Hello,

Well for starters I wanted to say that I'm a Seventeen year old girl who has recently been diagnosed with GAD. I have always feared a lot, and would always obsess over a certain thing/thought. I never really thought much of it, but now that I look back, it all makes sense. When I was around Seven years old, my older brother had came home from school one day and told me about germs, he explains how they were all around us. I quickly became obsessed with the thought that I would catch all these germs and catch a deadly illness and die. Every time I touched anything or anyone touched my hand, I would run to the bathroom and wash my hands. I was washing my hands up to 15 times a day and I didn't want to touch anything at all... Well like I said, I never thought much about that.. Until recently during summer break I had nothing better to do, other than watch TV, and everything I saw had to do with murders and people going insane. Well I saw this episode on a Hispanic show about a lady who had some type of Multiple personality disorder, who ended up killing her boss. She took medication for her disorder, but that day she forgot to take it. She didn't realize she had killed her, until the memory of her kept haunting her. She would see her everywhere, and she would speak to her telling her "You did it, you killed me" much later she got the clue that she had committed that murder. Well I quickly became obsessed with the thought of me going insane or sleep walking and doing such thing. I actually started putting things against my door so if I did sleep walk, I wouldn't be able to get through. The thing is there hasn't been a time where I have slept walked. The thoughts used to be much worse, but I've been seeing a therapist since the moment I realized I had a problem, and I've been feeling much better. There's days where I feel completely fine and happy and then there's those other days where I completely panic and feel like my world is falling apart. I would much rather kill myself than to ever hurt anyone in anyway. The thought of doing such thing causes me so much emotional pain, because I know that I wouldn't hurt anyone. Sometimes I cant help but feel so hurt and upset with myself because of those thoughts, that I just want to end my life. I try to talk to the people who I love about this and try to explain it to them, but they don't really seem to understand. They say "Oh everyone has those types of thoughts, just get over it" although, everyone might have those types of thoughts, I cant seem to just "get over it". I basically want to know, is there hope for me? How many others can relate to the way I'm feeling?

my father always was suspicious as to why i get really anxious any time my boyfriend leaves. he thought i was doing drugs with him or something - i'm straight edge, so no, i'm not doing any drugs that cause some sort of anxiety disorder. though i did think about how whenever my boyfriend leaves i get anxious. even so when i'm with him i start to get anxious because he's leaving soon. this only happens with him. i automatically assume i'm never seeing him again. i panic and feel as if i cannot feel okay without him. i absolutely hate this, i don't know how to change it, the only thing i've tried is distancing myself but that only leads to emotional distance in the relationship and makes everything worse. i don't know what to do. i don't want to depend on him to feel okay.

so my boyfriend of a year and a half has bipolar disorder. We've broken up and fought many times over the past but everything always goes back to normal once he's done with that particular cycle. I know it sounds awful to go through but I am willing to and it is worth it to me. I'd never hold it against him because I've done my fair share of learning about the disorder and I know that he can't help it. I love him and I want to see him happy and I know I make him happy it's just when he gets moody it's always me. And I know that when he doesn't know what's wrong he's going to take it out on the person closest to him which is me, and I know I can't do anything about it, and that sucks. We've talked about his disorder before and he realized that I'm the only one who's there for him.

Now getting to what's going on right now, we hadn't fought in two months and everything was perfect and I knew that it was long overdue for him to go through a depressive, angry or manic cycle. Last Sunday I saw him and everything was fine, then that night when he was working he texted me and told me he was depressed, I know better than to ask him why or what's wrong so I just told him that if he needs me I'm here but if he needs his space I understand. He told me that he needed some space he just didn't want to have to say it, so we didn't talk because I wanted to respect that he needed space. On valentines day, that tuesday, I didn't want to waste my card so I drove the hour to see him and I put it on his doorstep and I left, as to not bother him. In the middle of the night he sent me a long text saying how he needs someone more mature and how I'm too negative and how he wants to break up. I'm neither of those things. He said he's on a path to self discovery as well. After we talked about that I asked if he got my card and he said yes and no, that he got it but he didn't read it, he hid it from himself in case he has a change of heart like he does other times with the things I give him when stuff like this happens.

We didn't talk all week and then today, Saturday, I don't know why but I had to say how I felt. So I sent him this long thing about how I felt and he was really nasty about it (which I was expecting). I just needed him to think about what he's doing. Also all week he has been tweeting all these sad song lyrics or he sounds happy. And in the past he's seemed happy and he would be out with his friends having a good time and not talking to me but that's expected and he'd always come back. The last time I told him how I felt and how his bipolar disorder was affecting me (because he knew he was bipolar he just had no idea what it meant) he got really angry at first but he called me later and told me that I was right and that he was sorry.

Everyone I've tried talking to about this just tells me I need to tell him to go on medication. He's tried it and doesn't like it and it's not my place to push him to do so. I know the real reasons he's upset are because he's a 20 year old boy who thinks his life is over because he hasn't started college yet, and I've been trying to help him to go to college, and I'm in no way trying to hold him back. I know he's just going through a cycle and he's not being himself right now and all of the other times he's always come back. It's just never lasted this long. I know it can't be the same every time but I just wanted to see some other opinions.

For now I just know I need to give him the space he needs and respect that and hopefully he'll come back sooner or later. I've been told I should leave him countless times by others but that's not what I want to do in the least bit.

Opinions? Advice?

My friend absolutely terrifies me. He has never done anything violent or harmful to me and is the most gentle and peaceful person I know (Though he is quite distant). He is also the most dangerous person I know. He usually has a calming air about him. It's calming to the point where he picked a bee off a flower and held it in his open palm for who knows how long before he sent it back on the flower without it stinging him. However, his air about him changes to absolute dread when he gets aggressive. This dread caused a dog to whimper and hide just by being near him. A moment to feel this dread is to ask him about his past.

My friend has a rather dark past. He had drug addict, alcoholic, and sick parents for the first three years of his life who were constantly fighting. He also was being watched by his legally crazy grandparents who were also drug addict alcoholics. He saw his mother brutally die in front of him from a car accident he was in. His father legally died then came back into a coma. He was physically, emotionally, and psychologically abused. He was raped. He was constantly being bullied at school and at home by his cousins. He hasn't seen his sister for ten years. He almost died countless times. He was also taken away from his father by the CPS. I was his first friend ever, and that was in the 5th grade (He was held back one year). I am still one of his only friends. The bullying never really stopped, it's just that everyone was to scared to.

As I said before, he is the best person I have ever met. However, he becomes a monster when aggressive. During these moments, he is not angry in any way. He is actually very happy when he is aggressive. I have seen him do some monster like things when he is like that. Ranging from will his way through a sleep hold to overpowering four football players. A note to take is how he is a 5' 5" 135 lbs slender-athletic build guy who isn't very bulky despite his martial art training, but he is stronger than he looks and is very resilient. When he becomes aggressive, his entire being changes. His eyes become empty and have a death stare, his body language becomes feral and relaxed, He gets a joker like smile and tries to keep himself from giggling and almost growls, the air around him becomes full of dread, and his already efficient and dangerous fighting style becomes even more efficient and dangerous. When he is in a fight, killing an insect, or gutting a hunted animal he laughs harder and smiles harder. He clearly enjoys being hit or hurting things when he is in that state. He also doesn't feel any physical pain in that state. After he snaps back to normal, he bursts into a crying mess, and will often vanish when we all check to see if the guy he was fighting is okay.

When he is normal, he has noble body language, a gentle look on his face, and love in his eyes. He will try to never harm anything and will resolve anything peacefully. He also genuinely cares about his few friends and gives amazing advise and can console anyone.

My friend has gone to therapy, but the fact he couldn't remember what he did in the aggressive moment, the therapy didn't help him know what was wrong with him. He also went to anger management, but he apparently has an outstanding control over his anger. We both wonder what is wrong with him, and I am absolutely terrified of him even when he isn't in his aggressive state.

I've been looking everywhere online for advice, and everyone I talk to says I should go to some sort of psychotherapy. I don't know about it, though.. I finally had the courage to tell my sister what's been going on - I've been hallucinating, I can't sleep too well (3 hours a night is my current average), I get very nauseated whenever I eat so I've lost a significant amount of weight. There's headaches, dizziness, fear (of nothing, really), anxiety, trembling, it's hard to breathe sometimes, too. I had a panic attack about two weeks ago, it lasted for maybe fifteen minutes. My dad says he used to have panic attacks, and I read somewhere that it's more likely for me if it runs in the family. I can't stand being alone because these hallucinations get worse when I am. I'm also being cold(-hearted) lately towards my mom and sister. I feel very anxious -at night especially- and self harm calms me down. I started scratching my wrists and digging my nails into them. I don't want to do this, but it's become very addicting and even soothing. My sister wants me to see a psychiatrist, and put me on anti- depressants. What should I do about this? Please help.