Ok so I'm stressed out – when am I not? But lately I am very very very stressed out and I should be. My husband and I are both working two jobs and in addition to that I am rasing three children (2 of which are teenagers!), and taking care of the house, the bills, the groceries, cooking, cleaning, afterschool sports, etc. Oh, and of course there's the OCD. Well, I don't get much sleep – about 5 hours a night if I'm lucky. When I get really super stressed like I have been for about a year, I notice I have a lot more panic attacks and episodes where I feel like I just cannot breathe. I also get this awful feeling that my mind is becoming unhinged. Like there's a gate that keeps opening a little and really negative, fearful thoughts/sounds/ (not really voices – I guess you could say it's my voice speaking negative thoughts/ or replayng some sad memory. I really don't know how to describe it. It's like this gate opens and lets this crap (old memories and a jumble of nonsense) flood my mind and I experience intense fear of going crazy, losing control and completely losing my grip on reality. I struggle against it, and conjure up a song to take it's place. This whole episode brings me to a panic attack. I'm thinking, ok, I must be schizo was that voices? No, not really, more like an ocean sound, with intense fear. Then I can't stop thinking about this. Anyone else ever experience this? Of course I looked it up on the internet, racing thoughts and fear of going crazy. The first thing the racing thoughts search came up with was anxiety disorders – OCD, along with bipolar (which I'm not). And I don't think I'm schizo because I don't fit the symptoms. I looked those up too. Racing thoughts can also be caused by sleep deprivation. I've seriously got that.
So I'm stressed because I have too much on me. But I am going to quit my part time job so I can get some sleep. My husband is right on board with this and we'll just have to make do. I am so tired all of the time now. I keep pushing myself to keep up with everything – all the housework and everything that goes along with being the one in charge of everything. Don't get me wrong, my husband would be right there with me helping but he's working long hours every day.
So, I would really like to know if anyone can relate to what I described – about the racing thoughts and fear of losing it. Am I going crazy?
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I have had this too. Generally this happens when I'm at my worst and I feel like I'm separating from reality. Like you said, I don't hear voices or see things exactly, I just can't quite tell what's real anymore….my thoughts or my environment. Does that make sense?
When I've gotten like this, the best way for me to immediately help is to find a quiet place and practice my breathing. When it's happened at work, I go to the bathroom, find a stall and breathe until I calm down some. In the long term, I've upped my meds and that's helped tremendously. Quitting your second job is definitely a start to helping long term as well.
You're not schizo, I promise! You have OCD. Hang in there and take care of yourself.
yeh some of the things of which you explained i can relate to..it very frightening and surreal…i do believe you need to off load ur work..your not giving yourself time to chill out.. i believe it is very important to decrease stress otherwise ur panic attacks and constant anxiety will continue, plus sleep is very important to combat ur ocd…but i do understand whats it like..and its torcher..i hope things work for you..good luck..