Does anyone else ever feel that their anxiety is above the norm of what clinician's consider social anxiety, and might resemble a form of psychosis? Especially, if you also experience feelings of depression, anhedonia, trouble communicating ideas.

After a major manic episode one time I had the worst anxiety I've ever felt in my life. It was constant and lasted a few days and was so bad I slept with the TV on all night. I felt like I was going insane - I don't think I've ever been that scared before or since. I came back to Australia and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Do you have a psychiatrist?

Yeah I have been living by the TV all alone for the most part as well. And my psychiatrist has me on parnate which I think makes me bipolarish or at least used to. Now just heavy depression.

With crippling anxiety

Have you told him about all this? Maybe he can try another medication.

(I'm a good one to talk, I don't even have a psychiatrist at the moment - I need a new one)

Think I will. Thanks so much

No worries - hope you feel a bit better soon.

Yes and I tried talking to my psychiatrist about this and he didn't seem to understand what the issue was. He didn't seem to think my paranoia was such a nightmare as I described. I asked to try an anti psychotic drug and he was skeptical at first but put me on the lowest dose of abilify. I felt a noticeable difference in my anger and paranoid thinking. I'm happy with the medicine even if I'm not diagnosed 'psychotic'. I asked to increase the dosage after a year and felt even better, the negative automatic thoughts aren't as strong and I feel more in control of myself. So it is something to discuss with a doctor if you're paranoid enough to cause issues with your life.

sometimes I do. I have anxiety but I know I have intrusive thoughts and generalized anxiety as well but I do wonder if there's something more.

I don't think I have psychosis or anything like that but during my bad days anxiety can get pretty bad.

Um, yeah. I think my anxiety goes beyond what might be considered a normal case. I have intrusive thoughts of violence (OCD), a bunch of phobias, nightmares most nights, and a kind of odd auditory hallucination. I'm never really not anxious, no matter where I am or what I'm doing. My therapist asked me to think of "places you feel safe" and I couldn't really come up with anything. I don't even feel safe alone in my own bedroom. Watching television can trigger me. Schizophrenia runs in my family, so I think my neurochemistry is just a bit off. Some days, my life feels like a bad drug trip.

It's weird for me because I feel normal but I have the symptoms of all of these types of things.

I've been diagnosed with OCD in which my obsessive thoughts are mainly around "psychotic delusions". My therapist said she hasn't really heard of anything like it, but she said the obsessive thoughts do fit in there. It scared me to hear that cause I'm worried that I won't be able to receive proper help if I try to reach out for it

always 'ya forget ya passsy woorrdies'??

WHOOO DOES? WHOO DUZZ???

whose experience? who distributes copies of home, car keys, passwords to everyone?

everything been stolen all life?? CHCHCHAAANGGGE!!!!! YERRRR PASSWORDZ!!!! NOW!!! AGAIN!! THEN AGAIN?? KEEP CHANGGINGG the PW everyday always, must? mega immature.. YOU! YOU YOU

OMNIOUS: being called Stupid by authority, software

mass population always forget everything? nobody can remember anything???

all accuse those accused, who are superior? who scared?

I get that sometimes. I have social phobia and bipolar 1

You'll notice that many human disorders/diseases share the same symptoms. Anxiety can have racing thoughts and so can Bipolar. Hallucinations can happen from sleep deprivation, schizophrenia or even from a bacterial infection of the brain (Neurosyphilis).

If you break your human self down into it's most essential components you'll find that a lot of people above simply mentioned certain components being disturbed but the way or reason they were disturbed may be unique to them.


Your emotional self (fear, sadness, concern, worry etc)

Your mental self (thoughts manifest here/sometimes delusions)

Your physical self (racing heart, chest pain, nervous legs, digestive system etc)

Your predisposition (genetics etc and how you are unique and affected in different ways, gifts/talents, your sensitivities etc)
Your ability as a human to experience unseen realities (hallucinations, jinn harassment, dreams)


Psychiatry gets people more confused sometimes. It has huge benefits sometimes (people used to die from bipolar). The point is to always keep it simple and not isolate problems this great creature the human being can have to just a single component or sub-component.


I've seen someone get diagnosed with bipolar after a stressful period in their life but they don't have it in their genetics at all and the person didn't have any issues before that.

Don't even think of self diagnosing now if you feel normal. You are normal then my friend

If your psychiatrist is open-minded about trying other MAOIs, Nardil might be a better bet than Parnate.

It's less stimulating and a more calming/sedating.

It's done wonders for my social anxiety.

Given your symptoms, it sounds like Parnate might be making your anxiety worse.

I can't believe others can relate to this!

I've noticed I am sensitive to coffee (which can definitely cause anxiety if you don't drink it all the time and have too much), and a lot of my issues disappeared when I quit tobacco (paranoia...have no idea why it just did) and left a job that had some extreme situations (but that just might be because all the patients were really good liars and not me being delusional). Overall I'd say my anxiety started to get a little manic only around stimulants and manipulative people but nothing extreme.

As far as anhedonia and trouble communicated etc, I know alcohol is well-known to increase depression...and decrease cognitive function.

I know this may not apply to everybody, but carefully monitoring your well-being and doing self-care can make a big impact. I'm pretty anti-drug but exercise, good diet, the occasional fast, and good people always did the trick for me. Unfortunately not everybody is the same and it would be rude of me to suggest that. We are all different and on top of it all some have less means and support than others :/


Also I agree with @AbbasGreen , don't let people tell you who you are. You know who you are and you are fine as you are. You're the only one who can know what is a problem or what isn't. I've had people tell me what my problem is and I was like "wow...you are completely wrong...". Just saying.

It really depends on what you're paranoid about. When people mention paranoia to me, I think of it as follows - "You're only paranoid if you're wrong".

So what are you "paranoid" about? Give examples. What do you think is paranoia?

If your SA is above the norm it doesn't mean that it's necessarily psychosis. Psychosis can be not about social anxiety, but other disorders. Although tbf most of these disorders are narrowly divided and some therapists (especially ones with a psychodymanic or similar approach) consider them only symptoms of a bigger issue.

My SA is above the norm. I don't have a psychosis and never had it before. I had a few psychotic symptoms throughout my life, but my therapist told me that's normal because most people can have a couple separate psychotic symptoms during their life. Psychotic symptoms don't necessarily equal psychosis, it's about the severeness and frequency (correct me if I'm wrong pls cause I don't know about this topic much). I have psychotic-ish symptom such as being too paranoid, thinking I'm being watched or something bad's always about to happen, that's what my therapist told me too. I'm sure I have some other ones, but I don't think it's that severe to be called psychotic or is it? I've been always thinking it's all about halucinations. I've been having a couple of audio/musical ones long ago + some weird speech and sounds even longer ago, also a couple of times. I have intrusive thoughts too from time to time, had them in childhood too, but different ones. Are those psychotic? :o