I remember asking myself this question a lot during the months of November and December of 2013. Early November I even went to the doctor and told her, with these words, that I thought 'I was going crazy'. The fear of going crazy only increased the amount of stress that I was feeling, making the problem even worse, making me experience even more symptoms. This eventually became what seemed like an endless cycle until I reached rock bottom and finally got the therapy, medication and information that I needed.
Information is such an important requirement in order to help reduce stress. To help us and those around us to understand what is going on we need to understand what is going on in our minds.
I am writing this post because I would have liked to find something like this back then. With information about some of the most common stuff that could be going on.
The following problems can lead us to think that we are to losing our minds. However, they can be relatively normal depending on the condition we have and the amount of stress we are under, some even appearing with no need of suffering any mental illness.
I hope this post helps people and provides information. But remember, if you are trying to find out exactly what you have, you should visit a therapist and get a diagnosis.
I am no therapist, I am only talking from personal experience and from the information I have gathered. All these are a lot more common than people generally think. So if you have recently experienced one of them and are worrying, I hope this helps you worry less, just gather information, and talk to a therapist about it.
Panic attack
A panic attack or an anxiety attack can be characterized by some of these symptoms
- an increased speed of the heart rate;
- breathing getting very fast;
- feeling like it's hard to breathe;
- feeling nauseous
You might suddenly feel an irrational fear, you may be scared of death or scared of going crazy.
My case in November was the latter. It was not my first panic attack, I had had some created by stressful situations in times of revision. But in this one I was in a 'relaxed' situation. I began hyperventilating and I had to cover my eyes and hide away thinking that there was some real danger. When I managed to stop, the only thing I could think about was 'I am going crazy'.
A few months later, while playing beach volleyball I started to feel pain in my abdomen and I got a panic attack. I told the teacher to please call an ambulance because I was dying. And I was not joking, I seriously thought that I was about to die.
If in a previous similar situation you felt anxious, there is a higher chance that you get a panic attack. Maybe because you have associated that situation to anxiety. Or maybe because you think (without realizing that you're thinking this) that because you got anxious in the past, you will get anxious in the future as well.
A good example for this is people who suffer from insomnia. When I had this problem I associated the time of going to sleep with stress and anxiety. When the time approached that I was meant to go to bed I began to get anxious and I ended up getting panic attacks and having even more trouble sleeping.
If you have panic attacks, talking to a therapist about it could help you to find methods to cope with them.
And always try to remind yourself that despite how real your fear of dying or going crazy feels when you are having a panic attack, it is not real.
Hallucinations
Sometimes, people can have hallucinations as they're falling asleep or as they are waking up. It is generally associated to anxiety, but it could appear even without it.
This has only happened to me once, but it was very scary. I woke up and I could hear noises and they were very clear, someone was inside my house (I was alone at home) and they were at the other side of my room and trying to open the door. And it was very clear to me that this was not just something that could be happening, but that it was a very clear noise. But when I tried to reach for my phone just next to my bed, I found out I couldn't move at all. I was absolutely terrified. Some people even see things that seem completely real.
Drugs can lead to hallucinations even if other people take them without facing the same effects. Everyone is different. This can happen even with drugs that are not meant to cause hallucinations. The probability here is increased if you mix drugs.
However, it is important that if you are scared about possible hallucinations you go see the doctor. Especially if such hallucinations ask you to hurt yourself or hurt others.
Dissociative episodes
There are different types of dissociative episodes. The ones I will mention here, since they are the ones I have experienced, are:
- Amnesia
- Depersonalization
- Derealisation
These do usually happen in stressful moments.
Amnesia happens when there are specific incidents you can't remember. (It's considered that if you haven't taken any drugs, because if not it may have been drug-induced)
My example was I was talking and then suddenly I felt like I got back into myself... and the people I was talking to were staring at me, looking worried, asking why I was saying those things. When I asked what we had talked about and for how long, I couldn't remember, for me only a couple of minutes had passed and it had actually been nearly half an hour. I got very freaked out.
Depersonalization happens when you feel like your body changes shape or it becomes unreal, or you have an out-of-body experience.
Derealisation is when the things around you seem unreal.
If you are having dissociative episodes, it may be best if you don't drink or take drugs as these could lead to even worse dissociative episodes. You may want to visit a therapist about it since it could be part of another disorder.
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