When the world is talking about you.
Sometimes I am sure that everyone is talking about how much they hate me. Not just people I know, but strangers as well as I pass them by at the convenience store or just sitting in my home, I feel like I know they know me and that they are all discussing what a horrible person I am. This of course makes me terribly anxious. I go out of my way to be polite and kind to people I meet, yet I still feel like I know their inner thoughts and those thoughts are terrible things about me.
I wish I could explain why this is, but the only explanation i have been given when i bring this up with my doctor is that I live with schizoaffective disorder, a mental illness that affects how i think. It is an illness that combines symptoms of schizophrenia and a mood disorder. I have the bipolar type which means I also sometimes experience highs and depressive lows outside normal mood swings.
The most recent experience I have had with this symptom is from today. I woke up with plans to go to breakfast with my family. I was anxious about going, yet made it to the restaurant and was seated. The hostess and server were nice and I was friendly back with them, yet I felt I knew that they went back and were talking about what a strange person I was and how they knew that something was wrong with me. I became increasingly anxious with this knowledge. I had to excuse myself several times to go to the bathroom and splash water on my face to try and ground myself. This thought continued with the people I was eating with. "Sarah is so strange." "I don't trust her" "I don't like her at all", were all things that I felt them thinking.
This is not just some insecurity, because I have times when I don't have these thoughts at all and feel normal, thanks to being on medication. But things like stress and other outside factors can make me have breakthrough symptoms like this. Lately, stress has been a factor in my life, due to going back to work and other things outside my control.
Even though I deal with these thoughts and symptoms, I will persist at working and living my life. #SchizoaffectiveDisorder #MentalHealth #MentalIllness
