Hallucination caused by anxiety?

Hello all,

My 15 year old sister has been diagnosed with severe anxiety problems. She hears voices that tell her to kill herself. She also at times has visual hallucinations where she sees blurry human figures that try to hurt her. For the past 3 days, she has been imagining that someone is trying to choke her to death. She tries to pull out the person's hands from her neck. All this is very worrying and we are not sure how to proceed.

Bit of history about her case:
These problems started to occur about 8 months ago. She was also depressed at that point of time. The doctors say that the panic attacks are caused by the high anxiety levels caused by exams. Medical tests such as EEG, MRI were done and they concluded that it is not psychotic. She was given given psychotic medicines in the beginning but this has been gradually reduced. She did not take up her exams and these episodes had reduced. But off late, it has started to happen frequently again.

I know that it maybe again the forum rules to ask if she has been diagnosed correctly but I am worried that it maybe something psychotic. Can someone clarify on this? Is it possible that she may not have been correctly diagnosed? Should I seek out a second opinion?

Thanks

Hi there

I'm sorry to hear about what's happening with your sister. That sounds pretty scary.

You're right that no-one here is able to provide any sort of diagnosis- there's no professionals here on the site.

Your sister doesn't sound well and I think seeking out some professional help would be the best thing to do. A good place to start is with your family doctor, who can refer her on to someone who can help further.

Take care
Lily