Hello doctor,
From more than a year, I have been facing mental health issues. It started with anxiety about developing schizophrenia and feeling detached from things. Since then, I often get period of extreme anxiety, involuntary mental images of memories, imagination, dreams, and distorted memories. There are periods of time (1 to 2 weeks) when I feel completely fine. Despite my problems, I was able to take my exams, resume work, and have a social life. I have been seeing a psychologist, who tells me I am on the OCD spectrum. I am always scared that I am losing touch with reality. From the past seven days, my symptoms are, I have very vivid dreams, and when I wake up, I am confused as to whether the dream actually happened or not, and it is only after some time that I convince myself that it did not happen. I have an overactive imagination. As a result, I often act out scenarios in my head. When someone says something, I imagine that they will say this or that next, or this will happen next. It is more like an anticipatory imagination. I try to hold my imagination back, as I am scared I will confuse it with reality. For instance, if a person is sitting in the room next to me, I will think that they are probably doing this or talking to someone or I think that this person will probably do this next. This causes me discomfort and panic, as I think that my overactive imagination is causing me to lose my grip on reality. I do know that this is my imagination, but I feel very scared or anxious as to why I imagine stuff like this in the first place. Usually, in the morning, I feel extremely anxious and feel I have lost my grip on reality, so much so that my teeth chatter from morning to afternoon. I keep on getting mental images of distorted memories of the past, imagination, and dreams. I feel extremely unnerved when I get these mental images, as I feel that I should only be getting mental images of things that actually happened. Why is my imagination or dream bubbling up like this? I feel very anxious when I forget the source of these thoughts or images or cannot determine with 100 % surety as to whether this actually happened. These are mundane things. I also get memory problems. This is probably because I am thinking of my mental problems and not paying attention to things. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why I feel like I am losing my touch with reality, as I am not paying attention when people are actually talking to me. I have been getting extreme feelings of deja vu for the past seven days. Sometimes, things or events seem familiar. It is an effort that I tell myself that this is deja vu. Now the positive things are, there is no problem with my work or social life. I am instantly able to point out when I get these mental images or deja vu. There are periods of time (1 to 2 weeks) when I am completely fine. Strangely, these problems are at their maximum in the morning, and by evening I feel completely fine. My psychologist has told me that I am on the anxiety spectrum. I wanted to know whether someone with anxiety can have these symptoms.