Trying to hold on to my sanity

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New existential intrusive thoughts, and a sudden reappearance of intrusive thoughts from 2012 that I thought would never come back. Always having existential intrusive thoughts like "what if I'm God and my thoughts control reality" (the most prominent and disturbing one that I have to let run its course over and over again) or "what religion do I really believe in" or "what if I'm the only person alive", I'm starting to lose sleep and feel depersonalized, my Cherophobia (fear of happiness) is in full force, I feel like if I'm happy then something bad is absolutely going to happen. Every time a family member leaves the house I feel like something bad is going to happen to them. Too tired of my Agoraphobia to even address it anymore..I feel a constant dread every single day that I'll never be able to drive or make anything out of my life or that my parents will never see me succeed. My sister has Crohn's disease and it's incredibly stressful seeing her in pain almost every day. I'm on Klonopin 6mg daily and I'm worried about the side effects and how I'm going to ween off of it when the time comes. I just feel like I'm living in perpetual dread and I'm not sure what changed, maybe my medication does not work anymore. I feel like something bad is about to happen every second of my life lately, and I've dealt with a lot of stuff in my past but all of this feels new and very frightening, and I feel like I might be losing my sanity or developing schizophrenia or something. I also keep seeing coincidences everywhere like the universe is trying to tell me something and I try to ignore it. I know the thoughts are irrational but I am imprisoned with them inside my mind, and it's starting to really wear me down, mentally and physically. My chest feels tight from the chronic dread and nothing seems to work anymore. I feel like if this continues I will have to admit myself to a psych ward or something. I just don't know what to do anymore, just feel so lost and tired of it. Thanks for reading this if you did. I would really appreciate any feedback or suggestions or just anything from anyone. Just feel lost

What's the time course of development of these symptoms? Has it happened due to the pandemic?

I'm sorry for what you're going through.

I don't make a habit of giving medical advice on the Internet. But as user to user, my experience with Klonopin was that it did help me sleep, BUT it has a half-life longer than 24 hours which means that if you take it daily, it builds up in your system. I felt it was making me stupider, and since I was in grad school at the time, this was a big deal.

So sorry that you're going through this! Have you ever tried CBT? Some people find it really works, wish I could offer something more helpful.

Thank you very much for the responses and kind words...I went to CBT from early 2017 to late 2019 and it did really help me. Maybe I need that structure again. I guess this 'meltdown' started when I got the stomach flu about a month ago. I went through a lot of different beliefs in my head about what it was, like COVID, kidney failure, heart failure, a bunch of random stuff. Maybe most of that stomach flu was psychosomatic. Maybe I'm just extremely burned out from everything. The pandemic has definitely made my anxiety and agoraphobia much worse, but it's just been this past month or so where this is happening. I've been on Klonopin for 8 years now so I'm just worried about weening off and the long term side effects, but maybe I just shouldn't think about that right now.. thank you so much again for the responses

Last summer I had a urinary tract infection with a fever but I was afraid the fever was due to Covid. So I got tested and got in to see the doctor promptly. I was so focused on Covid that I missed other symptoms. Don't feel bad that you jumped to the wrong conclusion with your stomach flu (or whatever it was).

Yes these are extremely hard times and coping productively is difficult. Try to break down your challenges and "musts" into manageable chunks and try just to get through one crisis at a time. Meditate if you know how. Take comfort in little things, like a favorite pillow or a pet.

Go for it, Man!

I'm glad you've benefited from "reality testing."

I apologize for making this thread, I just felt so incredibly burnt out and I didn't really have anyone to talk to at the time. Thank you so much for the support

Why apologize?

This is a support site....and you're not berating people.

I hope you "reality test" further, and realize that people didn't mind it that you started the thread.

Yeah, there's no need to apologise at all. Sometimes you just have to tell someone when you're feeling bad! Didgeridoo and meditation sounds like a weirdly good combination for some reason.

Thank you.

Yeah, never apologize for something like this. Glad we could help you feel supported.

Didgeridoo meditation! That does sound like a great idea.

I've been through similar snowballs of dread in the past, especially the existential spiral part of it. I think the hardest part is that the worse it gets, the more desperate you feel to make sense of what's going on in your head, but it just makes less and less sense. Whatever caused or still causes the underlying distress gets buried deep under that pile of worry about worrying about worrying. The harder you look, the more it evades you.

But hey, if anything can break that vicious cycle, didgeridoo meditation is probably it!