I don’t know if anyone else experiences this, but good lord, is it exhausting. Any time I decide I want to do something in life (like right now I’m focused on becoming employed), I can’t just do it to a normal extent. It’s like everything I am suddenly revolves around that thing. I can’t stop thinking about it, day in and day out. Every time I take time away to not do that thing and do something else instead, I’m overtaken with intense guilt and panic. I imagine myself immediately failing at this thing, never succeeding, and vividly live out my life in my mind going down a dark path of destruction.
Talked to my therapist about this and apparently this is normal for some people with sza. I just wish it wasn’t. I wish I could take normal steps, set a life goal aside here and there, and focus on my own well-being.
Just wondering if anyone else experienced this, even if it’s sz and not sza.
I experience this too, had no idea it could be an Sza thing. It makes me a workaholic to the point of burnout and my whole life centers around whatever task or deadline I have like it is an existential threat. I end up not spending time doing anything else or taking breaks until exhaustion forces me to. I know it is not rational and I’ve fought many years to try to chill out. The progress has been very slow.
I kinda have this in a way. Except the times i have a focus like that i feel a bit more at peace within. Because the times im not obsessed with something, i have this lack of feeling and become super apathetic and dont do anything. Its like an endless cycle of an empty void existence with periods of willpower to get through it all and not give up. Followed by the empty void time again etc etc. If that makes sense at all.
I don’t have SZA but I get focused on mainly one thing in life at a time. I find my energy gets put on one area of functioning. Lately it’s been something related to schizophrenia like researching certain medications and their pharmacology. If I focus on something else I don’t feel guilt but rather I don’t have the energy to do more than a couple things.
I know you mean well, but please understand this isn’t anxiety. It can be compared to anxiety, but my therapist, a licensed professional, had an entire conversation with me, explaining how this falls into obsession. Please don’t play armchair therapist.
I just had this during a bout of mania— my therapist called it “goal-driven behavior.”
In my case, that meant typing a personal statement for grad school along with a scholarship application in about a day, and then editing and re-editing said pieces over the course of the next week.
Nothing, and I mean nothing, could break me away from what I was doing. Like a dog with a bone.
Now that the mania’s pretty much passed, I’ve kinda abandoned those plans and am back to my usual self.
Dunno if that resonates with you, but I have SZA Bipolar type.
Yes, that’s why my goals become obsessive because I feel things really can go wrong. If life went wrong and I got a horrendous disease, what else can go wrong, mentality. Which is why I become sort of obsessive over goals because I know how bad it feels for things to go really wrong. Also, from certain relatives mistakes, I fear repeating them.
To my shortexperience being diagnosed with sz, I was more into mania. I used to get focused result orientated to finish and excell at least as much as I could.
Ever since taking my meds my energy drop I felt it daily but more recognizing weekly. It is a huge difference monthly. It is not only sz that puts you down but meds or wrong meds as well.
A month ago I was chaseing my nephews. Today I just couldn’t do it even thou I wanted to.