[Irealltdonotcare]

So to start, I haven't been diagnosed, or tested for anything ever. However, I do feel that I'm not 'normal' seeing as no one I see seems to experience the same behaviours as me.

With every single unusual thing I do, be it the twitching or the stuttering or the 'dramatic' mood swings or the thoughts of death or the constant restlessness or anything else, I always have this irritating underlying thought. I ask myself why I'm doing whatever it is, but then come up with the answer of I don't know why. But then I will immediately think 'what if I'm just doing all of this sub-consciously just to get attention?' I'll try to stop what I'm doing but then I can't do it, and I just worry even more that there's nothing happening, or nothing wrong, just that I want attention. I hate having this thought all the time, and it's probably one of the reasons that I didn't tell anyone when I did not want to live anymore.

Does anyone know how to tell if I am just messed up and doing this all for attention? I really hope not because it's making my life harder and harder...

[Ihani]

Every person I've ever talked to with diagnosed mental illness has always worried about it being fake at multiple points. I'm no better; when I'm in the middle of some of my worst mood swings, i.e. I'm tearing things off my walls and dissociating, I'll message my friend and tell her I'm making it up. It's normal to wonder if you're making it up, but if it's causing you distress and it keeps happening, it's probably real.

[blue_eyed_panda]

Originally Posted by Ihani

... It's normal to wonder if you're making it up, but if it's causing you distress and it keeps happening, it's probably real.

I remind myself of this regularly. When I feel stable I wonder if it's fake. But then I remind myself of the times I have trouble controlling my own actions due to what's going on in my head. I don't know if this is normal or not for people with MI, but somehow I think it is.

[ManOfConstantSorrow]

I would be surprised if what you describe was not real, but often you cannot realise it is real until you have words to describe what you are feeling.

I think that you have to look at every manifestation of how you feel and try to understand what started it, how you feel about what you are doing and what pay-off you are getting.

As we humans are incredibly complicated this can be difficult to do alone, hence the need for therapists to help.