I have intrusive thoughts which are highly distressing. I often can’t do anything but pace up and down processing the thoughts and it can completely interfere with my normal functioning. The thoughts are related to two arguments I had on the internet over 20 years ago with a group of people, including my friends, who savagely criticised everything I said during the prior three years I was online, including things I said in private emails, and they repeatedly threatened to kill me. To this day I don’t know why they ganged up on me and I’m still afraid of these people.
My brain keeps repeating the arguments in my head in literally hundreds of different permutations as if it were desperately trying to rewrite history, and it just won’t stop no matter how much I understand that the past can’t be changed. The thoughts will go away for a few weeks or months but they eventually come back and they can last weeks and can make me feel suicidal.
I was wondering whether or not I have PTSD or are the thoughts just related to schizophrenia. I’m waiting to hear from my psychiatrist about all this but he is on holiday at moment. I just wondered if anyone had any opinions on all this in the meantime.