Help with my bizzare thoughts

Hi, this is my first post here and I'm not sure if OCD is the correct section or not, however this week my psychiatrist told me I have obsessions.

I'll start with some background on myself. I have always been a anxious person, I would have stomach aches when I was little about going to school. When I was young I had a terrible fear of the weather after the second tornado ever hit Salt Lake City. I have also had issues with depression, at one point I told my mom I was going to kill myself because for about 8 years now I battled vertigo that I had no idea the cause and it kept me on the couch all day for a long time. Well eventually I started having really scary thoughts that I wanted to kill my loved ones, or that I would become a serial killer, or that I might become schizophrenic, or that if I told people about these thoughts I would be locked away in a mental institution and forgotten about by everyone I love. Well I went to a psychiatrist for me saying I wanted to kill myself. He put me on Prozac. I never told him about the worries of going crazy and hurting people or anything like that, I was afraid that I would be put in the mental hospital and forgotten about. Well the Prozac helped and for a long time I was doing really great and those thoughts weren't entering my mind anymore.

This last year I left home to go to college and I think I put a lot of pressure on myself to meet people and make friends. It didn't pan out well and it felt to me like everyone already had friends from an orientation thing that freshman had (I was a transfer so didn't go to it). It made me start getting depressed again. Eventually I did make friends though and the depression got better.

After that semester I got accepted into the college that never seemed like a possibility to go to after having missed all of high school dizzy on the couch. So I took that opportunity and ran with it and transferred schools again. Same thing happened, I became depressed and feared being alone forever. Never meeting a girl to be my girlfriend or marry, I felt it was because I thought I have nothing in common with anyone and no one could possibly like me. The psychiatrist at the university recommended I drop as many classes as I could and focus on my health. I dropped as much as I could, but I started eating worse and isolating myself from everyone but my roommates, close friends, and my mom. I would spend all day inside playing games.

So I came home for the summer and was still struggling with being depressed, and so I thought the medicine can't be helping I feel the same as I do when I'm off it as on it. So I quit taking my Prozac the only thing I was taking still was Lorazapem to treat my dizziness.

Well the thoughts that scared me the most came back. It came back when an idea of hurting my dog came into my mind. It escalated into fearing of becoming a murder, or going to jail, or becoming schizophrenic. I would have these vivid thoughts of myself being arrested, or crimes I had committed, or me being locked away in a mental institution because I had lost my mind.

So I started taking what Prozac I had left and over the course of a few weeks of doing other things than laying around worrying. Things started to get better again. The violent obsessions became less frequent and I was doing better.

Now I visited the psychiatrist again, and the family doctor I visited a few weeks before the psychiatrist visit switched me to Zoloft. Since having been on Zoloft as well as some medications that make me drowsy like promethazine, I had dreams that are really vivid and feel like they could be things that are actually happening like me getting up and going to the bathroom and only remembering it a little bit because I was tired, or getting up in the night and making a sandwhich and going back to sleep, or my mom coming and waking me up and telling me some things before she goes to work then me going back to sleep. My first thought was it was promethazine (which makes me extremely tired). So I quit taking promethazine hoping it would stop, but today the third dream I mentioned happened. I called my mom when I woke up and asked her if she came down and said something to me before she went to work, and she said no. So these vivid dreams have me having odd fears that I'm becoming schizophrenic or that I'm going crazy again, like having fears that maybe I'm going to start hearing voices, or that the dreams are hallucinations and I'm already going crazy with the fear that I'm going crazy the violent thoughts come back. I told my psychiatrist about it and she said I am having obsessions but maybe not the compulsions, however I am on the internet all day re looking up things about violent obsessions and schiz OCD to reassure myself. I don't know if I should stop taking the Zoloft or what I should do. The doctor also recommended counselling for my anxiety. Please help, I don't know what to do.

Hi. Fear, such as fearing your might become schizophrenic, fear of hurting family member, fears of becoming a serial killer, etc - are all fears that can occur to someone who suffers anxiety and OCD; and this forum has plenty of posts like yours, to prove it.

You are not alone in this. People who truly want to hurt others, have urges. Some of them might be aware enough to know that they could get in trouble if they followed through with these urges, and others do not see this as wrong behavior (those who actually commit violent acts).

For someone like you, it is all fear based; irrational fear of urges that don't exist.

Reading your post, it seems like you have never discussed with a doctor the things you have told us here. I think you should. Before you do, make sure your doctor/therapist has a good understanding of anxiety disorders. It is also important for you to frame the conversation in your true feelings, that is, that this is a fear based problem.

Otter.

This last week I had an appointment with my psychiatrist and told her I was afraid I would snap and hurt people and had terrible fears for my future. Which is the point that she said to stay on the Zoloft for another month, then if it persists we'll up it or change it. It's also when she suggested counseling.

Are you going to take her up on the counseling suggestion?

Yes I'll be going to counseling

Maybe you can directly talk about OCD with both of them. Of course, I'm not saying you are suffering from it (we can't diagnose here), but it may help things. Lay it out in detail, like you did here (if you weren't as frank about "all" of your fears).

I hope the Zoloft works, even better, down the road.

I'm a bit nervous to tell exactly what they are but I will. Thank you for replies they help reassure me.

So I did make another appointment with my doctor to discuss in more detail. I guess my fear is being hospitalized for these thoughts. I guess the part about being hospitalized gives me the scare of being put in the hospital and never getting to leave.

Just a final update on my condition. I went and made the appointment with my doctor, told her ALL my fears and concerns. She had me hospitalized for 5 1/2 days. The doctor at the hospital told me I have pretty serious OCD. They put me on a cocktail of Paxil, Risperdal, Wellbutrin and Ativan. After leaving I can't remember the last time I felt as well as I do now. Thank you Otter for giving me the confidence to talk seriously with my doctor about OCD. It has me on a good path to recovering.

Excellent news! Thanks for sharing it. Good luck with everything.

Otter.