hi,

I am new. I have 15 years of GAD and 15 years as psychiatirc nurse working with many things including severe anxiety. I myself when going throgh periods of stress where therapy is not working find a lot of disorders i think i must have. i feel i have been mis diagnosed as my treatment is not working.

As a sufferer I recently was in period of acute life stress. I was convinced that my diagnosis wrong and went to my GP. My GP thought Bipolar. I paid for an exclusive psychiatrist as I was positive I had atypical depression or BPD.

She was a very good private psychiatrist and interviewed me for 3 hrs. She said. I didn not have atypical depression and I most definately did not have a cluster B P.D..she said i was quite the opposite. She said I had GAD and nothing else. She said it was my anxiety and desperation for a cure being sick of it all that led me to believe i had other disorders.

As a professional. We(humans) can diagnose ourselves with most disorders but those who do tend to be cluster C personalities with anxiety and neurosis.

However people do get mis diagnosed all the time. It tends to be when symptoms are blurred, cluster B where doctors are scared to diagnose it and where the doctor is crap or does not have full picture.

My advice both personally and professionally is to get yourself thourougly assessed by the best Pychiatrist and psychologist you can. Psychology is integral. Someone with a degree in psychology not a counsellor. Don't tell 1 what the other said. Let the psychiatrist diagnose. Let the psychologist work on the symptomology.

I will tell you now...diagnosis is not important except for medication and potential prognosis. The important thing for you is the symptoms you live with. The right medication helps but NOT WITHOUT PSYCHOTHERAPY.

I am so sorry you are feeling this way. People with our symptoms search for what is wrong with us desperate to discover umlike the rest of the psychiatric disorders.

A psychologist regular is integral. I assume with OCD you should have. I don't know what country you are in but in most you should be due free or discount if you don't earn enough.

David beckham has OCD.

Good luck and huge hugs to you @ this time. XXX

I will you out on a limb here and say you absolutely DO NOT have Schizoaffective disorder...that is one of the disorders i work with most.

Schizoaffective is psychosis with a mood component. When people are psychotic they see, hear, feel, smell etc things that are not happeneing for others. It is unique to them.

The way to tell if someone is psychotic or not is insight. In psychosis a part of the brain loses partial to all insight along with the beliefs.

thinking your son is the devil but knowing he is not is irrational thought from acute anxiety. If you were psychotic you would believe it to be the truth and no one could convince you otherwise.

People with anxiety believe all sorts of highly irrational things but it is fear of these things and of yourself and your thoughts that is the problem.

Psychosis is the belief of the untrue and may have fear of percieved events but there is no fear for fear's sake.

Also the mood component is usually mania or bipolar.

Also there would be clear episodes of psychosis and mood change noticed by others who know you without you telling them. If left untreated you would get worse and less insightful and people would definately notice.

What you fear in diagnosis is common. You just need some appropriate professionals to reassure you.

You may fear you will harm your child and this leads to the thought of your child being the devil. In psychosis it would be the opposite.

Of course it is essential you get a proper assesment to rule out other disorders, get right treatment and take the pressure of you.

Bless you. It is better to be as you are(cluster C)than most types of Cluster B. You keep your pain within, they take it out on others. You have a good soul they do not. You may feel like this doesn't matter but it does..you are a good person and I bet good mother.

Be kind to you XXXX

GoldenB, that was a great response. I think a lot of us suffering from anxiety disorders develop fears of going crazy or being crazy. but it is are anxiety that makes us fear things. Your anxiety level is up because you are worrying, and worrying is something we do that feeds our anxiety. I hope things start feeling better for you.

What you are going through is SO common with anxiety disorders. I was spent about a year being scared I was shizophrenic until I finally realized I just need to quit thinking so much.

If you re-read your post, you will see that one emotion screams out much louder than any other. Fear. Your entire post is filled with it.


You say that you know you are not hearing things. You say it is very clear that your son is not a devil. Yet you are still terrified. You are terrified of what you know isn't true. You are terrifed of your thoughts because you are wondering "What if?" they are true. And that right there, is classic anxiety. Not classic schizoaffective.

Right now, you are just letting your worry get the best of you and take over. You need to give yourself an imaginary "slap in the face" and pull yourself together because the chances of you being really mentally diseased are VERY VERY small.

I encourage you to go see a professional if it will make you feel better, but keep your feet on the ground and don't get carried away in drama and "worst case" scenarios. Look at it as more of a way to reassure yourself that you are healthy as opposed to a way to diagnose that you are "crazy".

Thanks to all of you for your responses. i feel a bit better...

I think that thoughts like you are having are just "fleeting" thoughts. I get strange thoughts about things too that I KNOW I do not believe in, or would ever act on. They scare the shit out of me sometimes too. I believe that if you keep thinking about it and thinking about it and believe that it could turn in to a schitzoeffective disorder, then it very well could turn into that. If you just think of them as random crazy fleeting thoughts, then you will be just fine. I think every single person gets strange thoughts about things sometimes. Doesnt mean they are crazy, its just how our mind works.

hey ,,, trust me, out of a personal expeirence i found that reading about the disease and its complications can make it worse.. try to read an overview about whatever u r diagnosed with but dont dig so deep coz that aint helpful at all... best of luck