Hello everyone. This is my first post here, but I come here often to be able to relate with others like myself. Others with Schizophrenia. For the last 2 years I have been living with a very real to me kind of issue. Just one day I woke up and I had this completely irrational fear that I am going to teleport thousands and thousands of feet in the sky and fall to my death. I have the worst fear of heights.
To make it even worse, I also have the very same fear of being teleported not just to the sky but into the jaws of this giant enormous Shark. Recently I was talking with my therapist I see on a weekly basis. I told her about this meditation I used to do when I was younger. I would dive into a 24’ round pool of completely pitch black water. Beneath the surface of the water it would become infinite and there was a beam of light that I swam down deeper and deeper, to a chest that was my subconscious. I had a key.
I used to do that meditation almost daily. Especially when I was stressed. But one day I went into those waters and suddenly I wasn’t alone. There was something huge and scary down there with me that I can’t see. But I felt it and knew it was there. A monster in the depths of my mind.
Just last week my therapist and I talked about that meditation and how I believe it is related also to my horrible fear of water. I never did that meditation again. She told me she believes that I may have picked up and encountered this monster that is really my Schizophrenia. That I was sending it there for the first time.
Anyway, I just need to be able to share this with someone. I have no one I can talk to about anything related to my Schizophrenia other than Doctors. And Meds are not making this fear go away. Sometimes I feel that I’m about to disappear at any moment. And go to those bad places. I’m afraid we unlocked something I’m not ready to face.
Please, what would you do in my position?
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
I was diagnosed with OCD in 2015. It’s not a severe case but it’s enough it drives me crazy. Do you think that OCD might be involved with these feelings and thoughts? Prior to being diagnosed with OCD I didn’t have much of it at all. But after they put me on medications for Schizophrenia and they tried so many meds with me, OCD became a part of me. I have a little control of it now, but I still have to do things the way I feel like they have to be. If I don’t it drives me up the wall. Light switches need to be in certain positions when they aren’t in use, ( we are able to control our lights with multiple switches on different sides of the room. All switches need to be in the down position. I can’t leave the room until they are back down after being used.
There are other things as well, but too many to list. I just wanted to use the light switches as an example. I don’t even know what medication it is that did this to me, they have changed my meds so many times. But it stayed. Like the med screwed up my wiring.
I’m very interested to know what you feel about this. Thank you.
During my first couple years of the illness I avoided being outside because I had a fear of falling into the sky. Looking up caused me the same panic as looking down from a great height. Fortunately it went away with treatment. I don’t know how similar this is to your situation but I thought I’d mention it.
Thank you @agent101g That is very similar yes. you said that it went away with treatment, was it medication that helped it or maybe just Therapeutic talk? I have managed my meds very well, I’m in a place where things are going really good. But this fear, this completely irrational fear I cant seem to get past. It has helped tremendously writing here, I’ve gotten some good ideas in just a few posts from everyone. Thank you all.
I don’t know if it was treatment or time that fixed it. My illness started winter of 2014 and I was already on meds for bipolar, which I had since I was 15. So I was very compliant with taking my new meds (they added an antipsychotic) in addition to my old ones. Either the medicine got rid of it over time, or I just naturally got better. I can’t tell which it is because they both happened at the same time if that makes any sense.
I was hopping from AP to AP for the first couple years though, trying to find one that didn’t give me akathisia (inability to sit still) as a side effect. I finally landed on Zyprexa and went mostly back to the way I was before getting sick. The only thing that remains is voices, which are no longer mean or insulting, and a difficulty concentrating.
I remember trying to google “schizophrenia irrational fears” but all the google results for that search come up with is healthy people who are scared of getting schizophrenia. Because of all those results I was unable to find answers about my vertigo.