Hallucinating stressful sensori stimuli

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Hi,

I often have some anxiety about communication and people sending me text messages on my phone, or IM, at any time and I am supposed to answer and have a discussion on the spot. Because of that, I often have a high level of stress regarding the notifications for those messages, and I found that I now hallucinate them. When my phone is in my field of vision, I will often "see" the notification LED flashing even if it is not really the case. If it is in my pocket I will "feel" it vibrate although it did not. When I have a computer powered on and logged on GMail, I will hallucinate the Google Talk notify sound. (I am quite impressed by the way it works in a completely multimodal way and can affect vision, audition and touch indiscriminately.)

Do some of you encounter the same problems and know how to address them ? It happens very often to me (several times a day) and starts being really disturbing. I suppose the best way would be to get rid of the social anxiety, but that's easier said than done and I am willing to take any advice.

Thanks !

Talk to a therapist or doctor about this. It's not a good thing.

One suggestion-
Do what I do. Don't use IM of any kind, and leave your phone off unless you want to make a call. Let them leave voice messages if they want, and you can check up on those later, when YOU want to. Same thing with their text messages.

Knowing people might insert themselves into your day and break up what you're doing at any moment...

Sounds like this isn't a good thing for you.

Step aside from it, and allow messages to come in to you when YOU want them to.

They'll survive.

You're suffering ill effects from this, and you have the right to protect yourself.

Do speak with someone about it, tho'. It's important.

I do not find myself hallucinating the notification noises, but I completely understand the anxiety over receiving messages and phone calls. I have deleted emails and text messages unread because I was so sure the sender was upset with me and going to be saying angry things, I couldn't bring myself to open and read them. When I get mail that looks like legal paperwork, I sometimes cannot bring myself to open it for days or weeks (which can cause problems if it's time-sensitive, but I can't help myself). I will walk past it lying on the counter, knowing that I need to open it and deal with whatever the situation is, but I'm so sick with worry that it's bad news, that I just can't.

A couple of years ago someone rang my doorbell (which I don't usually respond to unless I 'm expecting someone, but I peeped out and thought I saw one of the managers from the apartment complex) and opened it only to be bullied and harassed for several minutes by some obnoxious process server bringing me paperwork over a debt that had nothing to do with me. This horrid woman and her hulking partner berated and interrogated and insulted and threatened me mercilessly, as though I were a common criminal, without ever even allowing me a chance to respond. I was so stressed and traumatized by the experience, the very sound of a doorbell now sends me into fight-or-flight sensory overload panic - even if it's a doorbell on a television show. Thank gods when they remodeled the apartments last summer, they removed all the doorbells.

I changed the ringtone on my phone recently, because the one that sounded most like a regular phone ring was jangling my nerves so badly, I would have an anxiety attack and not be able to answer it. That worked for a while, but it isn't as much the sound of the ring as (as you mentioned) the anxiety of having to be thrown into a social interaction unprepared. I miss my land line and answering machine, which allowed me to hear who was calling and judge by their voice whether they were upset or stressed before I picked up, but it just got too expensive. My land line phone had a ringtone that was quiet and gently muffled, like in a doctor's office. Much easier to take.

I don't hallucinate notifications, but when I do get one of any kind it often sets my heart racing wondering who it is and what the person will want from me. The only way I have found to deal with it is to just limit the ways and means other people have to get in contact with me, and to turn notifications off as much as possible.

Thanks for your comments and support. I will certainly mention that to my therapist and we will try to work on how I can communicate in a way that maks neither me nor the other people freak out.