Afraid it's not OCD (or not PTSD)

Hello, I'm new to the forum. I have been looking for quite some time the entries of this forum as a way to reassurance myself that I have anxiety and not something worse.

So I've had problems with panic and thoughts and feelings since 2012, when I was 14. I had appendicitis and went under surgery. When I woke up from that surgery I was in complete panic, with feelings of being in a nightmare. Once they moved me into the patients room, I got a little bit better in regards of the panic, but when the night came down I had another panic attack. The following days at the hospital I was extremely anxious and at the same time really tired. When I told the nurses about my feelings, they said "you'll be fine, everything looks good on your system".

I got out of the hospital and everything seemed somewhat weird, like I was a little bit confused. I remember crying the day I got out of there, hugging my mother at my house. About 2 months went by with that weird feeling of being somewhat out of place. Then, one night, I got an horrendous panic attack in the safety of my parents bedroom, while I was playing videogames and listening to music. Since then I don't know what I have.

Then, after some time and living and coping with panic attacks, I had a weed brownie from the street. That was in 2019. I suffered a bad trip where I couldn't tell what was reality. I thought it was some kind of hell or inescapable nightmare. Ended up at the hospital and got some quetiapine. It was a sensation pretty similar of that at waking up from the surgery in 2012. I've been feeling really guilty about consuming that and had made my family resisting me that time.

Then, I had another great panic attack in 2020, in the safety of my house. It was before the pandemic, and was when I was alone in my big house, while my parents went to visit some relatives. That panic attack was different because I didn't consumed anything, neither had anesthesia or anything else. I tried to calm me down, thinking "I'm not gonna die", but it backfired, made my body more anxious, and made my brain thinking "ok, so if you're not going to die, then there must be something worst than dying. Maybe something like this" and I got the worst anxiety attack ever, to the point that the GP thought that I had major psychotic depression, while the psychiatrist didn't knew what I had.

So, I had psychotherapy for quite a while now, and this week my psychologist told me that I probably have some OCD traits in my personality. He told me that after I had an emergency meeting with him, after having quite a few panic attacks on last week, probably because of some nasty arguments I had with my mom. I applied some ACT therapy techniques and they have worked somewhat well. I get some heavy anxiety at some points, but at least I can have some feelings of calmness sometimes.

The thing is that one of my obsessions doesn't feel like an obsession. It's this feeling of dread that I sometimes get, the same feeling that I had in 2020. It is psychosis? It is something worse than psychosis? I've been trying to accept that, but it keeps coming back.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who reads this wall of text. I hope I can get better, I wouldn't wish this feeling on my worst enemies.

Hello and welcome!

Well, OCD is usually characterised by obsessive fears, and resulting compulsions that attempt to allay those fears, such as me hitting a bump in the road, then a mile past I can't stand thinking I ran over a pedestrian (that doesn't exist) and going back to check. So it seems if they'd tell you that, they've noticed some tendency for unreasonable, uncontrollable obsessive fears and perhaps something you do as a result of them? Which for some of us, can get into pretty bizarre behaviors (I speak from experience).

I don't know much about PTSD, but I know some of the more complex forms of it can have some symptomatic overlaps with things like Dissociative Identity Disorder (multiple personalities) so if it can make a person act that strangely, then I'd say PTSD could make your brain get into some really strange headspace.

Or just general anxiety. General Anxiety Disorder can give a person a feeling of dread. I have anxiety issues beyond OCD and I've felt dread plenty of times. I'm currently on escitalopram for that, and it does seem to help take the edge off unending anxiety. Not all of it I've too much in my life to not be anxious, but it helps. Are you currently on any meds to help with the therapy?

Since you regret the pot brownie, I'm hoping that means you're completely free of that? There's too damn many stories of people in OCD that got hold of pot and found out in a hurry it does not make your ass chill. And have a hard time getting over it. I found out a long time ago that me and mary jane do not mix- freaking out isn't worth the high, and I will eventually freak out. Weed enthusiasts will recommend it for anxiety and OCD but I say no they're just pushing weed, I've seen too much to the contrary, and in my opinion if someone has OCD traits you may as well be playing with gasoline and a book of matches, rhetorically speaking. You're full of gas, and weed is the match. But that's just me.

Hey, thanks a lot for the reply!

Well, I do have this persistent though about existence. It is not that this doesn't feel real, it is real, but those thoughts keep coming back after I feel my body is in panic mode. I've read that it might be existential OCD, more in the Pure OCD spectrum. My psychotherapist thinks so too, but he's more inclined to the OCPD spectrum.

The psychiatrist gave me some quetiapine a year ago, but just because that was what I used when I was in the hospital because of the weed brownie. He didn't knew what I had (literally told me that) and told me to "stick to what it worked" (Which was quetiapine, and btw, I just used it for a week so the weed effects wouldn't act on me). Now I'm just on psychotherapy and I use some herbs for the general anxiety (Which btw, I think have better effects on me than the quetiapine, but it might be just placebo)

Last time I smoked was about 6 months. It was a friend's vaper. Had a panic attack to that too, with the derealization and everything, but I used quite a few CBT and ACT technics to control it. Kinda worked and felt somewhat like an exposure, which I will never do again because of possible effects weed might had haha

Fun thing is that I've graduated from psychology and I know some of this stuff, but my brain and my body keeps their reaction to this problem haha.

MyOwnMytosis wrote:I've read that it might be existential OCD, more in the Pure OCD spectrum. My psychotherapist thinks so too, but he's more inclined to the OCPD spectrum

Well... I'm no psychotherapist. But do you freak and get angry when others don't do things the way they're supposed to be done? I mean, OCPD is some pretty rough stuff, isn't it? I've had a little streak of that at my last job- my OCD and anxiety about the job (both of which were extreme, to put it mildly) would turn into a nascent OCPD and I'd get oh a wee bit anal with my coworkers...

Snaga wrote: But do you freak and get angry when others don't do things the way they're supposed to be done? I mean, OCPD is some pretty rough stuff, isn't it?

Well, a little bit, but not too much to be honest. My mom says that I get obsessed over getting things "right" and the "way they're supposed to be". At college my friends said that I was pretty "ocd" because I was pretty obsessed with getting our homework perfectly done.

My therapist says that I'm basically doing that with my panic attacks, trying as hard as I can to make sense out of them.

Also, I'm afraid that isn't my problem because I don't exhibit those behaviors all the time: I'm pretty unorganized on my bedroom, I'm really lazy and sometimes I'm the kind of guy that just says "good enough" when I'm too lazy to finish something.