Posted by hyperfocus on April 24, 2010, at 18:19:52
In reply to I am going crazy - unable to think normally - HELP, posted by whymelord on April 24, 2010, at 15:04:14
It's possible that what you're experiencing are pure obsessional intrusive thoughts - I know what you mean when you say you are somehow hyperaware of thinking and you have this seemingly unshakeable unignorable belief that your thinking process is going to be broken and there's nothing you can do about it and you can't stop thinking this away. I've experienced something like this myself.
Possible causes might be changes to your medication, or it could be just an evolution of your depression and anxiety into an obsessional disorder. Perhaps it's too soon to taper the Lexapro - what about going back to 20mg? Don't panic though - these thoughts can be stopped. For immediate relief - just try to remind yourself that nothing is wrong with your thinking - it's the thoughts about your thinking that are the problem. This is actually very difficult to do, but the root cause of obsessive thoughts is the anxiety and reluctance to think them and the sense of loss of control. If you abdicate responsibility for them - just let them be and continue with your everyday activities, it should reduce the anxiety about them. In the short term increasing the lorazepam could also be effective but be careful that it's not actually the lorazepam that somehow is triggering this episode since you just started taking it. Meds affect all of us in different ways
There are medications you can take - specifically serotonigic agents like Prozac and Anafranil and Zoloft for obsessional thinking. It's actually very common. So don't panic - you're not going crazy. You CAN think quite normally. And you will get better.
poster:hyperfocus
thread:944876
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20100416/msgs/944916.html