paranoia, panic attack, psychosis or what is it? URGENT

I'm confused....I've been getting paranoid thoughts lately.

But right now I'm having some kind of anxiety attack. My friend had asked me if I wanted to go out with her tonight, and I said yes. I'm very depressed (long depressive phase), but I said yes because I feel like I'm abandoning all my friends, and they're worried about me and this friend in particular tells me she's feeling very lonely, and that she understands my problems.
But....I don't know whether it's just an anxiety attack or not, but I'm having this gut feeling....something telling me "Don't go out tonight", so now I don't want to go out. It's a strong feeling, I feel like a heavy thing on my chest, and thoughts repeating "don't go out" and I feel like crying, because I feel like something bad's gonna happen if we go out, like a car accident.

I know I might sound crazy, or psychotic or whatever, but I always trust my gut feelings.
The mere thought of going out after this feeling makes me feel very sick and in danger, so yes, I want to stay at home now and avoid going out at all costs. I keep getting thoughts and images in my head of us in the car and then I get this very bad feeling in my chest that almost makes me cry.
At this point, I don't care she might be angry or disappointed.
I don't want to panic while in the car or something.

Is it depression? Can bipolar give this kind of paranoia?
I don't know, I feel like I'm going insane but at the same time, I know I'm not, I know I'm right.

Now I want to tell her but I know I'll disappoint her. Again. I don't want to find an excuse, I want to be honest, cuz I hate lies and excuses and I'm a very sincere friend.
I don't want to hide behind my illness, but whatever it is, she needs to understand. I don't wanna panic while I'm outside, she wouldn't even be able to handle me going all paranoid. I don't suffer from panic attacks but what if I get one outside?
No, I want to avoid this. I ALWAYS trust my gut feelings because I always get things right when I do, like when I felt like I was choking and had a very negative feeling in the evening like something bad was going to happen soon, to ME....and indeed, I started to self-harm in the morning.

From what you've typed, you're definitely having panic attacks and paranoia. You should probably get out a bit with your friend. I have panic attacks more often when I go without much contact or socialization with others.

You should also probably talk to your psychiatrist about a tweak in your meds.

Hope this helps...

Have you considered telling your friend how you feel? She/he might be able to help you feel calmer and less of an anxious feeling in your gut. It might do you some good to change your environment and go out, challenge your gut feeling. I will say that I also follow my gut feelings a lot, but when I notice my feeling is potentially related to fear of the thing I'm supposed to do, I try to reason with myself about the actual likelihood of something bad happening. In the past month, I backed out of kayaking with my best friend three times because if my gut feeling something bad would happen, but the fourth time I just made myself go, and nothing bad happened, though I still feared it the whole time. I felt better having done something that didn't go wrong, and finding my gut to be inaccurate. I find I confuse anxiety with gut feelings of doom, and I have to watch out for that.

Hi ElKahn,

I think you've already had some very good advice and I presume you've had to make a decision about the upcoming night out with your friend that was triggering you. I hope whatever happened, you're calmer now.

I just wanted to chime in with my own experience of this type of feeling. For me, this sensation of overwhelming dread usually comes with the anxiety that accompanies depression. In fact, anxiety has always been one of my most persistent bipolar symptoms, that seems to accompany most of my mood states, except hypomania. I've had frequent panic attacks in the past when not on the right medication, and also developed some OCD-style rituals to try to counter the extreme anxiety.

Like Caribee4me says, it's probably best to challenge these gut feelings and make yourself face the anxiety-provoking event. This is the kind of advice I've repeatedly got from psychiatrists and therapists, as anxiety can cause avoidance and act as a vicious circle. It's much easier said than done though, I know! I still struggle with it myself.

Obviously, no-one here is able to diagnose your mood state. Like Nihilist, I'd recommend you get an earlier appointment with your psychiatrist as you may need a medication change.

I hope this helps a bit and you're feeling better soon x

Thank you all. I feel better now, but I didn't go out yesterday. I was too scared.

Also, there are spiritual beliefs getting in the way. I believe in things like premonitions, for example, so that's what contributes to avoid situations that I perceive as dangerous.
Because I could see the accident in my mind and many things like that happen to me, and they end up being true. Maybe yesterday was just a strong anxiety attack, maybe not.
Either way, I just didn't want to risk feeling very bad, so I stayed at home. After all, I love staying at home.

Ok. I will try to reply without offense.

I feel that high levels of paranoia and what many consider to be superstition to be a bad mix.

Before I was diagnosed, I found myself believing strange things. For example, I had a lot of delusions of reference. I thought that I was psychic. etc. It was embarrassing to say the least.

Now that I'm properly medicated, I no longer think these things. But I had been on medication up until last august. I went off my medication for several months and wound up being baker-acted again.

Those same feelings started resurfacing before I returned to a regular regimen of meds again.

These feelings you have are probably due to your current med routine not being sufficient. You should bring all of these feelings up with your psychiatrist. I promise you'll feel a lot better when you get the right tweaks in your medication.

Please at least consider what I've written.

I don't see what's the point in telling my psychiatrist something that doesn't bother me and that is part of my own cultural beliefs though.

I currently take Lamictal but I need a higher dose because depression is not going away.
What if my psychiatrist prescribes me antipsychotics? I don't really need antipsychotics, and they could be damaging if taken without a necessity.
Labeling my beliefs as delusional and psychotic isn't something I do. I know what's reality and what's not. I don't lose contact with reality.
I used to have some peychotic traits when I was little, so I know the difference between personal beliefs and psychosis.
Telling a doctor is pointless, since what I experience now is not negative.

I wrote this thread because I was in panic, and I wanted to see if some other bipolars experience similar situations. I did that to better understand whether it was paranoia or just a gut feeling.

I apologize. I didn't mean to offend. For me the paranoia when not thinking clearly has been a problem at times. Still, the high anxiety isn't normal and you should reconsider speaking to your doctor about it.

Antipsychotics are also used sometimes to prevent hypomania/mania from what I've heard and read elsewhere.

I've been on an antipsychotic since the beginning for some reason. I'm happy where my meds are at right now though. I function pretty well and the racing thoughts etc. have all finally stopped.

Nihilist wrote:I apologize. I didn't mean to offend. For me the paranoia when not thinking clearly has been a problem at times. Still, the high anxiety isn't normal and you should reconsider speaking to your doctor about it.

Antipsychotics are also used sometimes to prevent hypomania/mania from what I've heard and read elsewhere.

I've been on an antipsychotic since the beginning for some reason. I'm happy where my meds are at right now though. I function pretty well and the racing thoughts etc. have all finally stopped.

It's ok, don't worry. Yes, I will definitely talk to my doctor about anxiety, but there are so many things I want to tell her that I hope I don't forget important things like this one.

I'm on Lamictal and not getting hypomania. Only depression. I'm in a depressive phase right now, so I guess I need to get a higher dose of medication, and maybe add some other thing to help with depression and prevent it from occurring so frequently. I guess I'll have to focus on depression now, since hypomania is not a problem.

Racing thoughts sometimes don't bother me, other times they just get too intense and fast, especially when hypomanic. Depression slows everything down.

ElKahn wrote:

Nihilist wrote:I apologize. I didn't mean to offend. For me the paranoia when not thinking clearly has been a problem at times. Still, the high anxiety isn't normal and you should reconsider speaking to your doctor about it.

Antipsychotics are also used sometimes to prevent hypomania/mania from what I've heard and read elsewhere.

I've been on an antipsychotic since the beginning for some reason. I'm happy where my meds are at right now though. I function pretty well and the racing thoughts etc. have all finally stopped.

It's ok, don't worry. Yes, I will definitely talk to my doctor about anxiety, but there are so many things I want to tell her that I hope I don't forget important things like this one.

I'm on Lamictal and not getting hypomania. Only depression. I'm in a depressive phase right now, so I guess I need to get a higher dose of medication, and maybe add some other thing to help with depression and prevent it from occurring so frequently. I guess I'll have to focus on depression now, since hypomania is not a problem.

Racing thoughts sometimes don't bother me, other times they just get too intense and fast, especially when hypomanic. Depression slows everything down.

It would probably be a good idea to write it all down and take it with you for you next appointment. I hope you get your medication sorted out. Relief from symptoms is awesome.

The current medication cocktail I'm on has been the first to completely take away the racing thoughts and paranoia which reared its ugly head at times even when medicated before.