Don't know myself and who I am

[scruffycat]

Hello. I'm new here... I thought maybe you guys could give me some advice. I'm struggling and I'm sick and tired. I'll start from the beginning and I'll try to be as coherent as possible. I'm not always good at that, so please forgive me if I seem weirdly inconsistent. I'm not even sure if this thread is in the right place, since my issues are all over the place. Also this may be very long, I apologize.

I've struggled with depression and severe OCD for years, since my early teens, and I've been angry since I was just a little kid. Just always, constantly angry. It's gotten a lot better since I was prescribed prozac at sixteen, but it's still there. I'm 23 now, and I feel completely screwed up. My head is constantly swimming with intrusive thoughts and weird ideas, and it's making me confused, like I can't tell what's real and what's not. I'm never sure anymore. For example, I'll be spending time with my friends, and they'll do or say something, and suddenly I'm just overcome with this feeling of hate. Just raw, pure hate. That makes me confused and upset, and I start to think, ''no, that's not true. I love my friends. Don't I?'' And I just don't seem to know. I'll feel such overpowering hate for things and people I know I love. I'll say things that I regret immediately after. I feel volatile, like a barrel of explosives just waiting to blow, and hurt the people around me. And I have. I don't call my friends because I feel like I can't be trusted around them, for several reasons. I'm paranoid. I don't know if I'm getting the point across properly - the point is that I'm feeling, I don't know, disconnected and lost. It's not just some identity crisis thing still lingering from adolescence - I truly don't know myself. Am I a pedophile? Am I capable of murder? Will I eventually snap? Do I actually love my family? Maybe I loathe them and want them to die? And it's all kinds of things, trivial things - do I really love this kind of music? Do I really like drawing, that I've spent years passionately doing? And that seems dumb, but it makes me even more insecure - if I don't even know that, how can I be sure I'm not a crazy psychopath? I can change opinions and mindsets so quickly. It's all scaring me. Like I said, this is probably just incoherent bull but the thoughts are just buzzing around in my head and I can't make sense of anything. Please help. 

[LaLa]

Hello, scruffycat, welcome!  

I'm sorry you're feeling so confused - it has to be scary  . The main issue I would blame in your case is that they haven't given you psychological help, just medication. I'm not against psychiatric medication, but it should be used very wisely - mainly as a complement of psychotherapy ("talking therapy"). Indeed, a good psychotherapy is what you need and what certainly could help you with the issues you describe. I hope you'll find and start it soon!

In the meantime, I have at least one good news for you  :

4 hours ago, scruffycat said:

how can I be sure I'm not a crazy psychopath?

You can be at least sure about this. Psychopaths don't know they are psychopaths; they don't question their personality or mental health.

But anyway; what you describe is very unpleasant and confusing for you, but it doesn't sound like either "crazy" or "an invariable part of your personality" to me. Your childhood anger issues had their reasons, but instead of uncovering, understanding, and overcoming them (with a psychotherapist), you've been neglected, just left with "a pill"  . But mental problems don't just magically go away. Besides "fighting their roots", you also need to learn coping strategies you can applied in the situations when the symptoms (-intrusif thoughts, overwhelming / confusing hate, ...) come. All this is part of the roles of psychotherapy. 

Moreover, although it seems your feelings/emotions (anger and hate) seem to be (for some reasons you'd need to explore) more or less exaggerated, you'd also need to learn that it's normal (natural, common) to have conflicting emotions about people in our life. It's not true that if you like or love someone, it's "bad / crazy / horrible / ..." to sometimes feel negative feelings about/for them. I think you automatically question your emotions themselves, as a whole (= their intensity as well as their nature), while it's just the intensity of your emotions that is "uncommon" and probably "just a symptom of your mental issues", not the nature of the emotions themselves. (Just my opinion...)

What do you think?

Take care and good luck with finding therapy!