry for my bad english







).

I suffer from Depression, Anxiety and OCD. (in various interacting ways). Big symptom is DP and DR (these days mainly dp).
And of course the fear of schizophrenia. 
I know that the fear of becoming psychotic is very common for DP sufferers. It's mainly the feeling of "becoming insane", "losing your mind", "losing control". You all know what I mean. 
For me it's a little more complex. Because of my OCD I have very intimidating "pseudo- paranoid" thoughts. Some users might know these thoughts as well. The reason for all this is probably the fact that my father suffers from schizoaffective psychosis. From age 16-20 I used to see/hear a lot of his symptoms. (mainly paranoid things). So in the context of my depression/anxiety/ocd the thoughts he had pop into my mind all the time. (more or less) -> and of course make the fear of becoming psychotic a lot worse.

But here's something interesting:

Yesterday I had a conversation with my father. And it turns out that despite the fact that he's been pretty stable for the last few months this weekend he had an acute "attack" of his "paranoid" psychosis. Here's what happened.
His doctor had a few students visit my father in order to talk to him about his illness etc. Of course that was a very stressfull situation. So after this my father went home and then it happend. Out of the blue he thought that those people weren't actually students but people from the court. (he has a lawsuit running about victim compensation). And the court sent those people to find out whether my father is lying about his illness.

So here's the thing that came to my mind:

He didn't actually "feel" like he's becoming irrational, delusional, insane, etc. He felt completely normal. But of course his thoughts didn't match the objective reality. At NO time he had doubts about that "new" thought. It was a fact. He didn't think "omg, what's happening, why am I thinking that, I'm going insane"... the students beeing people from the court became his reality (which caused fear. But not from the thought itself but of the students !).

And that's the difference between actual psychosis and the fear of psychosis.

1. Psychosis: You feel absolutely rational and normal but objectively you are delusional.
2. Fear: You feel absolutely delusional but objectively you are rational and normal.

I know that's probably nothing new. I heard that a lot "as long as you think about going insane, you aren't".... But "understanding" what psychosis actually means... and understanding that 1 and 2 are totally different (almost opposite) things makes things a bit better...
In the end the question is... are those two really absolute different things... or is the fear a sign for a slowly developing psychosis ? If you ask me... I don't think so. But of course the fear makes you doubt that


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## York (Feb 26, 2008)

Thank you for sharing an actual story, and pointing out something I think you're absolutely right about.
I just read about a woman's experience with psychosis in a magazine (I never read about stuff like that usually as I'm too scared)and it was exactly as you said. It was called acute psychosis, brought on by stress. I've read a book about a woman recovering from schizophrenia too, which obviously has a lot to do with psychosis, and what struck me was how similar her symptoms at the beginning (not to freak anyone out) was to DP, but she wasn't afraid. She was a bit worried and thought she needed some help as she had visual distortion and felt lost, but not like we all are (mostly totally freaked out).

I think a lot of what we feel are brought on by fear, and we search within ourself for symptoms of serious illness way _way_ too much.

I think psychosis and hallucinations is really bad because you need someone on the outside to recognize that somethings wrong with you. 
I think however everyone can recover and have a good life once they learn to deal with stress and what triggers it in themselves, and there isn't really anything like biological set-in-stone mental illness. It's just internal conflicts and stress leading to dysfunctional coping mechanisms that can be unlearned. 
My conclusion after a million years of mental problems.

On a last note I just wonder, is what we're all afraid of really losing our consciousness or "soul" more than madness? If you're "crazy" you're obviously still present inside, living a life, I think what freaks me out with DP is it feels like you're vanishing completely.


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## _Gottlieb_ (Nov 6, 2011)

York said:


> On a last note I just wonder, is what we're all afraid of really losing our consciousness or "soul" more than madness? If you're "crazy" you're obviously still present inside, living a life, I think what freaks me out with DP is it feels like you're vanishing completely.


That's true. I think secretly nobody here is really afraid of going psychotic. Since the feeling you have with DP has nothing to do with beeing psychotic. That's a big mistake our mind makes. We think we know what going insane means and interpret the events in our mind according to that. Depending on whether it's mainly DP or DR we feel like we lose the connection to our self or our envirement. 
As you said it feels like "vanishing completely". But it has nothing to do with being delusional.

Sometimes I think it'd be easier to have a well treated psychosis than an "untreatable" DP/DR.


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## toshibatelly (Sep 13, 2011)

Well a lot of what you wrote rings true for me, I have the same pseudo-paranoid thoughts, the same obsessiveness about this fear of becoming psychotic and the same worries about becoming a schizophrenic. In common with other people who do this I've put myself into something of a double bind, I think, "So long as I'm still worried about becoming psychotic I'm not psychotic", but the second I stop worrying I begin to think, "I must now be psychotic" and start worrying again to prove to myself that I'm not. It is a vicious circle of reality checking and seeking reassurance from those around me that, for example, a certain event did really happen; in spite of the fact that no-one around me, including my Doctor, thinks I am going mad I am unable to convince myself.

This seems to be a very common fear among DP/DR sufferers, probably because DP/DR can have some extremely eery effects, and we as DP sufferers probably feel a lot more insane than insane people feel.

I wouldn't swap this for schizophrenia, never in a million years; but I agree it is, to a large extent, far less treatable, and it is also far less understood or known about. Most people have heard of schizophrenia but most non-psychologists are not familiar with DP/DR at all which is why I often find it easier to speak in terms of having panic attacks because people are often familiar with them.

And yes, I think that existential angst underpins a lot of fears DP/DR sufferers have, many people say they fear becoming psychotic but what they actually fear is losing themselves and their identity.

Ask yourself why you fear madness? Is it for your own benefit? I doubt whether psychosis is any scarier than some of the things DP sufferers go through, that horrendous existential nagging from which there is little relief. And as we all know psychotics don't care about being psychotic. What people fear is going mad in front of others, of losing control. *Madness is agnosognosic*.


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