How do you stop the fear?

[Cheesehead]

So I've been have a hard time with these weird strange intrusive thoughts lately I'm so scared of developing schizophrenia or having psychosis it's like my anxiety and ocd comes up with thoughts to test and see if I really am, like I know ppl with psychosis suffer from delusions so I'll question myself like what if I'm delusional like I'll have a thought "what if someone poisoned my food or what of someone's in my head thinking for me" basically anything my imagination comes up with, do I actually believe this stuff no and I know it's irrational but I feel like my anxiety makes me so suggestible or like changes my beliefs like when I ask myself "do I actually believe someone's doing something to my food" the thought becomes so abstract and hard to answer it's like what if I actually do believe that and it's hard to convince myself that I'm not delusional.

I've read a lot of posts on this that they all say if someone is actually delusional they wouldn't question anything they would fully believe their thoughts and find nothing wrong with them and no one could convince them otherwise, but it still doesn't help me I just can't stop questioning myself on whether I actually believe this crap it's like my anxiety always makes me doubt myself and I just keep obsessing about it!

Does anyone have any advice on how to get through this and reassurance that it's just anxiety and ocd? I know that I need to just accept the thoughts and not add a negative to them but it's just so hard cause my anxiety makes me doubt myself. Any advice would be helpful.

[Keddy]

Not to worry, this absolutely sounds like OCD! And that is true, that delusional people are not able to question the plausibility of their thoughts. A delusion is something you're convinced of, not something that you can go back over and rationalize. I thought I was having delusions for a long time and my therapist explained to me about OCD and obsessive thinking. Both anxiety and OCD can cause obsessive irrational thoughts.
If you were in fact experiencing delusions, there wouldn't be any doubt in your mind that the delusional thought was the truth.
I'm pretty relieved to hear that someone else has had this problem with their OCD. I always thought I was nuts LOL.
Have you looked into DBT? Dialectical behavior therapy- It's been super-effective for helping me learn distraction skills so I don't have to pay attention to my intrusive thoughts as constantly. A therapist who's trained in DBT can also teach you how to challenge your obsessive thoughts.
Hope this info will be helpful,
/Keddy

[sandrela]

the only place I notice this is in the kitchen, the way I cook is just strange. Always cleaning as I go and can't stand messy and wet hands so I end up washing/drying my hands too much.

[James]

I used to feel like that, it was an obsession I had. For years and years I had a fear of my mother poisoning my food. I think a lot of my problem had to do with the years of abuse that she dealt out when I was a kid, though. I wouldn't (and a lot of times still won't) eat at fast food places, for fear of them poisoning my food. I went through a stage for a few years where I would barely eat. When I graduated hs I was 5'11' and 130 pounds. Some of that was due to the fact that I was using a lot of drugs, but a lot of it was me just refusing to eat. Everyone, and I mean everyone would try to get me to eat, my friends, parents, grandparents. I really thought I was losing my mind, going crazy. The psychiatrist I went to helped me realize (through months and months of therapy) that it was all about my feelings toward my abuser (my mother). But that's just me, therapy doesn't work like that for everyone. It's just a suggestion I guess.

[sanspants]

Absolutely OCD, no psychosis. If you could read what you've written, there's a ton of insight there Were you becoming psychotic, there's no way you'd have it.

As far as stopping the fear, sometimes it's best to just get your mind onto something else. If you can find a topic you enjoy, allow yourself to become engrossed in it so you can forget about yourself for a while. I know that's easier said than done.

[On a level]

As stated, take your mind onto something you enjoy and really get stuck into it but its hard. Ignore the thought, worse thing you can do is fight it.

[jfox222]

For a while I had a crippling fear that I was schizophrenic despite that I held zero symptoms of schizophrenia. However, my mind did not allow me to rationalize these thoughts and get better due to my ocd.