Random Racing Thoughts, Fleeting Memories

Hey everyone.
I've been experiencing really bad anxiety lately and OCD. My current OCD symptoms are mainly related to fears of going crazy, becoming delusional, losing my mind, etc.
Over the past couple weeks, I'll be doing something and suddenly I'll get a random, fleeting thought that feels like a memory.
For example, I was just cleaning a closet in my house and I picked up my guitar so I could clean under it. Then suddenly I had this fleeting memory of my mom asking for the guitar case back that she had bought for my sister but let me borrow for my guitar. It felt like I suddenly pictured it happening, and it had a familiar quality to it, like I had simply suddenly remembered it. But I realized that this didn't happen, and that the actual real event that occurred involved me being thankful at one time that my sister got a new case so my mom wouldn't ask for this guitar case back and I could finally have a case for myself.
This is happening up to 10 times per day and is triggered by completely random things in my environment. I have a million examples of this and wish I could write them all down but it would just be too long of a post. These types of experiences have happened once in my past, also at a time when I was obsessing/worried about losing my mind. They were not present intermittently when my obsessions focused on other things. Now that I am worried about going crazy again, they have suddenly reappeared and it scares me because they FEEL like random bits of real memories, even though they usually are not accurate. If the memory is too vague or insignificant, sometimes I honestly can't even tell if it is an accurate memory or not, simply because I don't remember the details of the actual event.
Whenever I get these thoughts, they happen so suddenly and I become terrified that I am remembering things that didn't happen and becoming delusional or psychotic and I get so worked up.
Other times, I will get sudden deja-vu-like experiences where I'll just have a thought that pops into my head that feels really familiar, or I'll get a sudden, creepy feeling like I'm about to remember something I dreamed about but then my mind can't quite access the thought and the feeling goes away.
It's very strange and I'm finding it difficult to not ruminate about this, which I think is making it worse.
I've heard about deja-vu like experiences being associated with epilepsy, and I've been cleared for that. I've also heard about this kind of stuff being associated with the onset of psychosis so naturally I'm freaking out. Could this be caused by OCD or anxiety?

I know nothing of OCD but I was first diagnosed with anxiety/panic attacks in 1985 and have been in the care of psychiatrists since that time. I am also being treated for psychosis.

You’ve a perfect description of “racing thoughts.” I think that when you have the ‘sudden’-single-episodes you’re experiencing a mini-panic-attack, absent the racing thoughts.

What you find unusual, and frightening, is the memory aspect (“deja-vu like experiences”) of these racing and these sudden thoughts? The way that they make you feel? You are afraid that the experiences may be psychotic episodes caused by anxiety or OCD.

I never had a psychotic episode caused by any anxiety disorder. I have never heard of anxiety disorder being the cause of psychosis, either.

Oh - there is a big difference between a psychotic episode and a delusion.

I have had similar thoughts, though. Similar events, periods. The “creepy feeling,” and the feeling of losing your mind, going crazy and other terms that you use. Because I am so well-gifted with so very many other mental-health defects, though, I’m unable to say if my experiences were strictly anxiety related.

I assume that you are in therapy? If so, you should talk to he/she about these occurrences. They do seem frightening.

Thank you for your insight. Yes, your description accurately sums up my fears. Creepy deja-vu like feeling or feeling like it's a memory. I think the best way to describe what's happening to me is that the part of my memory that is activated or triggered by my everyday experiences seems overactive and sometimes just fires random thoughts that aren't accurate memories since I'm so afraid specifically of remembering something thst didn't happen, which is a product of my OCD. I am very afraid that this is psychosis though and I'm terrified I'm losing my mind.
I used to be in therapy for many years but haven't been in awhile. I would be very scared to talk about this.

Alright. The ‘fear of losing your mind’ is an anxiety symptom. Textbook example.

What is unusual is your fear of ‘remembering something that didn’t happen:’ a false memory that could lead you to believe, yes, that you’re losing it. You have a cycle going on but the basis, I think, is probably that horrible feeling that you are going to lose your mind at your next thought.

Anxiety.

Psychosis is something that you can get through (with the amount of seroquel that I ingest daily, I’m almost psychosis free!), a way to still talk to your dead friend sitting on the edge of your bed whilst knowing that you are not really talking to him... but you don’t stop because you’ve so much new crap to tell him.

Conversely, when I have had delusions, yes, the Battle of Agincourt is really being re-enacted (with a Kenneth Branaugh directing) in the empty lots behind my apartment building. I do things when I am delusional - I mistake fountain pens for swords and make coffee from tea bags (true stories).

Your next thought will not make you crazy, I promise. You are not going to suddenly flip into madness. Madness, for me, took time. I think that it takes time for everyone; I think that anxiety disorders make us fear a sudden plunge into insanity.

Hmm. Yeah. No, so I’m sticking with anxiety and keeping OCD at bay (since I know nothing of it!).

What you describe is certainly anxiety related. Who prescribes your psych meds if you’re not in therapy? Although I am old school (addicted to Xanax since 1985) there are some new meds that do a fine job in treating even the worst anxiety.

Seeing your other diagnoses, ‘yes’ here to GAD, Panic Disorder (and panic attacks) a whopping ‘hell yes’ to agoraphobia (I am much better, now) and a host of social anxieties, personality disorders and a fatal case of Morton’s Toe.

I doubt that your PRN lorazepam (how much?) will keep the djinns away. Talk to your prescriber.

I hate to sound like a nag but with the agoraphobia and your various social anxieties? Only one cure - exposure therapy. I was stuck in my apartment, black-out curtains closed, doors locked. I would sometimes talk to my caregiver, sometimes never say a word. If someone showed up at my door - or phoned! - my voice would sound croaky and ragged or high-pitched like a 12-year-old girl’s. My voice was out-of-practice.

I finally started inching my way out the door. Two friends - one very dear - died as I was making my way out. I finally made it outside, where the people were. At first I could not stop talking but my vocal chords weren’t up to the task.

Now I am better. I have friends, very old and very new, and I come and go, even.

It was hard. I don’t know how many times I died in my hallway. I would talk myself out of trying if I could not find just the right clothes. The diazepams aren’t going to help get you out. They may help with some social anxieties, though.

Find the right clothes. After that, it’s a snap.

I wanted to update that today this happened again, twice while I was driving. I had a memory of my fiance talking about my tires and brakes and later realized that the actual memory was of him talking about HIS tires and brakes on his truck, but i remembered it incorrectly and that bothered me. Also as I was in a turn lane I had a sudden memory of being with someone else at some point who wasn't in the correct turn lane, but turned anyway. I can't remember who, and don't know if it actually ever happened or if it's just a weird deja vu feeling. These things cause me a ton of anxiety and I'm beginning to think of them more as "intrusive false memories" in a way, and they terrify me becsuse as I think of them, they come with this feeling of realness- more accurately: familiarity. It's so weird and I really don't know what's going on, but i have a hunch that if I would stop worrying about it, it would stop happening.