I'm Quite Anxious

[bronze summit]

In part, the fact that your problems may not be that bad is good news, because it's surely easier to deal with lesser problems.

Of course, it's understandable that this is an unsettling realization, but rest assured that this doesn't mean your problems are invalid, it just means they were different problems from what you thought.

[warm oracle]

I just don't want to lose my sense of how bad the problem I'm facing. If I keep on worrying about my psychosis situation making things worse than it actually is, then I won't be able to tell when something is actually, real bad. Sometimes people judge me for being too relaxed but some other told me that I'm overreacting, it's giving me mixed signal

[bronze summit]

Do you have an example for a situation where you overestimted how bad things were?

[warm oracle]

Hmmm, when someone sexually harassed me. I remember this one time, there's a guy touching my back and waist in a public space. He managed to run away. I want to vent about it to my friends, but then I remember that most of them experience the same thing at least once to the point it seems like a normal thing to happen in life. So I just stood there trying to process the incident, and when I wanted to tell them about it, I just ended up telling it out as if it was a joke and funny.....now that I think back, that is so wrong

👁️👄👁️

[bronze summit]

Yeah sounds very wrong :')
But are these the kind of situations for which you've been diagnosed with psychosis? I think it's pretty common that something like this happens to many people.

[warm oracle]

No, my psychosis analysis came out after I told the doctor about the situation I'm in. Well, it's quite complicated but also not. Because I'm not so good at communicating my thoughts, i created some "imaginary friends" in which I used to ask for a second opinion every time I'm facing some problems. The doctor said that those are "not second opinion" at all, cause it's coming from myself and stuff, it's not like I'm actually asking another person for an opinion

I think, the problem is that I'm having difficulties in differentiating which one is actually the reality and which one is the "reality" I've been unconsciously putting myself into

[bronze summit]

And how has the doctor suggested treatment?

[warm oracle]

He gave me pills which I already stopped using, cause one pill is enough to make me sleep for a whole day and only have half of my consciousness for the next day. And he prescribed it for me to eat once every three days. I stopped cause it's getting in the way of my activity and classes

I'm actually thinking about seeing him again cause things have quite the turn since our last meeting. But again, I got stuff to do. If I decided to continue consuming those pills, I wouldn't be able to do a thing

[bronze summit]

That's okay, you can tell him that, there could be an alternative.

Are you sure the psychosis is related to your tendency to exaggerate problems though?

[warm oracle]

I talked to my friend who got the similar experience, she said it's not easy and alternative ways ain't making it smoother either

[bronze summit]

Yeah I see

[warm oracle]

That's the only rational explanation that came to mind, I couldn't think of anything else

You got some thoughts about it? Maybe it could give me another perspective of insight towards the situation

[bronze summit]

I just thought that psychosis has to do with hallucinations and/or delusions, which may or may not be related to exaggerating problems.
There can be other reasons for exaggerating problems, such as anxiety, prior negative experiences, etc.

[warm oracle]

How could anxiety have a role in it? Is it related to overthinking as the last defense mechanism?

[bronze summit]

Well anxiety disorders themselves are pretty much all about catastrophizing and exaggerating problems in a way that's unrealistic.

[warm oracle]

I could see the relation, how about the opposite of exaggeration? Like I said before, sometimes I also can't give the proper reaction towards a problem that is actually big. Does it work the exact same way?

[bronze summit]

No that's different I think. But of course, the difficult part is distinguishing between something that's "normal" and can sometimes happen, and a behavioral patterns that's recurring and can be a symptom of a disorder.
For example, anyone can be in a situation where they don't give the proper reaction towards a problem, because e.g. lack of knowledge, lack of energy, lack of interest, or that they're just depressed and couldn't bother.

[warm oracle]

Does confusion also count in that?

[bronze summit]

What kind of confusion?

[warm oracle]

The "dilemma-like" type of confusion. Where you're not sure on how to react so you waited for other people's reaction in order to analyze the weight of the situation based on applied common standard or senses

[bronze summit]

Can you mention an example for that?

[warm oracle]

Let's use the experience I previously mentioned. Although I know that getting sexually harassed is not something to take light of, I'm not sure how the bigger society sees it. So in order to avoid being either overreacting or not reacting enough, I waited on others responses towards the situation and followed the scenario according to it. From there it became a template for that very specific case of experience

[bronze summit]

Honestly part of it sounds to me like something experienced by a lot of people who don't necessarily have a mental illness.
At least I would've reacted in a similar way if I'm not sure how to respond to a certain experience.

[warm oracle]

I'm also sure it's just a phase, but it's starting to get in the way of everything

And sending me daily headache too

[bronze summit]

I'm really sorry about that, I hope that phase ends soon enough.