First of all, I want to thank you for your responses. It helped me do some self-reflecting. I'm still surprised at myself for actually doing this, but I went to see a psychologist and they felt my worries were serious enough to get evaluated.
It turns out they believe I suffer from severe depression as well as intense paranoia/occasional psychotic episodes.
On a side note, I have contact with my biological family, so I asked them for a detailed mental health history. It turns out that bipolar disorder and schizophrenia run strong in my father's side of the family and there are also issues with suicide.
I was also upfront with my doctor and told them all of the problematic things from childhood to present. Once I did this, I started to understand what was happening a lot better.
And so, I feel a little bit better. Medication and counseling can help once I get a formal diagnosis. I'm meeting with another doctor next week.
Your advice helped me greatly and I guess the moral of the story is don't be afraid to see a professional if you're worried about your mental health.
I'm really happy for you. Being open and honest about how we're feeling is really hard, especially if you think what you're feeling isn't "socially acceptable." I applaud your courage in bringing it all up to a competent professional, and you'll be feeling better soon!
I agree with Hie--this has to be intensely difficult to do, and I admire your courage in doing it.
I am glad that you now have much better knowledge of what is going on, because it means that your present and future efforts can be focused, and your needless worries will be able to (at least eventually) wisp away.
You are on the right road, and I am very happy for you now having the realistic prospect of feeling, and being inside of yourself, better.
Like Hie and Tevai have said, it takes a great deal of courage and I am so happy for you. You have great reason to hope. Competent professionals are out there. There is no reason for you to suffer with the right kind of treatment.
The brain, like any other part of the body, can have problems functioning. But there are answers. There are solutions.
wait, hold up. "biological family" Are you adopted?
Sometimes adoptees have unconcious problems related to their adoption. Most psychs/shrinks are unaware of the special problems adoptees face, and overlook this in their evaluations.
If you are adopted, you might want to look into "adopteesconnect .com" groups, or simply do some reading like adoptee biographies. Might find some useful info there.
While I did not see your original post, I have spent a great deal of time/effort/therapy to try and find out whether or not I am a psycho/socio - path.
One book that helped me immensely in examining and sometimes correcting my thought processes was "The Feeling Good Handbook" by David Burns.
While somewhat elementary with its examples, it provides a solid path through your mind and cognitive processes with well thought out remediation exercises you can use with or without professional guidance.
Good luck. I am mentally healthy for the first time since pre-8 and loving it.
Mental health should not be considered off-topic at RfM. Many of us remember flattopsf a.k.a. xyz who is sadly no loonger with us. For me, it's an important lesson and an important part of RfM.
In many cases, if you fear that you may have mental health issues enough to motivate you to seek professional help, you're not too far off-track. Real sociopaths usually fear psychologists and want nothing to do with them or anything else that could interfere with their state of mind or with the world they create for themselves. After a terrible break-up in 1990, I feared that maybe there was something wrong with me, that maybe I was really a bad guy for any woman I might get in to a relationship with. So I found a female counselor. I figured that a female counselor might do a better job of finding out what was wrong with me in relationships, and help root-out my problems of any possible mis-treatment by me of the women in my life. After several months of counseling, she couldn't find anything significantly wrong with me when it comes to the past relationships I described to her. I was really candid with her too. She eventually introduced me to a personal friend of hers, who I started dating soon after. That was twenty-four years ago. This counselor's friend and I are still together and have enjoyed a happy life together since we first met. Sometimes you're not as messed-up as you think you might be.
Also, you should probably go easier on yourself. Depression is most often a result of past wrong-doings by others against you. Depression is a normal part of recovery. When you feel the intense anger over the injustice and don't express normal rage outwardly (as-in anti-social behavior), it all implodes inwardly, on to your soul. In the process, you might feel some pretty normal anger that can be difficult to manage, even if your actual actions are well managed. You'll probably notice that the paranoia comes almost like clockwork, immediately following these internal-anger episodes. This is normal. The emotional monster that exists inside can be pretty scarry, even if it is well managed in the real world. Also, ask yourself if these psychotic episodes might simply be panic-attacks. Panic attacks can be completely disabling. This is all normal stuff for someone who has experienced certain traumas. If it's any consolation, clinical depression is the only mental illness that a person can recover from without needing lifelong medications to keep it managed. Keep going towards this as you are instead of running from it. You'll get past it for the most part. I say 'for the most part' because things may get better, even significantly better, possibly without going away completely. Sometimes lingering symptoms can crop-up occasionally, amidst an otherwise happy and fulfilling life. The severity and frequency of occurrences both diminish over time if you do what you can to heal. You learn how to objectify how you feel when the issues return. Look at the challenging emotions like a broken leg that never healed properly. Sometimes I tell my significant other "...it's back. I'm not shutting you out on purpose. I just need a few days to get past this again". Then maybe another month or two go by before it happens again. You learn to recognize it early when it happens, before your actions and/or emotions affect others negatively.
Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 12/12/2018 07:31AM by azsteve.