[Otulissa]

I feel im coming close to believing I created everything with my mind, that nothing is real, that im alone. Im scared, I dont want to believe this but there is like coincidences happening everywhere! Ill think something and will quickly see something related to it or someone will start talking about what I was thinking. Is there any hope for me if I really start believing this? Ive been trying to fight it off for about a year and feel like im losing to it. Please, I dont want this to be true.

[faerie_moon_x]

Yes, there is always hope. Have you seen a psychiatrist about this? If not then maybe you should make an appointment? If you're not ready for that maybe at least make an appointment with a psychologist, (more like a therapist, can't prescribe medicine.)

[snarkydaddy]

Originally Posted by Otulissa

I feel im coming close to believing I created everything with my mind, that nothing is real, that im alone. Im scared, I dont want to believe this but there is like coincidences happening everywhere! Ill think something and will quickly see something related to it or someone will start talking about what I was thinking. Is there any hope for me if I really start believing this? Ive been trying to fight it off for about a year and feel like im losing to it. Please, I dont want this to be true.

Hello, And good morning.
I should start out by telling I do not have schizophrenia. However, I grew up with a brother who does.

Perhaps you are familiar with the mathematician, John Forbes Nash, whom was characterized and cleaned up a bit in the movie A Beautiful Mind. He has Schizophrenia and saw patterns outside of his mathematical area. In the end he chose not to believe them even though he saw them. If you have seen this film I would am couscous what you think of it in terms of your experiences.

Perhaps you and your psychiatrist can come up with some strategies to help you with this?

John Forbes Nash, Jr. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[leomama]

Originally Posted by snarkydaddy

Hello, And good morning.
I should start out by telling I do not have schizophrenia. However, I grew up with a brother who does.

Perhaps you are familiar with the mathematician, John Forbes Nash, whom was characterized and cleaned up a bit in the movie A Beautiful Mind. He has Schizophrenia and saw patterns outside of his mathematical area. In the end he chose not to believe them even though he saw them. If you have seen this film I would am couscous what you think of it in terms of your experiences.

Perhaps you and your psychiatrist can come up with some strategies to help you with this?

John Forbes Nash, Jr. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hi daddy

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Otulissa]

Yes im seeing a psychiatrist, hes put me on 10 mg of Abilify. He diagnosed me as ocd seeing that I would try to reason the thought out. But I dont think he understands that even when I do that it doesnt work, or how much I feel I believe this idea now. It scares me alot and makes me feel like ive lost my family since they are not 'real'. Im just afraid if I believe this idea it wont ever go away.
I havent seen A Beautiful Mind, but in relation to patterns yes I see them everywhere I go. Ill think something and immediatly someone will start talking about it, or ill see it out in the world. Its very scary and tiring to have this happen all day.

[faerie_moon_x]

I want to say that it's human phenomenon what you're describing, about being aware of something then suddenly seeing it everywhere/people talking about it. Maybe that will ease your mind a little? Examples I have are my work changed to a new records company that I had never even heard of, and the day I found out, suddenly I see their trucks everywhere on the road. I'd never noticed them before. Or, I got a mini-van and it's dark blue and I never thought much of that color. Suddenly everywhere I go I see dark blue mini-vans exactly the same.

I'm sorry you feel your family is gone. But they are not really gone. Give them big hugs and tell them you love them. That unreal feeling gives you anxiety. I get the unreal feeling that I'm not real, or how is it possible I'm real but I'm only me and can't be a lot of other people, too. Just know you're not alone, your family is still there even if you don't feel like they are.

[Otulissa]

Im mostly afraid this is going to be forever, even if I take medication and seek therapy. You dont think ill think about this for the rest of my life do you?

[faerie_moon_x]

It's hard to say. I had what seems to have been a delusion for around 5 years that an office building in the neighborhood where I grew up was the headquarters for an evil organization, and they were after me. One day it just went away to the point that I completely forgot about it until I was re-confronted with the building. I don't know when it started or when it stopped or why. Because it all happened in the passed the pdoc I saw said I have possible psychosis, even though it lasted at least 5 years. I never had any treatment when it was happening. I fully believed it with no insight at all. But, I don't know if I'm a rare case or what.

[Otulissa]

If it never goes away ill never feel like I have my family back. How am I supposed to fight something that I cant reason with or prove its untrue? It makes me feel a little better you saying you had one for years and it went away. Im seeing both a pdoc and a therapist and the anxiety has gotten better, but the idea is still always there tainting everything I do.

[faerie_moon_x]

Just be honest with the pdoc. Hopefully there is something that helps you.

[jeppys]

mine was very similar. I thought that I was literally inside myself, where the entire universe was me and that if I listened to the voices (who were outside of me and consequently the universe) that I would somehow wake up and the real world would be exposed......a birth so to speak. to believe that I am here alone, completely, was unfathomable to me. it can be very sad but you can choose to change it if you want. I will tell you this (PAY ATTENTION), every delusion you create has an inexorable fatality in it's end......that means regardless of the ideas you have, they will always end in destruction and pain and suffering of your soul (sub-conscious, whatever you wanna call it). never look to the ends of any spectrum to define this place and what happens here, choose the greys and not the black and white. example: I've always been a black and white thinker, very mathematical. I started thinking about something I called the universal soul theory, where there was something inside each of us that was all knowing (due to experiences of synchronicity, dreams coming true etc). I gave it a great amount of credence and started forming other ideas and created this little religion inside my head, oddly enough after research into the thoughts I was having there was already a spiritual or religious establishment of such a belief (not Buddhism). the problem was and still is that I end up in the black and white due to the foundation of the belief.....which is listening to your soul or not listening to your soul. if you listen to your soul (the good voice) you will love yourself here and beyond. if you do not, you will suffer here and beyond. the same concept of heaven and hell. how marvelous that I would create something that I avoided like the plague my whole life only to find out that the ends are the same. black and white. so I'm still waiting for the "ahHA" moment that I can finally rest easy in the grey. from what I'm gathering from the voices, anything that contributes to the projection of yourself onto others is in violation of the self. we all do the same things (generally) pick your nose, wipe your butt, get drunk and make a fool of ourselves etc. to project judgment onto another is to judge yourself when you do the same thing. you cannot tell yourself (reasonably) it's ok if I do it but not them. ultimately (down the road) this means that if everyone listened to their "soul" we would automatically know the desires of each other and would be able to fulfill them. they tell me that love is listening and that there is no such thing as right or wrong, there is only listening and not listening. they are tight lipped on the degrees of either but when I listen to them I have the most beautiful and breathtaking hallucinations. there is nothing in existence that compares to what I've felt, seen and heard. when I don't listen, the suffering is just as great which is why I slit my wrists. be careful who and what you are listening to. if you are listening to your soul the message is always beautiful and symbolizes love, if you listen to yourself there will only be pain. that is my experience.

[Sometimes psychotic]

Originally Posted by Otulissa

Yes im seeing a psychiatrist, hes put me on 10 mg of Abilify. He diagnosed me as ocd seeing that I would try to reason the thought out. But I dont think he understands that even when I do that it doesnt work, or how much I feel I believe this idea now. It scares me alot and makes me feel like ive lost my family since they are not 'real'. Im just afraid if I believe this idea it wont ever go away.
I havent seen A Beautiful Mind, but in relation to patterns yes I see them everywhere I go. Ill think something and immediatly someone will start talking about it, or ill see it out in the world. Its very scary and tiring to have this happen all day.

This is interesting to me that you have an OCD diagnosis but were given an anti-psychotic like abilify. One thing I will say is that 10mg is the starting dose for Abilify and psychosis so you can try a higher dose or you can try a more effective drug...Abilify just doesn't work well for a lot of people because it doesn't block the D2 receptor its a partial agonist. You could try something like risperidone with a high affinity for D2 but there can be weird side effects like lactation...you might want to try latuda it seems to be a pretty good combination between effectiveness and few side effects and its weight neutral. Just hang in there but be sure to tell your pdoc that these meds are not good enough for you to be well.

[Wansfell]

There is the philosophy of 'solipsism'....the idea that there is only one person and that everything else only exists in the mind of that one person. I think the newer Twilight Zone series (1985) had an episode in which a prisoner on Death Row told the warden that if he were to be executed everything would cease to exist....and when they killed him that's exactly what happened.

[Tower_Tusk]

Otulissa: I know what you mean. For a while at one point I was convinced that I had created the world and that the world was continuously reacting to my thoughts. Everything seemed to be adding up in a way I struggled to explain and no one could disprove. I know exactly what you mean about the patterns too. To this day I don't know how everything could been arranged how in such a way so as to give me such a perfect impression of this delusion. It felt like everything I saw and heard was just parts of me talking to myself. I'm not really sure what to tell you (because I remember how suspicious I was of everything at that point) except that I hope you feel better soon. Trust me, when this goes away you'll be struggling to find meaning instead of finding it at every turn. Feel better

[Otulissa]

Thanks everyone. Tower, did you have it for a very long time? I worry ive had it too long for it to ever go away. Like you said things just seem to happen that corroborate this idea. Its scary. And then if a coincidence doesnt happen ill think ' it didnt happen because I didnt want it to happen'.

[venusss]

Berkley much?

George Berkeley - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


I can drive myself perfectly crazy when I start thinking and spinning out those ideas. In HS I had this theory that the world is a mass delusion and to break it one should rebel against it. Lately it's more or less spin off the idea "gods put us on the earth to watch us like a reality show... and natural disasters are simply their way of voting participants off". I had the "it happened cause of me" thing once (because of odd coincidences that happened. But could be pretty much logically explained).

[Otulissa]

Well I know the coincidences can logically be explained, on the other hand I see so many that its very tiring to try to rationalize constantly. I had joined an ocd support group not too long ago and asked if the doubt ever goes away, I got a no it doesnt. This has me terrified, that it will never end.

[Tower_Tusk]

Originally Posted by Otulissa

Thanks everyone. Tower, did you have it for a very long time? I worry ive had it too long for it to ever go away. Like you said things just seem to happen that corroborate this idea. Its scary. And then if a coincidence doesnt happen ill think ' it didnt happen because I didnt want it to happen'.

My episode didn't last longer than about a month, but I was dealing with all kinds of other delusions. Your reasoning that it won't go away because it's been happening too long is no way to look at it though. I'm confident it will go away with time. For now though, just try to be calm until things fall into place.