Am i Schizophrenic?

Hello.I really need your help. I moved from Greece to U.K for post-graduate studies 6 months ago.Everything was fine until 2 months ago when i broke up with my girlfriend. I don't have any friends here,just my brother.

So here is my story...

I am dealing with anxiety problems for 10 years.They started as panic attacks,social anxiety due to panic attacks,depression cause by disability of anxiety etc...

2 months ago i broke up with my ex (the only person i had here in the U.K). I got anxious and had catastrophic thoughts of not being able to live here anymore,finish my studies etc.More realistic problems,but almost all my day was ruined by these thoughts.

After i started to have some obsessive compulsive behaviour,like checking things i was getting to eat/if they were fine or poisoned,put my brother to taste foods,etc..I was doing coffee twice,because the first one didn't seem ok and so. These things got worse after i checked for checkers of OCD.They lasted for about 2-3 weeks and now i dont have them anymore on that level.

My anxiety was still there and i was surfing the web about schizophrenia/psychosis and harm OCD.This was my biggest mistake!

I started to check if i was hearing voices.Sometimes when i was in bed,i heard two times my brother and mother.But it got worse.Not i dont know if i hear things or it is just thoughts of my brain.I hear on a very low frequency the words "###$ you"(like a scream) but i dont know if it is my brain,or i receive the voice as an external sound of a very low frequency.I also mispresent real external sounds as saying the word "#######1"!I really CANNOT say if these are voices or thoughts!!!!

I was reading about Harm OCD and i am afraid to go out because of killing someone without notice it. I even believed (not really believed,but almost convinced) that i killed my girlfriend without noticing it and that the police is coming to get me and that my room is a prison.I would say i didn't only as answering as a simple NO,but i was STILL believing i did and and still have severe anxiety.And also that i killed my brother,while he is still alive and i see him,since we live on the same house but i still have anxiety.

I was thinking someone was in the kitchen or in my bed.I wasnt seeing anyone but i was still believing that someone is there and caused me severe anxiety.

When i go out,i always see how people see me,if they look aggressive and one time i thought one guy was SATAN and had a full panic attack(i am atheist by the way).

I was seeing flashes of light and i was thinking i was seeing some characters for like 1 second as images!!!

I am afraid to watch tv,and when i do it i am thinking that i will start to believe that it will start to talk to me and feel the need to answer. I heard the word pregnant on a film and i had a thought:WHAT IF I AM PREGANT!!!And i am male...

Also had thoughts of being able to kill from distance or when i was at the library studying that someone is controling me inside my brain and tells me things to do etc.

I am freaked out and every day i have new obsessions concerning schizophrenia.Now i dont know if the voice i hear "###$ you" is real or not.I dont listen to it when i am thinking of it,it just comes random.But before i listen to it, i had it on my brain.Yesterday i dont know if it was a thought or voice which told me "what are you doing there".I was thinking of it first that i relaxed,but i feel a need that i must be 24 hours stressed.I am feeling like i WANT to be schizophrenic and it freaks me out!

I am helpless and desperate and i have no friends.Its impossible to make friends when i have these thoughts inside my brain and i cant read for preparing the essays.

My problems with anxiety before had to do with more "realistic" issued.Irrational fears about my health,insecurity about my future and so.I cannot deal with the fear of schizophrenia.I am on a level i think i already hear voices and i will start to loose contact with reality!!!Each day i have a new obsession which is always about schizophrenia and my life is worthless!!!

Please,cant you tell me what do you think?I am on Effexor 75 mg and they dont seem to help.It causes me more anxiety,because i am thinking i start or started to develop schizophrenia or psychosis.I also have severe tinnitus for the last 1 month and a half!

Thanks in advance

Obsessed28 wrote:When i go out,i always see how people see me,if they look aggressive and one time i thought one guy was SATAN and had a full panic attack(i am atheist by the way)....I heard the word pregnant on a film and i had a thought:WHAT IF I AM PREGANT!!!And i am male...

Are you an ex-theist or innocent? Did you always know that only females could get pregnant, or did someone have to explain it to you when you were a child? Could it be that some of your childhood beliefs have come back to haunt you? Happens to the best of us.

Sometimes random noise (unorganized sound) sounds like music or speech to me, especially when I've been without such organized sound for a while. Understimulation, I suppose.

Hi Obsessed28,

Sorry you have these disturbing thoughts! It sounds like you read or hear about things like mental disorders and then get to worrying them so much you get convinced you have the problem. I know it’s easy to identify with certain symptoms and wonder about if you have them yourself, but try not to take it to the extreme. Just like you are not pregnant, I truly doubt that you have sz.

You stated everything was fine until 2 months ago. Then you had a big stress-event when the relationship with your girlfriend ended. You don’t have a lot of support in dealing with this (but at least you do have your brother), you are in a foreign country and in a (presumably) rigorous post-grad program besides. This is a lot of stress for anyone!! It’s understandable you are having a hard time especially given your anxiety problems. It does not mean you have developed sz! Hopefully, given some time things will settle down again and you will be less anxious about it. Breaking up is hard to do but you will get though it. It just takes time.

Be good to yourself and talk it through with your doc (which I presume you have since you are on a prescribed medicine) if you need to. It will get better! Hugs, Jan

Thanks for your replies. I am completely freaked out that i started to have psychosis/schizophrenia.The medication i take doesnt work anymore (i am taking effexor 75 mg).i talked to the psychiatrist from my country and he told me that its probably OCD.

Yesterday i was afraid to go out alone,because i will kill someone and i doubt if i should have remembered it and also had the thought that i kill people and i just dont know it.Its really freaky...
i constantly check myself if i have any visual or auditory hallucinations...Does anyone have any idea if severe anxiety and obsession about psychosis can develop and cause psychosis?

Because it seems to me that i try my best to have psychosis and thats the most disturbing thing!

I don't think you have to worry about self inducing permanent psychosis or schizophrenia. Psychotic symptoms can appear as part of OCD, which your psychologist said you may have. Your symptoms are probably temporary as part of OCD. Try not to jump to the worst case scenario here. You can also have symptoms temporarily from things like long term sleep deprivation. If you have been having problems sleeping these last couple months due to anxiety related sleep disturbances, this might be a factor. Remember how things were before the break-up. You can get to a better place.

Also, since you have stated twice your meds don't work, can I assume you have told your doc about this. Maybe s/he can change the meds or dosage.

oh honey, no you're not!! ok first off the "images" are like quick daydreams of your worst fear happened to me soo much when i had harm ocd it's setled now, but listen you are in fact suffering from ocd, and it's scaring you into thinking this, if you were schizo you would not be asking if you were schizo, you would be asking why the tv is trying to control your brain, or why is the neighbor poisoning your familly with his mind control powers, now please don't convince yourself you think that and so you have to be schizo, because i went through the schizo scare a bit too, and you can litterally convince yourself of anything, and be scared you think that way, but you're not scared of the actul thing you're scaring yourself of,you should realize you're brain is just scared of anxiety, and it's trying to find what it's anxious about now, since you're such at a peek of it it will grab the last thing you were scared of and keep throwing it at you,anxiety makes you think you're going crazy!!! buuuut you're not you just feel like in a spiral down, and maybe even like an empty shell of who you used to be, but it gets better start working towards that better, because it takes a long time!! realize your obsession is not fear of schizophrenia or harm or whatever else you can come up with, you said it yourself everyday it's something new, your obsession is obsession you need to focus on fear, and that's what makes the ocd live, imagine it like an infestation of anxiety on your brain when seretonin is down, and feeds of your anxiety and attention towards given obsession, you can't control what it will obsess over, but you can manage on brining it down, you're no schizo, you're just a big anxious mess, plus being schizo aint to bad honestly, you go on meds and your good, ocd is the real scare!! because this is a battle that pills can't really help all too much, it's one you have to fight!! best of luck and stop freaking yourself out,OK

also th "voices" are just your anxiety levels being too high, and it's just brain chatter, your brain is like trying to cool off from all this anxiety and it's probably just your own thoughts before you realize you think them or sometimes just random babbles of the brain, happends alot when your calm or waking up/going to sleep. and have been in a high anxiety moment for a long time 2 months of anxiety is hard on you, especially as much anxiety as what you've been through!! just chill