Hey guys. I never thought I’d be here attempting to reach out, but I’m so scared and just in search of comfort.
Just some background. I’m 28 y with a history of anxiety and depression. I was also diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome at a young age and was on meds for add, adhd, Anxiety and depression my entire childhood. I also had a bad reaction to Zoloft about 9 years ago and the fear of that left me with debilitating anxiety and a phobia of meds.
Back in 2020 my brother was diagnosed with bipolar after what seemed like a psychosis episode. Watching him deteriorate and change absolutely terrified me and now I feel I may be in the same spot. Last year I was dealing with a lot of stress, my father has cancer, my brother was not doing well, I had a lot of responsibilities at work and my wife and I almost split up because I thought for some reason we weren’t doing well. I had began to drink heavily and smoke marijuana every night. I had quit my job as I couldn’t handle the burnout anymore. I know am afraid that that was a manic episode and I’m just scared.
Back in march I began to feel off. Very anxious and almost had a sense of derealization. I had constant racing thoughts and intrusive thoughts. I had thoughts of self harm and it was not good. I went to my therapist and he said to maybe speak to a psychiatrist. I spoke to a psychiatrist and after talking to her I calmed down a little. She wasn’t too concerned and she made it seem like I was stable and coherent enough to give be the reassurance that I was not psychotic or something along the lines of that.
I have a debilitating fear of having bipolar and schizophrenia. I always have. I sincerely then went to my therapist and told him about the racing thoughts, he told me to be careful when I speak to the psychiatrist about these racing thought because they would automatically think of bipolar. I panicked there and since then I’ve been in a really dark headspace.
I google things, try to self diagnose when I shouldn’t and now I’m convinced I’m hearing voices when I wake up which obviously makes me panic. It’s like dreamlike snippets of voices once I’ve opened my eyes and start waking up, so I’m still half asleep. During the day, nothing at all.
I’m not sure what to gain from posting this but I just need to vent because this is probably the scariest moment of my life. I appreciate any and all advice as I’m terrified. Thank you.