I really need help I'm so confused and messed up right now

[Anne70436]

Hi, i'm new here

 

I'm writing because I would like some advice on my situation. I'm a teenager who has been diagnosed with severe anxiety and depression. However, Im not sure if this is what I actually have, or if there might be something else. this is why I'm writing and seeking advice, because after thinking and contemplating about myself, I've decided that perhaps my worries might be true. I haven't talked to my psychiatrist about my mental health worries because it's hard to  meet up with him right now. Please don't dismiss this as just a teenage phase or anything, because some of the things that are bothering me, such as my behaviour, have been present since I was a kid. I’m not saying that this isn’t a teenage problem, it could be, but it’s just that after a long time of reasoning with myself and introspective thinking, I think that I should consider this to be an issue that needs to be looked at.  Sorry if this is really long, I'm in a terrible state right now with few people to turn to. My parents don’t understand, I’ve opened up to them many many times, but it’s just difficult and I’m dealing with this by myself. I am deeply grateful for any advice.
 
 
  Basically, this is about my behaviour and the symptoms I've been experiencing. I've always had a depressive, and introverted personality. I'm also imaginative, and I've never had that many friends. My behaviour or personality, like my preference to be alone has never caused me significant issues and I’ve never felt that it was a problem until I developed mental health issues during my teenage years.
  I  tend to spend a lot of time in my head, fantasizing about my own stories and other things and I would also say that I'm a bit of a messed up person, because my imagination tends to get quite dark,  as I like to write about dark and profound fictional stories about the human experience and all that. People have stated that I'm weird,  eccentric, and that I say weird things. The friends I had as a child also stated that I was weird. For a long time I just assumed that I’m a creative person, and  I didn’t care about my introversion or what people thought about me. However, later on my mental health issues made me reconsider whether or not there is something wrong with me because I suspect that my melancholic personality and tendency to fantasize al the time is one of the causes of my mental health issues.
   I have difficulty making friends. In terms of communication I just can't seem interesting enough to people or become close friends with them. It’s like the things I talk about usually seem boring, or even slightly inane  to other people, judging by how they respond to me. Usually when I talk to people, the other person just laughs, nods, or comments a bit, and then it just turns into silence. It doesn’t feel like there’s anything deeper going on between us. I just think to myself, am i really that difficult to talk to, am I really that boring? When talking to people, I find it a bit draining to come up with something to say and I always want to ensure that I don’t sound too weird. But I won’t consider myself extremely hopeless in socializing. The thing is that I can make friends, and sometimes our conversations actually can get quite interesting for both sides, but after talking for a while this mutual interest kind of just dies out and I feel like there’s a distance between us again.  Eventually, I start feeling drained and awkward and then I start saying things that don’t sound as interesting anymore, and I also have to consider if what I’m going to say is weird, which  adds to the discomfort and awkwardness.  Also, the mutual interest development is something that recently occurred because I’ve been putting a lot of pressure and effort into myself in order to develop friendships that would involve active communication and offers to spend time together. Not many people have offered to invite me out. As a child, I would just say whatever I want to say and it would be socially appropriate, but I wasn’t able to get close with people. I just had people to talk to and I didn’t mind the fact that I like to spend time with myself more. Now, it’s still kind of the same, I still have some social difficulties, but i’m more strict on the way I appear to other people and I’ve put a ton of effort into developing my social skills because of the fact that I found out that I might be predisposed to certain mental illnesses and I want to prevent myself from developing that.  
 
  Right now, even those friends that I have started talking to and developing what I feel like is a closer relationship with, seem closer to one another than to me. I feel like they’re pretty close friends to me, especially with this girl, but I don’t know if she or them think the same thing about me. They talk to one another in a really relaxed way, while to me, they seem less relaxed and almost forced. Other people that I talk to don’t really seem like that, so I assume it could just be her personality, but I still feel that I’m  distant to the people I talk to and in general I do feel like I have difficulty making close friends.

When I was a kid, the friends that I had back then also seem closer to each other than to me. I’ve wondered for a long time if it was just the way I think that’s different than  these people, or my innate personality being deficient in this field. I probably look relatively normal, and not weird, when people first get to know me. Then it’s just that I can’t seem to get close to people and that the things I say don’t seem to spark the other person’s interest for too long. I also don’t want to appear too weird.
 

I also grew up with an autistic brother who's really low-functioning, but for a long time I've never felt that growing up in this environment was distressful or anything. It wasn't until when I suddenly developed mood and anxiety issues later on that I began to think carefully about my past and its effect on my behaviour and mental state.  I’m not sure if it’s just my innate personality, or if whatever kind of stress I experienced at a young age eventually gave me depression or something, which eventually became my personality. Either way, nothing really bothered me until I suddenly developed mental health issues.
Everything just seems really subtle; I feel as if everything is alright, I’m just a normal creative girl. I might have had unhealthy traits as a child, such as the depressive temperament, and pessimism, but that was my younger self and I can always change as I grow older. That was my thought process.  I might not have been extroverted or good at sociializing, and I might’ve identified with some of the questions for a schizophrenia predisposition test (i’ll expand below), but that doesn’t necessarily mean theres anything wrong with me. But then mental health issues hit me hard and now I’m still struggling, so I don’t believe that its just a personality due to the amount of misery I’m going through and how different I am from my peers. They all have enough social skills to get by in this world,  and don't have such a dark personality with such dark thoughts at an age as young as 11, and they seem to be able to overcome the difficulties they have in life.

.
 
  When I was 12 years old, I read about schizophrenia  because I was interested in psychology and thought about pursuing a career in it in the future. I did a predisposition test on it for fun back then, and some of the questions seemed eerily like me, and it had me seriously worried about myself. I didn't finish the test because I was alarmed by how some of the questions applied to me, like lack of friends, or interest in making friends, spending a lot of time in my head, not making sense when communicating, and being a fearful person. Sometimes people say that I don't make sense when I talk, usually when I'm cracking jokes. My writing also doesn’t make sense to certain people, but this could probably be because I think a lot and I like complex subjects. I also read that people who are predisposed or prone to developing psychotic disorders tend to be fearful individuals from a young age who have difficulties making friends, spend alot of time in their head, and show signs of depression at a young age. I had a depressive temperament, not depression in the mental illness sense, as a child. I had suicidal thoughts when I was 11 years old, but never acted on them or anything. It was just part of my dark thinking, and I also had some other disconcerting behaviours as a child as well. I felt that I’ve had these behavioural problems that I’ve written about since I was like 6, but they were very insignificant back then, so they never seemed to be an issue. My issues just started multiplying as I grew older. I was worried that I was prone to developing the disorder. it’s a spectrum, so I was worried that it’s possible that I might develop a milder type, since it’s less possible to get the more severe type. My parents also say that I was a pretty fearful kid who has always been mildy anxious , and now I have an anxiety disorder. I’m thinking about irrational things and fearing them. I heard anxiety can do this to you if it’s really bad and I hope that despite everything I’ve written about myself here, I might jus have anxiety and that I’m not in the prodromal stage of something.

 I had found that i identified with some of the traits of schizotypal personality disorder to varying degrees.  It made me feel like I am just so messed up. Had I been an emotionally healthier person and still found that I identified with some of the traits, I wouldn’t have paid that much attention to it. But since I have so many issues, I wondered about the possibility.

I got over this fear eventually and told myself that it was just a test, although developed by some kind of mental health institution, may not be an accurate measurement at all, and I'm just scaring  myself for nothing. Then I vowed to work on the parts of my personality that made me fear that I am predisposed to it. I was able to live without any mental health concerns, and I truly felt that I was silly to pathologies myself like that.
 

 
The first anxiety issue that I had experienced was when I was 15 years old and it was short.  It got triggered when someone told me about sleep paralysis, about the hallucinations and the fear, and it invoked a visceral fear within me. I think that I was reminded of schizophrenia and of how fragile my own mind was, since I was easily scared by that test when everyone I talked to, like my parents and my friends didn't buy into things like that so easily. My fragility and how easily I get scared made me afraid that I might get something  as terrifying as that. Eventually I snapped out of it and After this,  I continued to work on some parts of my behaviour to reduce my likelihood of getting another episode of anxiety.

  The reason why I have anxiety and depression right now is because of something very disconcerting that I had experienced 2 years ago. I've been experiencing mental health issues for two years now as a result of this even though I've tried reasoning with myself; the intense emotions didn't leave, even though I've changed my thought process, and also my mental state has completely changed.
  Basically what happened was that I was listening to a song I had recently found and began to really like. It ignited my creativity greatly and I just felt really great listening to it. But then one night a fragment of the song just got stuck in my head on repeat for the whole night. I couldn't dislodge it, or lessen the intensity. I tried singing it to the end, cocentrating on my breath and doing mindfulness breathing , and replacing it with another song, but it didn't help at all and the new song started getting a little stuck in my head as well. Eventually it got worser and I couldn't sleep for the whole night. There was no clear trigger to this. The day before this happened, I had felt relatively normal, just slightly more happier because of the song, and it also  happened on the night before summer school started, but I didn’t feel extremely worried about it or anything. There was no cause for worry or stress, so stress and anxiety, one of the causes of stuck songs (earworms) that I had found online, didn’t apply to me. It occurred from within me, with no obvious trigger. The only answer I can come up for this is that I must have unwittingly lost control of my excited, or happy mood and I must have unconsciously felt anxious about summer school. These moods combined together, it caused this to happen.  Now, every song I hear would get stuck in my head and occasionally my brain would repeat fragments of what people say. I don’t mind it now that I kind of got used to it, but I wasn’t like this in the past, and these things just pop into my brain without my control.
  I know that stuck songs are common and that everyone gets them, and what I found online all state that having this is normal. But none of it stated anything about having it for the whole night, interfering with sleep and causing great distress. Eventually, I dug deeper and what I found was that people who experience severe song looping episodes already suffer from mental illnesses like OCD, or bipolar disorder. I was reluctant to pay any attention to bipolar disorder, but for OCD, I can see how my neurotic brain might be prone to obsessive thoughts since I already have anxiety. But then I read that creative people have a higher chance of suffering from bipolar disorder, and seeing how I already have moderate to severe anxiety and depression, I might be prone to mood disorders as well, since anxiety disorders are often comorbid with mood disorders. Some of my  friends have also told me that my mood is either really high or really low, with no in betweens. This might be that I'm just an energetic person, since I've been pretty energetic as a kid, but considering the fact that I’m hypersensitive and moody as a child and I’ve also developed mental issues, I don’t know what to think.  When I watch a movie or see something that excites me,  I get shivers down my spine and my creative side gets stimulated too and my mood becomes high and it takes a while to come back down. This didn't happen that much when I was younger (my creativity would get stimulated, but my mood never took a while to return to normal) This only started happening recently, prior to this anxiety episode and also during it.  If mood was the trigger for this stuck song, then I wouldn’t have had any control over it, since on the surface I felt that everything was fine, and then my brain decided to go crazy at night.
  So since the severe song looping episode occurred after a period in which I felt really happy, as I was listening to the song, I am worried that I might be prone to mood disorders, or if I'm already in an early stage of one. I feel that the frustration that this song looping caused me is abnormal; it is a stuck thought that had gone completely out of control and the anxiety it caused me was also completely out of control and abnormal. If it isn't just a possible mood disorder, then I probably have some symptoms of OCD too, since this episode really interfered with my life. During the early periods of my anxiety episode, I also found out that apparently nothing can prevent the onset of mental illnesses like psychotic disorders, or mood disorders, so apparently nothing I did in the past  would be able to avoid the development of these mental disorders. This made me feel extremely hopeless. I also found a bunch of other stuff that completely changed my view of mental illness as a whole, such as how every mental illness share similar symptoms, so it’s hard to tell if someone has one mental disorder or if they  possibly have another more serious one as well. Apparently, OCD is related to Bipolar as well.
  My therapist didn’t really help. I don’t feel comfortable sharing my thoughts with her. She shut me down when I was trying to talk to her about some heavy topics, and she wants to cancel my session because she assumes that I’m doing better when in fact I’m not. (our next session is our last one)  I’m still conflicted, and it seems it will be a while before I recover from the chaos in my mind. It really just seems like all the anxiety is right; I would worry about having a mental illness, then dismiss it a being incorrect thinking. But then later on down the road, I developed an anxiety disorder. Then I would just say that there’s no point in paying attention to anxiety and that it doesn’t mean that I’ll develop anxiety again after I overcome one episode. Then 2 months later, a mentally distressing event  with no clear caused occurred out of the blue and that intense feeling of anxiety came back full force I worked so hard at changing my behaviour, but then I’ll fall back ten steps. It’s challenging to live doubting my sanity, but I’m determined to overcome by mental health issues by any means possible.
 
  If anyone has been through something similar to what I’m experiencing right now, any advice on how to navigate through these issues are deeply appreciated. In short, my behaviour and recent events in my life ( song-looping ) have led me to question my mental health. According to my personal history, should this stuck song episode warrant any concern, since it is so bizarre ? And according to my personal history, should I be concerned about my mental health, or should I just consider that I have a greater chance of just having anxiety and depression?

 

To anyone who read this, I am deeply grateful for your help.  Thank you very much.
    

    
    

 

[Serena_]

Hey hun,

I've been reading your article with interest as some of what you have listed I have dealt with as well but I would say on a more severe scale. 

Just to give you a bit of background information I haven't been officially diagnosed yet but the doctors think I could most likely be suffering from Schizoaffective Disorder, so when you mention that you're worried about schizophrenia I can relate as that is one part of my illness. 

However, although I'm not a doctor, I don't think you sound like you suffer with anything near as serious as this. I really feel for you because it sounds like you're really anxious about developing a mental health condition but I don't think you should be. Anxiety is relatively common today, one of my friends suffers with it too, and it can be controlled with medication or just through CBT or another form of psychotherapy, and, as you're seeing a therapist, I think you're being really sensible and taking the necessary steps to try and help yourself and that's really good! 

I don't want to keep talking about myself because this is about you but just to put this into context I had no idea what was happening to me when I was first hospitalised, I was convinced I was in love and it was all symptoms to do with that but looking back now I know I was very erratic and manic, it was scary. I think you're being really responsible looking into mental health and how certain illnesses can affect you, I wish I had done this as I literally had no idea what was happening to me and I had no idea about mental health either, I was so ignorant. Although I do have to say I do think you could be looking into this a little bit too much and worrying yourself over nothing. It sounds like you're quite young still and it could just be a passing phase, you mention that you have always been introverted but there is nothing wrong with this - it's just your personality! I don't think you should ever worry about coming across as 'too weird', I think if you want to truly find your own people you should embrace all parts of yourself and be proud of who you are, not try to conform or be something you're not, or dilute your personality. If your friends can't handle this then they're not the right people for you. 

When you talk about the songs being stuck in your head, this could be normal too? It's good you've picked up that it could be a part of mental health as some people do hear voices but I think for now this could just be normal for you, you like the song and it got stuck in your head, it happens to me all the time but I find I quite like it, I just embrace it and end up having a little dance or something in my bedroom haha to get it out of my system. 

It's quite long what you have written and I'm not sure if I've covered all the points you've listed but please try not to worry! I'm sorry you've been feeling anxious and are suffering with anxiety but you sound mature enough and clued up enough on mental health to try and work through it and work out the best steps to try and help yourself along the way. I did have a friend in high school who when we were growing up went through an emo phase, she used to cut herself but would make it obvious by showing off the scars on her wrist and stuff, we knew it was all for attention but I guess this was just her growing up and discovering things for herself. I'm not saying that you are the same but I think that the similarity is that you are still at an impressionable age and this could just be a momentary worry that you will laugh about in years to come, I certainly hope so as I wouldn't wish a mental health issue like mine on my worst enemy.

Best of luck honey, I hope this has helped in some way, try and stay positive! And if you ever do feel anxious or down, remember it's best to talk to someone, a problem shared is a problem halved  

xoxoxoxoxoxoxo 

[RSxo]

On 23/04/2017 at 8:57 AM, Anne70436 said:

Hi, i'm new here

 

I'm writing because I would like some advice on my situation. I'm a teenager who has been diagnosed with severe anxiety and depression. However, Im not sure if this is what I actually have, or if there might be something else. this is why I'm writing and seeking advice, because after thinking and contemplating about myself, I've decided that perhaps my worries might be true. I haven't talked to my psychiatrist about my mental health worries because it's hard to  meet up with him right now. Please don't dismiss this as just a teenage phase or anything, because some of the things that are bothering me, such as my behaviour, have been present since I was a kid. I’m not saying that this isn’t a teenage problem, it could be, but it’s just that after a long time of reasoning with myself and introspective thinking(this is completely normal), I think that I should consider this to be an issue that needs to be looked at.  Sorry if this is really long, I'm in a terrible state right now with few people to turn to. My parents don’t understand, I’ve opened up to them many many times, but it’s just difficult and I’m dealing with this by myself. I am deeply grateful for any advice.
 
 
  Basically, this is about my behaviour and the symptoms I've been experiencing. I've always had a depressive, and introverted personality(introversion is pretty normal). I'm also imaginative, and I've never had that many friends. My behaviour or personality, like my preference to be alone has never caused me significant issues and I’ve never felt that it was a problem until I developed mental health issues during my teenage years.
  I  tend to spend a lot of time in my head, fantasizing about my own stories and other things (this is completely normal) and I would also say that I'm a bit of a messed up person, because my imagination tends to get quite dark,  as I like to write about dark and profound fictional stories about the human experience and all that. People have stated that I'm weird,  eccentric, and that I say weird things (being weird and eccentric isn't a problem or fault - most people are weird in some way, and if they're not, then they're weird ). The friends I had as a child also stated that I was weird. For a long time I just assumed that I’m a creative person, and  I didn’t care about my introversion or what people thought about me. However, later on my mental health issues made me reconsider whether or not there is something wrong with me because I suspect that my melancholic personality and tendency to fantasize al the time is one of the causes of my mental health issues.
   I have difficulty making friends (very normal for an introverted version). In terms of communication I just can't seem interesting enough to people or become close friends with them. It’s like the things I talk about usually seem boring, or even slightly inane  to other people, judging by how they respond to me. Usually when I talk to people, the other person just laughs, nods, or comments a bit, and then it just turns into silence. It doesn’t feel like there’s anything deeper going on between us (most conversations aren't deep - over 90% of conversation is to do with shallow, surface topical conversation). I just think to myself, am i really that difficult to talk to, am I really that boring? When talking to people, I find it a bit draining to come up with something to say (natural for an introverted person) and I always want to ensure that I don’t sound too weird. But I won’t consider myself extremely hopeless in socializing. The thing is that I can make friends, and sometimes our conversations actually can get quite interesting for both sides, but after talking for a while this mutual interest kind of just dies out and I feel like there’s a distance between us again.  Eventually, I start feeling drained and awkward and then I start saying things that don’t sound as interesting anymore, and I also have to consider if what I’m going to say is weird (introverted people tend to think more before they speak, but this fear of rejection or dismissal is something that you have to constantly challenge to wear down, from experience  ), which  adds to the discomfort and awkwardness.  Also, the mutual interest development is something that recently occurred because I’ve been putting a lot of pressure and effort into myself in order to develop friendships that would involve active communication and offers to spend time together. Not many people have offered to invite me out. As a child, I would just say whatever I want to say and it would be socially appropriate, but I wasn’t able to get close with people. I just had people to talk to and I didn’t mind the fact that I like to spend time with myself more. Now, it’s still kind of the same, I still have some social difficulties, but i’m more strict on the way I appear to other people and I’ve put a ton of effort into developing my social skills because of the fact that I found out that I might be predisposed to certain mental illnesses and I want to prevent myself from developing that (the ability to speak to others doesn't determine whether you develop mental illness).  
 
  Right now, even those friends that I have started talking to and developing what I feel like is a closer relationship with, seem closer to one another than to me. I feel like they’re pretty close friends to me, especially with this girl, but I don’t know if she or them think the same thing about me. They talk to one another in a really relaxed way, while to me, they seem less relaxed and almost forced. Other people that I talk to don’t really seem like that, so I assume it could just be her personality, but I still feel that I’m  distant to the people I talk to and in general I do feel like I have difficulty making close friends. (The best way to know what they think is to ask them - trying to guess what they think will not get you anywhere)

When I was a kid, the friends that I had back then also seem closer to each other than to me. I’ve wondered for a long time if it was just the way I think that’s different than  these people, or my innate personality being deficient in this field (It's quite normal with introversion - as introverts, we just prefer our own company to others, so it's not as natural to readily confide in someone). I probably look relatively normal, and not weird, when people first get to know me. Then it’s just that I can’t seem to get close to people and that the things I say don’t seem to spark the other person’s interest for too long. I also don’t want to appear too weird.
 

I also grew up with an autistic brother who's really low-functioning, but for a long time I've never felt that growing up in this environment was distressful or anything. It wasn't until when I suddenly developed mood and anxiety issues later on that I began to think carefully about my past and its effect on my behaviour and mental state.  I’m not sure if it’s just my innate personality, or if whatever kind of stress I experienced at a young age eventually gave me depression or something, which eventually became my personality. Either way, nothing really bothered me until I suddenly developed mental health issues.
Everything just seems really subtle; I feel as if everything is alright, I’m just a normal creative girl. I might have had unhealthy traits as a child, such as the depressive temperament, and pessimism, but that was my younger self and I can always change as I grow older. That was my thought process.  I might not have been extroverted or good at sociializing, and I might’ve identified with some of the questions for a schizophrenia predisposition test (i’ll expand below), but that doesn’t necessarily mean theres anything wrong with me (EXACTLY! ). But then mental health issues hit me hard and now I’m still struggling, so I don’t believe that its just a personality due to the amount of misery I’m going through and how different I am from my peers (being different isn't a problem). They all have enough social skills to get by in this world,  and don't have such a dark personality with such dark thoughts at an age as young as 11, and they seem to be able to overcome the difficulties they have in life.

.
 
  When I was 12 years old, I read about schizophrenia  because I was interested in psychology and thought about pursuing a career in it in the future. I did a predisposition test on it for fun back then, and some of the questions seemed eerily like me, and it had me seriously worried about myself. I didn't finish the test because I was alarmed by how some of the questions applied to me (Never attempt to self-diagnose - you are more likely to agree with statements that confirm your suspicion that you could be schizophrenic) ,like lack of friends, or interest in making friends, spending a lot of time in my head, not making sense when communicating, and being a fearful person (Friendship issues and introspection are characteristics of introversion - that doesn't mean you have schizophrenia!) .Sometimes people say that I don't make sense when I talk, usually when I'm cracking jokes. My writing also doesn’t make sense to certain people, but this could probably be because I think a lot and I like complex subjects. I also read that people who are predisposed or prone to developing psychotic disorders tend to be fearful individuals from a young age who have difficulties making friends, spend alot of time in their head, and show signs of depression at a young age . I had a depressive temperament, not depression in the mental illness sense, as a child. I had suicidal thoughts when I was 11 years old, but never acted on them or anything. It was just part of my dark thinking, and I also had some other disconcerting behaviours as a child as well. I felt that I’ve had these behavioural problems that I’ve written about since I was like 6, but they were very insignificant back then, so they never seemed to be an issue. My issues just started multiplying as I grew older. I was worried that I was prone to developing the disorder. it’s a spectrum, so I was worried that it’s possible that I might develop a milder type, since it’s less possible to get the more severe type. My parents also say that I was a pretty fearful kid (quite normal for a child to be afraid of a world they don't yet understand) who has always been mildy anxious , and now I have an anxiety disorder. I’m thinking about irrational things and fearing them. I heard anxiety can do this to you if it’s really bad and I hope that despite everything I’ve written about myself here, I might jus have anxiety and that I’m not in the prodromal stage of something.

 I had found that i identified with some of the traits of schizotypal personality disorder to varying degrees.  It made me feel like I am just so messed up. Had I been an emotionally healthier person and still found that I identified with some of the traits, I wouldn’t have paid that much attention to it. But since I have so many issues, I wondered about the possibility. (Symptoms of schizophrenia and related illnesses overlap tremendously with other mental illnesses - in fact, DID sufferers actually show more symptoms of schizophrenia than schizophrenia sufferers do themselves. I don't think you have schizophrenia or anything related )

I got over this fear eventually and told myself that it was just a test, although developed by some kind of mental health institution, may not be an accurate measurement at all, and I'm just scaring  myself for nothing. Then I vowed to work on the parts of my personality that made me fear that I am predisposed to it. I was able to live without any mental health concerns, and I truly felt that I was silly to pathologies myself like that.
 

 
The first anxiety issue that I had experienced was when I was 15 years old and it was short.  It got triggered when someone told me about sleep paralysis, about the hallucinations and the fear, and it invoked a visceral fear within me. I think that I was reminded of schizophrenia and of how fragile my own mind was, since I was easily scared by that test when everyone I talked to, like my parents and my friends didn't buy into things like that so easily. My fragility and how easily I get scared made me afraid that I might get something  as terrifying as that. Eventually I snapped out of it and After this,  I continued to work on some parts of my behaviour to reduce my likelihood of getting another episode of anxiety.

  The reason why I have anxiety and depression right now is because of something very disconcerting that I had experienced 2 years ago. I've been experiencing mental health issues for two years now as a result of this even though I've tried reasoning with myself; the intense emotions didn't leave, even though I've changed my thought process, and also my mental state has completely changed.
  Basically what happened was that I was listening to a song I had recently found and began to really like. It ignited my creativity greatly and I just felt really great listening to it. But then one night a fragment of the song just got stuck in my head on repeat for the whole night. I couldn't dislodge it, or lessen the intensity. I tried singing it to the end, cocentrating on my breath and doing mindfulness breathing , and replacing it with another song, but it didn't help at all and the new song started getting a little stuck in my head as well. Eventually it got worser and I couldn't sleep for the whole night. There was no clear trigger to this. The day before this happened, I had felt relatively normal, just slightly more happier because of the song, and it also  happened on the night before summer school started, but I didn’t feel extremely worried about it or anything. There was no cause for worry or stress, so stress and anxiety, one of the causes of stuck songs (earworms) that I had found online, didn’t apply to me. It occurred from within me, with no obvious trigger. The only answer I can come up for this is that I must have unwittingly lost control of my excited, or happy mood and I must have unconsciously felt anxious about summer school. These moods combined together, it caused this to happen.  Now, every song I hear would get stuck in my head and occasionally my brain would repeat fragments of what people say. I don’t mind it now that I kind of got used to it, but I wasn’t like this in the past, and these things just pop into my brain without my control. (Having songs stuck in your head is one reason why teens these days don't get enough sleep - it's fairly normal to have this happen!)
  I know that stuck songs are common and that everyone gets them, and what I found online all state that having this is normal. But none of it stated anything about having it for the whole night, interfering with sleep and causing great distress. Eventually, I dug deeper and what I found was that people who experience severe song looping episodes already suffer from mental illnesses like OCD, or bipolar disorder. I was reluctant to pay any attention to bipolar disorder, but for OCD, I can see how my neurotic brain might be prone to obsessive thoughts since I already have anxiety. But then I read that creative people have a higher chance of suffering from bipolar disorder, and seeing how I already have moderate to severe anxiety and depression, I might be prone to mood disorders as well, since anxiety disorders are often comorbid with mood disorders. Some of my  friends have also told me that my mood is either really high or really low, with no in betweens. This might be that I'm just an energetic person, since I've been pretty energetic as a kid, but considering the fact that I’m hypersensitive and moody as a child and I’ve also developed mental issues, I don’t know what to think.  When I watch a movie or see something that excites me,  I get shivers down my spine and my creative side gets stimulated too and my mood becomes high and it takes a while to come back down. This didn't happen that much when I was younger (my creativity would get stimulated, but my mood never took a while to return to normal) This only started happening recently, prior to this anxiety episode and also during it.  If mood was the trigger for this stuck song, then I wouldn’t have had any control over it, since on the surface I felt that everything was fine, and then my brain decided to go crazy at night.
  So since the severe song looping episode occurred after a period in which I felt really happy, as I was listening to the song, I am worried that I might be prone to mood disorders, or if I'm already in an early stage of one. I feel that the frustration that this song looping caused me is abnormal; it is a stuck thought that had gone completely out of control and the anxiety it caused me was also completely out of control and abnormal. If it isn't just a possible mood disorder, then I probably have some symptoms of OCD too, since this episode really interfered with my life. During the early periods of my anxiety episode, I also found out that apparently nothing can prevent the onset of mental illnesses like psychotic disorders, or mood disorders, so apparently nothing I did in the past  would be able to avoid the development of these mental disorders. This made me feel extremely hopeless. (This is like blaming yourself for getting infected with a bug going around school - you wouldn't be able to avoid it while at school so you wouldn't blame yourself for getting it!) I also found a bunch of other stuff that completely changed my view of mental illness as a whole, such as how every mental illness share similar symptoms, so it’s hard to tell if someone has one mental disorder or if they  possibly have another more serious one as well. Apparently, OCD is related to Bipolar as well.
  My therapist didn’t really help. I don’t feel comfortable sharing my thoughts with her. She shut me down (this therapist seems to lack the one crucial part of her job - empathy :/ ) when I was trying to talk to her about some heavy topics, and she wants to cancel my session because she assumes that I’m doing better when in fact I’m not. (our next session is our last one)  I’m still conflicted, and it seems it will be a while before I recover from the chaos in my mind. It really just seems like all the anxiety is right; I would worry about having a mental illness, then dismiss it a being incorrect thinking. But then later on down the road, I developed an anxiety disorder. Then I would just say that there’s no point in paying attention to anxiety and that it doesn’t mean that I’ll develop anxiety again after I overcome one episode. Then 2 months later, a mentally distressing event  with no clear caused occurred out of the blue and that intense feeling of anxiety came back full force (relapses are common - you can't expect a mental illness to disappear over a month or two!) I worked so hard at changing my behaviour, but then I’ll fall back ten steps. It’s challenging to live doubting my sanity, but I’m determined to overcome by mental health issues by any means possible.
 
  If anyone has been through something similar to what I’m experiencing right now, any advice on how to navigate through these issues are deeply appreciated. In short, my behaviour and recent events in my life ( song-looping ) have led me to question my mental health. According to my personal history, should this stuck song episode warrant any concern, since it is so bizarre ? And according to my personal history, should I be concerned about my mental health, or should I just consider that I have a greater chance of just having anxiety and depression?

 

To anyone who read this, I am deeply grateful for your help.  Thank you very much.
    

    
    

 

Hi Anne,

You've shown tremendous courage by sharing your thoughts here - well done for that!

I've annotated your message with my thoughts in bold brackets. In case you don't want to read it all again, I'll summarise what I've said:

- Most of what you have described is actually quite normal - introversion, issues with friends, being weird/different, relapses.

- You mention that you don't know how your friends think of you - the only way to know for sure is to ask!

- It is interesting to note that you describe yourself as an energetic kid, yet you see yourself as melancholy - maybe try channeling some of that energy into social interaction? I actually did this myself, and it worked wonders for me

- About the schizophrenia - don't try to diagnose yourself, because you'll be inclined to agree with statements that confirm your suspicions! Schizophrenia symptoms are quite vague, so even 'normal' people could be diagnosed as schizophrenic!

- I think that anxiety is definitely present - the fact that you appear to worry about perfectly normal things is something that is very common for anxiety sufferers. As you go through the recovery process, you will realise this, but the best healer in this case is time, so keep working hard!

Hope this helps <3

RSxo